In the 1990s, Pez dispensers were worth more, gram for gram, than cocaine or even gold. Miserable in his job at the local factory in rural Michigan, barely making ends meet for his family, Steve Glew followed a tip to Eastern Europe and spent ten years smuggling Pez dispensers back into the USA, making millions of dollars. It was all magical until his arch-nemesis, the Pezident, set out to destroy him.

Recreating the various locations Steve’s story took place was our mission, but this was driven beyond the literal recreation by the design goal of illustrating his story with an aesthetic akin to his personal storytelling tone. Steve is a gifted raconteur and spins a flamboyant and colorful ball of yarn. He recounts his escapades with incredible specificity, giving us the opportunity to incorporate small details and idiosyncrasies of his stories and personality directly into the sets. The recreations in the film follow the settings in his story: from a machine shop in rural Michigan where Steve worked his 9-5 prior to his Pez-capades, to a Pez manufacturing factory in Eastern Europe where Steve sourced his product, to the colorful world of Pez collector conventions.

The Slovenian Pez factory in Kolinska played a pivotal role in Steve’s story, the source of the product he would smuggle into the US. The factory was renovated and repurposed in the late 90s. With no photos existing of the interior, we used the grandiose comparisons, metaphors, and adjectives Steve used to describe how he felt seeing the factory to design its recreation in a strip mall in Lansing, Michigan. We started with an enormous, monochromatic, vacant retail space. The location was truly a blank canvas. 

Steve recalls the inside of the factory being “overwhelming” and “exactly like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.” He felt like he’d found his “golden ticket” when he finally got inside. To create a whimsical ambiance, we fabricated artistic moments like hanging hundreds of Pez dispensers with invisible monofilament from the ceiling.  We built various set pieces to create the illusion of massive quantities of Pez dispensers being manufactured and processed. For instance, we used industrial winches to lift large pallets of prop Pez boxes. We created the illusion of a bustling factory with various set pieces, including a faux pneumatic conveyor system running the entire length of the building. Pez prototypes were sent flying through the pneumatic tubes direct from the factory floor to the design/drafting room. In the spirit of minimalist production design, we created each of these individual set pieces to have as much of a visual impact as possible. 

Like the factory, we used a minimalist production design approach for several other recreations. The Eastern European border crossing scene was shot in a parking lot behind our Michigan hotel. We brought in just a few set pieces such as scaffolding covered in camo netting, barbed wire, a metal barrel, some road barricades we made from 2x4s, and a few flares. Strategically placing these few set pieces transported us from a parking lot in Lansing to the intimidating border crossing of Steve’s anecdote. 

For other recreations, such as the toy shows and Pez conventions, we befriended the wonderful Pez community! Jim Blaine, a Pez collector who also produces Pez conventions, not only donated thousands of dispensers we used repeatedly throughout the film but also collaborated with our team to host an authentic Pez convention. Dozens of collectors attended. They set up booths to display their collections, hosted private auctions in their hotel rooms, bartered and traded rare pieces, and even volunteered as extras during the Pez conference recreations. 

The Pez Outlaw is a classic David and Goliath tale. It is also a love story and a spy thriller. It is a fanciful, imaginative, colorful and sweet biographical documentary about an eccentric entrepreneur. Steve Glew, the self-proclaimed Pez Outlaw, regails the viewer with fun and exciting descriptions of his adventures with the type of energy that inspires. Yet he also recounts his experiences with such genuine vulnerability. Our production aimed to mirror this duplexity. Throughout Steve’s story he encountered naysayers and experienced doubt and loss. But according to Steve, what matters most, is that he lived “a good story” and the skeptics and cynics were just “plot point[s] in [his] story” - the story of The Pez Outlaw.  

Documentaries are often synonymous with reliving or unraveling the dark and disturbing stories among humanity. But humanity is not one-sided and, as filmmakers, it’s important that we embrace the full range of the human experience, including stories that promote hope, that inspire, and that have an overall message of love and acceptance. Steve’s story made us smile; we wanted more of that. We hope you do too. We are exceptionally proud of the film we created, of the complexity of human experience we captured, and thank you for considering our work for the News & Documentary - Outstanding Lighting Direction and Scenic Design Emmy Award.