Herbert Brothers Ready To Show Off First Full-Length Movie

By Mike Perleberg The Herbert Brothers are (left to right) Joe, Matt, Dave, Pete, and Josh. They have completed the short film In Between Days. Photo by Patty Bamber. (Batesville, Ind.) - A local group of siblings who claimed fame by winning the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” commercial contest are back with a new movie. The Herbert Brothers of Batesville won the television commercial contest and a $1 million prize with a spot called “Free Doritos” in 2009. AdWeek has called the comedic commercial the Best Super Bowl Ad of the Decade. Some guys from southeastern Indiana had put marketing executives on Madison Avenue in their place. The Herberts’ current target is the big screen. Joe Herbert says he and his siblings had always planned to get into filmmaking, even before creating the Doritos ad. “About a year before we did the Doritos commercial, my brothers and I one day decided out of the blue, just for fun, to make something for family and friends. By the end of that year we felt like we could do something bigger than our original plans and maybe do something more,” Joe recalls. “Rather than do that full-length movie on no budget, we saw that Doritos was having a contest. We thought, ‘Well, we can do a 30-second movie. Let’s do that.’ The success and exposure we got from doing that got us a lot of other businesses that were interested in us doing commercials.” But along the way, Joe shares, the crew has been quietly working on breaking into the movie industry. They’ve taken on short films, including The Photograph. The six-minute short won awards for Best Picture, Best Directing, and Best Writing at the 2016 Indianapolis 48 Hour Film Project, and finished as among the top 23 48-hour project films in the world. Joe says that about two years ago, he and his brothers were approached by a screenwriter from Florida and a producer from New York. They were asked to shoot, direct, and edit a film titled In Between Days – and they accepted. “The three of us sort of collaborated and co-produced the movie and worked on planning and organizing it for about a year. We shot it in the Cocoa Beach, Florida area for about a month and then I edited it for the next a little over a year,” Joe shares. In Between Days Trailer from Joe Herbert on Vimeo. The movie is billed as “a coming-of-age comedy for the midlife crisis in all of us.” It stars actor Faust Checho and actress Amy Jo Johnson, who is best known for her roles in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Felicity, The Division, and Flashpoint. The Herbert Brothers will hold three sneak peek screenings of In Between Days at the Gibson Theater in Batesville. The free screenings will be Monday, October 23 at 6:00 p.m.; Wednesday, October 25 at 6:00 p.m.; and Wednesday, November 1 at 6:00 p.m. The movie is rated R for language and adult content, so it is not recommended for children to attend the screenings. Herbert said In Between Days may be shown at film festivals, but the movie is only in the early part of the process of being submitted. So what else have the Herberts been busy doing since the 2009 Super Bowl? They have produced several board games including Word Around and a new game which may soon be on store shelves called Box of Rocks. Major advertisers including Pepsi, Heinz, LCNB, and Go Daddy have had the team produce television commercials for their products. “When we won, and then we launched more doing commercials full-time. So we’ve done a handful of stuff from bigger national spots to a lot of local and regional stuff,” says Joe. More information about the Herbert Brothers' new movie is at www.InBetweenDaysMovie.com. You can follow the Herbert Brothers’ video projects at herbertbrothers.weebly.com. Learn more about their board games at jeezlepetes.weebly.com.