/Interview/ The brains behind: EepyBird.com
22/08/2006 | Filed under Discover > Interview
Grobe’s and Voltz’s film of a fountain made out of Diet Coke and Mentos mints (eepybird.com) triggered a huge response from around the globe
.net: What’s Eepybird.com all about?
FG: Eepybird.com began with the realisation that there is now an exciting new market for short films online. At the Oddfellow Theater in the little town of Buckfield, Maine, we have been working for the past several years with a unique group of performers who specialise in short-form live theatre. For eight years, we’ve been selling out our own spoof of a late-night talk show, the Early Evening Show with Mike Miclon. Complete with a band, guests, sketches, and crazy stuff like Diet Coke and Mentos fountains, we produce a brand new show every month. Our guests have ranged from Cirque du Soleil performers and a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, to the owner of the butcher shop next door. Eepybird.com is our chance to bring some of our favourite pieces and some of our favourite performers to the rest of the world.
.net: How did you come up with the idea of experimenting with Diet Coke and Mentos?
SV: I heard from a friend that if you drop candy into soda something crazy happens. Naturally, we had to try it. Sure enough, when we dropped Mentos mints into Diet Coke, we got a geyser several feet high. That got us thinking. The next thing I knew, Fritz showed up with ten bottles, saying, “We’ve got to do a fountain!”
FG: We had a show that night at our theatre, and we choreographed the first multi-bottle fountain that afternoon. It was a big hit, and we knew that was just the beginning. At EepyBird, we always try to take things further than any sane person would, so we spent the next eight months developing different effects, building up to Experiment #137. We found ways to get geysers well over 20 feet high that last as long as a minute.
.net: How many injuries have you suffered during your experiments so far?
FG: Thankfully, we haven’t had any injuries. If you visit EepyBird.com, you can see some of the experiments that didn’t go quite right. I have to say I don’t recommend taking a full blast of soda to the face.
.net: How long did it take you to get Experiment #137 right? And what inspired you to create such a large display
FG: As we kept developing new fountain effects, we realised we had to try something really huge. When we put everything together, it was 101 bottles of soda using over 500 Mentos. And we had one chance to get it right. What you see on the video was shot in one take. It took eight hours to setup and just under three minutes to set off. We didn’t have the time or the money to try it again if it didn’t work. It felt a lot like filming blowing up a building: lots of nerve-wracking preparation and you really hope the camera’s running.
.net: How many bottles of coke have you got through so far?
FG: Altogether, we’ve now dropped over 5,000 Mentos into over 1,000 bottles of soda.
.net: Has being sprayed by Coke all the time had any adverse effect on your skin?
FG: Every time we do a large fountain, we get completely soaked from head to toe. One of the reasons we use diet soda is that it is less sticky than regular soda, so it’s not quite as nasty to get covered in it. So far, we haven’t had any ill effects. We end up doing a lot of laundry, though.
.net: So how does it work?
FG: There’s been a lot of discussion online about exactly how this fountain phenomenon works. The bottom line seems to be that the reaction is not chemical but physical. A process called nucleation, which causes clouds to form in the air around particles of dust, also causes the carbon dioxide in the soda to collect on the surface of the Mentos at what are called nucleation sites. Mentos seem to have so many nucleation sites that a very fast chain reaction starts that creates enough pressure to send the soda flying. Lots of candies and other substances create smaller reactions. Even dropping a stack of coins into soda makes a small geyser. Mentos and diet soda just gives a particularly strong reaction.
.net: Who are you? What else do Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz do?
FG: I was born and bred a mathematician - both my parents are mathematicians. After going to Yale University, I turned to Celebration Barn Theatre, Maine’s international school for the performing arts. I went on to win five gold medals at the International Jugglers Championships. Recently, I have been focused on dance choreography and physical comedy. For the past two years, when I’m not working on strange new ideas for Eepybird.com, I have been the featured solo clown and one of the lead characters in the touring theatrical circus, Birdhouse Factory.
SV: I grew up in San Francisco, watching the great street performers during the seventies. I learned to juggle, do magic, and breathe fire, before heading off for law school. I’ve been a trial attorney for the past twenty years, continuing to develop performance ideas on the side. I met Fritz at Celebration Barn Theatre, where we both studied with Avner Eisenberg, known on stage as Avner the Eccentric, a master of subtle, authentic performance.
.net: How have people reacted to Eepybird.com so far?
FG: The reaction has been tremendous. It’s exceeded anything we could possibly have hoped for. We launched Eepybird.com on Saturday, 3 June, and by Monday morning, The Late Show with David Letterman called. By Wednesday, we’d been on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and by the end of the week we were approaching a million views. At this point we’re now at over five million views at Eepybird.com and Revver.com, which hosts our video. And we’re getting people posting on our comments page from all over the world. It’s really been incredible.
.net: What does EepyBird mean?
FG: The EepyBird is an Oddfellow Theatre tradition. It began as a silly face combined with a silly noise, to make our apprentice, Casey Turner, collapse in hysterical laughter. What started as a silly face turned into a logo and then seemed like the perfect name for our production company.
.net: What’s planned next for EepyBird?
FG: We’re really excited about what will be happening at Eepybird.com over the next couple of months. We work with some amazing performers at the Oddfellow Theatre, and we’re looking forward to showcasing that talent at our website. We’ll be putting up new short videos on a regular basis. And of course we’re working harder than ever on a bigger, better, even more amazing project with the Diet Coke and Mentos fountains. We can’t give away too much about what that will be at this point, but the minute it’s ready you’ll be able to find it at Eepybird.com. Stay tuned!
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Comments
Evan / 31/12/2006 / 20:41
Please help, I'm Evan and I am doing this experiement as a science project. I was wondering if you could send me a few tips to make my geyser higher. I was also wondering whether or not does it matter if the soda is room temperature or cold from the frig? Also I was wondering did you use a hole in the pop cap to make it go higher? Any tips that you could send me I would greatly appreciate. Thank you, Evan
Kajal / 29/01/2007 / 05:34
Will, I am doing this as a science experiment and had a few questions.For starters does it matter what type of mentos falvor you use? I have the fruit flavored mentos, but some people had told me you need mint flavoured ones for the reaction. Another question is what do you do with the extra drilled hole? What i mean is you are supposed to drill a hole in an extra lid and than you are meant to attach the mentos all together to the lid. I am using tape and i am using string to attach it to the lid. How can u keep the mentos and coke seprated from the coke until the lid is on entirely? I am thinking about using a straw as i was recommended by a teacher, but i am confused of how you woulkd use it. It is a blurry picture in my mind. Yah, that's bout it..please help as soon as possible!!! I have to understand by Monday as in tomorrow. And i just found out about this site today while searching for frantic help. Thank- you, Kajal.
Wes / 03/02/2007 / 00:10
Hey guys. So, how do you get your geyser so high?
George Hoffman / 22/10/2008 / 21:51
how do i contact Grobe and Voltz?
