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MANY MILES APART, PAIR MAKE 'MAC' MOVIE

By By JASON DEAN Correspondent for The Capital Times

When Rob Baca and Josh Rizzo attend the Wisconsin Film Festival this weekend, they plan to meet for a couple of pints and a good steak.

Baca lives in Ohio and Rizzo in California. It will be the first time they have spent significant time together since September.

Baca and Rizzo co-directed the movie "Welcome to Macintosh" while living across the country from each other. After almost three years of work, the film will make its world premiere Sunday at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

"Welcome to Macintosh" looks at the company, the computers and the people who love them. It's not just about the latest technology, but the early technology of the company, too.

In addition, the film was created by using Apple and Mac products.

Baca says the idea for "Welcome to Macintosh" came to him while he was shoveling his driveway. The idea was to "explore people like us that love the Macintosh and why," says Baca.

Rizzo liked the idea. "Being Mac users, we know the topic very, very well," says Rizzo. "We're familiar with the reason we love Apple and Mac, and we can see why newcomers love Apple and Mac. But it's not the easiest thing to articulate. That's where our movie stands out."

Rizzo and Baca interviewed a variety of enthusiasts for the film, including former Apple employees, author Leander Kahney and Academy Award-winning editor Richard Halsey.

The friends met at Ithaca College in New York and were mainstays in the film department there. Rizzo admits they were both very mouthy and opinionated, but they got stuff done.

"We were always intended to be friends," says Rizzo. "He's the long-lost brother I never had, or particularly wanted but am stuck with."

After graduating from Ithaca in 2002, the two went separate ways. Baca moved to Columbus, Ohio, to marry a woman he met his last semester. Tired of snow, Rizzo moved to Los Angeles to start his career. Both knew they wanted to make movies, but needed to take jobs to support themselves.

"We both went to film school. We both learned pretty early on that wasn't going to pay bills," says Rizzo.

Rizzo has a background in information technology. When he moved to L.A., he started doing post-production technical support, which he says "is essentially engineering the complete workflow for most reality shows on television."

Baca became an independent video and film producer in Columbus. His company does commercial work and industrial video.

"It's a job," says Baca. "The ultimate dream was to make our film."

Despite the distance between them, they made their dream a reality.

The two did their first interview for the film in April 2005 and finished postproduction this winter. While collaborating on a film with a partner more than 2,000 miles away may sound difficult, Rizzo and Baca say technology made it easier.

"It wasn't that difficult, mostly because of my career," says Rizzo. "I have the insight on how to do long-distance post-production."

Rizzo and Baca say they would meet to do interviews and shoots. Once they were done, whoever had the tapes would send the daily footage over the Internet. Using the Apple software Final Cut Pro and the Internet, they were able to collaborate and create the movie.

Rizzo says that their film is a 100 percent Apple and Mac production. The pair sent clips to each other via their iPhones. Scenes were uploaded to iPods or watched on a MacBook Pro named "The Aluminum Falcon." Even interviews are conducted over iChat.

"If Apple made a camera, we probably would have shot on it. But they don't," says Rizzo.

WELCOME TO MACINTOSH\ WHEN: 1:45 P.M. SUNDAY\ WHERE: CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART