Indie filmmakers claim they put piano in Miami bay

In the past few days, national media outlets have latched on to the story of a grand piano that mysteriously appeared on a  sandbar in the middle of Miami’s Biscayne Bay:

It appears independent filmmakers Billy and Anais Yeager, who spent time on Route 66 in Two Guns, Ariz., shooting footage for their upcoming film “Jesus of Malibu,” were the ones who placed the piano there. And they claim it’s not the first time they’ve done this — they say they’ve left pianos in Malibu and Death Valley in California, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

The Miami New Times reports:

When we spoke to Yeager by phone from Mexico Beach, Florida, he said his son called him and told him the piano was all over the news. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but rather someone say it was just a silly piano from a music video, I said I’m not going to let that slide. This is highly symbolic and profound.” […]

Due to an illness in the family, the Yeagers were in town when their friend told them about the sandbar in Biscayne Bay. Using a neglected piano from a family friend’s estate, they launched their plan about two and half weeks ago. “We did it at 2 a.m. in the morning to get the sun-up shot, but we just missed it.”

The Yeagers claimed they used a homemade barge and elbow grease to move the piano onto the sandbar.

I’m betting the Yeagers were inspired by equally incongruous scenes found in the early portion of 1993’s Oscar-winning film “The Piano.”

As I’ve said before, the Yeagers come across as highly eccentric flakes. But more than a few highly eccentric flakes have made good films. I’ll withhold further judgment of them until I see the finished work of “Jesus of Malibu.”

UPDATE: Now a local teen claims he stowed the piano out the the sandbar, and has video to back part of his claim.

Haven’t seen any reactions from the Yeagers yet about them apparently getting upstaged by a kid. If the teen’s claim is true, the Yeagers made the initial claim to probably scare up publicity for their film.

2 thoughts on “Indie filmmakers claim they put piano in Miami bay

  1. Having lived in the Fort Lauderdale area in the early ’80’s, I would continually read about bales of pot and coke, bilge debris from ships, dead bodies etc. washing up on the many sandbars in Biscayne Bay….but this “castaway” piano standing upright in the middle of the bay was a sign that society was improving a little.

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