What they grew up doing for enjoyable … they’re nonetheless doing it – Deseret News

Through trial and error, the brothers uncover that for those who stuff a sock with sand, soak it in gasoline, gentle it with a match and shoot it into the sky, it appears similar to an asteroid when it comes screaming again to Earth.

It’s the mid-Nineties. Rhett and Burke Lewis, their camcorder on the prepared, are ready until it will get darkish to allow them to begin launching the socks and filming the motion from the yard of their residence within the small Cache Valley city of Millville. After the mayhem is over, earlier than heading off to mattress, the boys examine the pictures of their camcorder, happy with their work.

All is effectively till the subsequent morning, when Barbara Lewis, aka Mom, appears out the window and sees the yard filled with burned-out craters.

She grounds the boys from the factor they love most in life … their camcorder.

Little realizing she is interfering with their profession growth.

Turns out, setting issues on fireplace and blowing stuff up was greater than only a passing fad for the Lewis brothers. Coming up with inventive methods to movie the chaos they created — making it look greater, totally different, wilder, extra entertaining — by no means obtained outdated.

They’d purchased the camcorder — at $900, a substantial funding within the Nineties — with cash they earned from paper routes delivering the Logan Herald–Journal. Their first indication that somebody preferred their work, different than simply themselves, was once they hosted what was most likely Millville’s first movie pageant and crammed up the fitness center on the Latter-day Saint wardhouse. Their first indication they may generate income doing this was once they obtained paid for capturing sports activities staff movies at Mountain Crest High college.

After serving Latter-day Saint missions to Peru (Rhett) and Mississippi (Burke), the brothers, who’re only a yr aside in age, checked out school and checked out persevering with to make movies. College didn’t stand an opportunity.

They upgraded their gear, turned their mother and father’ basement right into a studio, named their new firm Studio One Pictures, and within the days earlier than the web and YouTube took off, went door to door telling Logan companies why it made sense for them to make a promotion video. To assist sweeten the deal, they partnered with the native movie show to indicate an organization’s video earlier than the film began — one thing that’s commonplace now, however wasn’t again then.

One alternative saved morphing into one other. They received a Utah Film Commission contest, which led to modifying a Sundance film, which led to engaged on the “I am a Mormon” marketing campaign, which led to somebody from Amazon seeing their work and retaining them simply as Amazon was going into orbit. (It didn’t damage when Jeff Bezos noticed the brothers’ spot for Amazon Dash, that includes a voice-over by Rhett’s 4-year-old daughter Stella, and declared it his favourite video.)

Meanwhile, whereas this was occurring, the corporate expanded by a 3rd when one other companion was added: Rhett and Burke’s youthful brother, Taylor. Taylor had been enamored by the loopy issues his brothers did ever since he was 5 years outdated and watched them launch their asteroids into the evening sky from his bed room window when he was speculated to be sleeping.

They additionally modified their firm identify to Atomic City, for no different purpose than there’s a city in southern Idaho named Atomic City they usually thought it sounded cool.

Traveling collectively close to and much — they’ve filmed in additional than 30 nations — the Lewis brothers have primarily turned the world into their very own yard. What they grew up doing for enjoyable … they’re nonetheless doing it.

Their shopper record ranges throughout the board, as evidenced by the number of movies on their web site — atomiccity.com — the place you may see every thing from a person using a buffalo to a cyclops to a champion windsurfer to Gov. Spencer Cox’s latest “Disagree Better” marketing campaign to a snack meals business to the Amazon Dash spot to many extra. None are alike. Few are what you’d name typical.

“We try to be fun,” says Rhett. “I feel like we’ve always kind of gone against the grain. We like to think of just really bizarre concepts and make something we would still watch if we weren’t making it. I think our weird ideas are just trying to get back to the roots of blowing things up. Although clients don’t always want to just blow things up.”

Oh, and what about Barbara, the lady who greater than as soon as took their camcorder away?

“Mom calls herself the doughnut lady, because she brings doughnuts to the set,” says Burke. “If she had the opportunity to be at our side every set, every time we film, all day long, she would do it. She’s our biggest fan.”