With just a slight spot (non)news detour along the way I made it to my 3rd assignment just before 3. Standing in the Blockbuster store waiting for a few customers to rent some movies and I'd call it a day and head back to the shop.
But one of the movie rental customers I had just chatted up came briskly back into the chain and summonsed me to a location across the street. "You gotta see this," he proclaimed."They're chunking pumpkings from the top of a fifty foot cherry picker"
Imagine that. Dropping pumpkins from a cherry picker.
I didn't waste any time. I could easily envision the visual element of this scene. A pumpkin falling into terminal velocity before meeting terminally with the ground with a resounding thud.
And that's exactly what it was. A man and his family that run a Christmas tree lot were passing the time minding the store when they devised this plan to dispose of their leftover pumpkins.
I had to work quickly because they only had 4 pumpkins remaining. I pinned my wireless microphone on the boy in the bucket of the truck and I let them drop 3 of them while I shot from the ground. I knew I had to get the cherry picker POV(point of view) but I also wanted that last pumkin shot from the ground. So many decisions!
The family was also videotaping their fun with what I discovered was a decent little Sony Digital 8 video camera and it didn't take me long to get my hands on it. I positioned my XD Cam on the ground close to the area of impact and I took the Digital 8 camera and jumped into the bucket to take the 50 foot trip up to watch a pumpkin fall.
Jjust 25 minutes, 4 pumpking drops and 3 interviews later I headed back to the station. The man let me borrow his Digital 8 camera because I didn't have my firewire cable so that I could dub the footage into my XDCam.(which was my plan when I started shooting with it)
I still had to edit all of those other stories first but I spent a fair amount of time on the Pumpkin Story. It turned out pretty good. Watch it HERE
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