Did A Canadian Printing Company Rip Off A Chicago Filmmaker?

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jan 23, 2008 10:27PM

Local filmmaker Steve Delahoyde and sketch comedy team Schadenfreude make a series of short films together called Regrets. The first one in that series is called "Boxes."

Last week, a Montreal-based printing company Pazazz made a web commercial.

Look familiar? Warren Werbitt, president and CEO of Pazazz (and star of printing version), says he'd never seen "Boxes" before, and that the guy who created the Pazazz version is on vacation until next week. Werbitt wouldn't give me the guy's name, but said that he's not an employee of Pazazz--but that Werbitt will have him contact us and Steve when he gets back.

"I'm not comfortable with the whole thing--we don't do things with ill will or bad intention," Werbitt said from his office in Montreal. "It was strictly supposed to be a fun thing. If something was done wrong, it'll be addressed.... If the guy outright tried to screw [Steve], or if he made an error in judgment, [we're going to explain] what happened and how it happened." Werbitt said that while he could "absolutely" understand the allegations of outright plagiarism, he's "shocked" by the comments people were leaving on his YouTube page. (He's been deleting them, he says, because "some of the things people wrote are pretty horrible.") Come next week, Werbitt says he'll have his on-vacation guy to speak for himself. Developing.