Update: Here is a link to the actual footage that aired on CNN. Fame at last!
Some of the footage I shot at this years Naked Pumpkin Run in Boulder, CO was picked up by the evil giant known as CNN and was show on Headline New. I was approached by them and asked if I could provide my Blip.tv / Youtube footage as well as answers to a few questions about this news worthy event.
Some Background on the Run and my footage
I first witnessed the Naked Pumpkin Run last year while out on the mall and I managed to shoot some shakey, dark footage of the festivities too. The even combines, the best of Halloween: drinking, Halloween costumes, pumpkin carving and streaking. You basically pitch up at a secret location in costume, knock back a few shots of hooch for some Dutch courage, carve a pumpkin that will be placed on your head and then run naked through the streets of Boulder. It doesn’t get more Halloween than that. After a few emails to my dodgey boulder underworld connections I was in.
This year I wanted to up the ante and shoot some better footage with my big camera as well as test out a new contraption I had build, a steadyCam. I was literally running with the pack for most of the streak and although there is undoubtedly more shake compared to a $40,000 steadycam I was pretty impressed seeing as it cost me the pricely sum of $35 to build.
Performing the usual magic we do here at Jacana Productions we added some trashy dance music to what we’d edited and uploaded it to Blip.tv and YouTube.
On Tuesday morning a producer at CNN emailed me after seeing my footage on YouTube. I agreed to let him use some of it and he also asked if I could answer some questions about the event over a webcam and ftp them to the mothership in Atlanta that night. Jacana Productions thrives on such deadlines and our team jumped at the opportunity to show off our wares. I rounded up my partner in crime Phoenix and we jumped on our bikes and raced down to the scene of the crime to shoot some on the scene, in your face commentary.
I was desperately searching for something clever to say. For those who know me you’ll already know that acting was never one of my fortes and my performance as a tree in the school play was lest than stellar. The race ended on the courthouse lawns so in one of my commentaries I remarked how ironic it was that such nudity, frivolity and tomfoolery took place so close to the high walls of Boulder justice or something to end. Christ on a bike I’m gonna fire my scrip writers – who writes this dribble!
I’m sure their going to edit the hell out of my prose but I did make some classic comments such as how one guy who had be so blessed at birth looked like he had a bull snake dangling between his legs as well as my usual tourettes like outbursts. The editors will also have a field day blurring out the nudity which is most of what the footage is. We’ll have to wait and see exactly what gets aired and what gets tossed to the cutting room floor, after all this in bloody CNN not Channel 4 in the UK 🙂
So if you ran, bloody well done! Your bottom is going to be broadcast to millions of people around the world. Just think about it, perhaps you’ll be at you fiancee’s house, sipping tea and eating crumpet with the local Vicar when your future mother-in-law just happens to channel surf onto CNN where she sees you streaking down the Pearl St. Mall, spanner flapping in the wind as you run past the cheering mob! The Vicar’s chokes violent on his mouthful of crumpet and spills his tea all over the cat, your fiancee, now in tears runs upstairs and barricades herself in her room and your future mother-in-law dashes into the kitchen to find her extra large frying pan …… you get the picture!
In closing I’d like to give a BIG thanks to the nakedPumpkin.org crew for putting on the event and a huge thank you to the naked people too! Next year is the 10th anniversary so it will be bigger and better – rage on people, rage on!