By Emily Christensen | Submitted Photos

In 2012, the credit card company Discover launched its new advertising campaign with the voice of Tim Warmanen ’04 reassuring viewers that the credit card company would “treat you like you’d treat you.”

Warmanen, who graduated from Wartburg with a degree in communication arts, was working as a video editor at Whitehouse Post, a film editing company with locations in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and London, when he had the opportunity to create a “scratch track” for the Discover commercial. Typically, these recordings act as a placeholder for editors as they build the visuals for a piece. A theatre minor and former Michigan state finalist forensics orator, Warmanen was often tapped for the task as many were intimidated by hearing their voice on loop during the post-production process. In this case, the Discover team liked Warmanen’s “regular guy” tone so much they opted to book him over other professional voiceover actors who had auditioned. Prior to landing the multi-year campaign, which included Super Bowl commercials, he also voiced spots for McDonald’s, Jim Beam, Nintendo, and Geico.

Though Warmanen left his full-time editing gig at Whitehouse Post in 2016 to be at home with his newborn son, he continued to freelance as both a voiceover actor and video editor, landing Walgreens holiday commercials starring Neil Patrick Harris and Wingstop spots that are still on air. This work has allowed him to spend quality time with his 5-year-old son, Joshua, while pursuing another passion project that was finally ready for prime time this year.

“In my hometown in Crystal Falls, Mich., we’ve had a Humongous Fungus Festival every year since 1992, but very few really know what the fungus is or even where it is,” Warmanen said.The annual festival pays homage to an Armillaria gallica fungus that stretches across dozens of acres in Iron County, Mich. Each year the town and visitors gather for a parade, live music, mushroom cook-off, and a giant mushroom pizza. This year’s festivities also will include the premiere of Warmanen’s documentary, The Humongous Fungus Among Us, which he first began working on in 2013, while still working full time.

“I knew there had to be more information out there about this,” he said. “I tracked down the original scientists who discovered the fungus back in the ’90s and began writing a basic outline for the documentary based on their findings and the effects the famous fungus has had on the community.”

When scientists discovered the giant fungus in 1992, they believed it to be the world’s oldest (more than 1,500 years old) and biggest (covering more than 37 acres) living organism. Using his connections in the field, Warmanen, who produced his first feature film during an independent study course at Wartburg, assembled a team of three others with a “passion for the idea.”

Though his background is in post-production, he took the lead on the research and interviewing, using his personal connection to the community to break the ice. Dr. Johann Bruhn, a forest pathologist at the University of Missouri at Columbia, welcomed the team to his home in Missouri, where they stayed for a weekend learning all about the humongous fungus. Warmanen was thrilled to learn that Bruhn and his colleagues were still studying the massive Armillaria decades after the initial discovery.

“That was my first real jump into this process. It was quite hot under the lights with no air conditioning, but we interviewed him for four hours and learned everything we could,” he said. Their second shoot was during the Fungus Festival in Crystal Falls, where the team interviewed 23 people, including the owners of the local Ben Franklin who sold T-shirts celebrating the mushroom and the owner of Fob’s Restaurant who flips “Fungus Burgers” daily. Warmanen also returned with Bruhn during the fall fruiting season. “

That was complete serendipity. We thought this would be a mostly historical documentary, but Johann said he would be up there in the fall and invited us along.” Warmanen also collected drone footage to get a bird’s-eye view of the fungus.Throughout two years of editing, he put in many hours searching for historical clips that would supplement the team’s B-roll. Warmanen began searching for a clip from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He heard that a joke was made about the fungus, but he had never seen it himself.

“I saw Johnny Carson reruns were playing on TV, so I set my DVR to record them all. I knew there had to be an episode that mentioned it sometime in April 1992. The very first time I sat down to look at the recordings, the second one I watched was from April 1, 1992,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. That was the one. What were the chances? Most of his episodes probably aren’t even in syndication.”

Warmanen had similar luck with an Unsolved Mysteries episode, which he happened to own on DVD. The U.S. Navy was testing new options for communicating with submarines. Project ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) caused nearby residents to hear a low, incessant hum that drew the attention of the popular television series. Bruhn discovered the fungus while studying the potential side effects to the ecosystem due to the Navy program.

“This whole documentary process has been just like life: If you see an opportunity, you have to take it. It was amazing these people who were willing to spend their time and make it the best they could make it,” Warmanen said.

In March, the film was an official selection to the Environmental Film Festival at Yale University and was screened online. The documentary will be screened at DocUtah in November, and of course, it will be shown during this year’s festival in Crystal Falls.

“This has been one of my favorite things I’ve ever worked on. Going into this final stretch, it’s a joy to see something that has taken years to put together finally come to fruition. I’ve always had a dream I would work on a documentary one day, and that I could make one that was so near and dear to my childhood and my hometown was just serendipity — a fun gift,” Warmanen said. “I don’t know what is going to happen next, but if an opportunity arises, I will jump at it. That was one of my biggest takeaways from Wartburg. You have to take every opportunity, be motivated, and don’t wait for someone to ask you to do something. If you want to see something happen, you can get it done.”