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UNDER CONSTRUCTION...
The Adventures Of Running Nerd
"The Adventures Of Running Nerd" is a 30 minutes video that I produced to learn video production skills. If you are viewing the C-Edition of this Web site on CD-ROM, and you want to view the video, then click here.
- On 1999 July 5, I recorded the raw footage with a head-mounted camcorder that I wore during the Chelmsford Massachusetts John Carson road race. The footage sat on a shelf until 2003.
- In 2003 May, I began turning the raw footage into the 30 minute video using the facilities at Chelmsford TeleMedia, including a nonlinear video editing software package named Adobe Premier. It was a slow process because: I had never produced a video before, I had many Video Production Problems, and I am a perfectionist.
- I finished it in 2003 September. It was first broadcast on September 24 at 6:30 PM by Chelmsford TeleMedia on local cable channel 8.
In 2004 the video won THIRD PLACE in the ARTS PROGRAM catagory of the ACM-NE (Alliance for Community Media, Northeast Region, Live Web Page: here).
The following is a partial script of the video. It is not in standard script format. And it includes only the major scene changes, the words by the Narrator, and the credits. But it should be enough to give you a general understanding of the content. Playlist/URL (Permalink): http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4C7A5EE74E05CA68
"Embeddable Player" for playlist follows.
raw text from playlist page follows: The Adventures Of Running Nerd, in 4 parts In 1999, David W. Roscoe bolted a Sony camcorder to a bicycle helmet, and wore it in the Chelmsford MA July 4th John Carson Memorial Road Race. 4 years later he used the resulting footage to make "The Adventures Of Running Nerd", showing the 2-mile race from the runner's point of view. This 30-minute video won 3rd place in the category "The Arts: Performing or Visual - non professional" in the 2004 Fall Video Festival of The Alliance for Community Media, Northeast Region. To view all 4 parts in sequence, click on the link labeled "Play All Videos". 2 weeks ago 21 views DWRoscoeInMA the videos Worldwide English (0) DWRoscoeInMA * My Videos * Favorites * Playlists * Subscriptions * Inbox * more... Account QuickList (0) Help Sign Out Loading... Home Subscriptions Videos Shows Channels Search Upload * Upload Video File * Record from Webcam My Account * Inbox * Videos, Favorites, & Playlists * Subscriptions * Address Book * Account Settings * My Channel * Insight: Statistics and Data / My Videos New * Playlist * Video Upload New Playlist Title Create or Cancel Creating playlist... New Playlist Title Create or Cancel Creating playlist... Uploaded Videos Favorites Playlists Subscriptions Quicklist History Purchases What's new: Promoted Videos Create and manage video and channel promotions on YouTube. Your promotion can appear alongside natural search results when people search for similar content. YouTube Insight Find out who is viewing your video, where they come from and more using YouTube's new data feature: Insight 1 - 5 of 5 Uploaded Videos List ViewExpanded ViewGrid View Search Add to * Playlist * Favorites * Quicklist Add the selected videos to: Playlist(s) Add to Playlist or cancel Adding videos to selected playlists... Adding videos to favorites... Adding videos to quicklist... Delete Sort by: Title Time Date Added Views Rating Fox 25 Boston - Zesty Pizza On The Simpsons FOX 25 Boston - "The Simpsons" illustrator Lance Wilder, who grew up in Chelmsford MA, put the local Zesty Pizza restaurant in the Simpsons TV show town of Springfield. The restaurant appears in the new show opening which was recently redone for HDTV (High-Definition TeleVision). This report was broadcast Sat. Feb. 21, 2009 at 10:43 PM. The teaser before preceding commercial break is included. David Roscoe, in his tricornered hat, is one of the customers interviewed. (more)(less) Added: March 14, 2009, 01:59 PM Time: 2:11 Views: 181 Rating: 0.0 Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: Fox25ZestyOnSimpsons1.mp4 Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote Download MP4 The Adventures Of Running Nerd, part 1 of 4 In part 1, David shows how he built the Bicycle Helmet Cam, puts it on, and rides his bicycle over to the race. Added: June 16, 2009, 08:35 PM Time: 6:41 Views: 15 Rating: 0.0 Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: runningnerdpart1of4.mpg Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote Download MP4 The Adventures Of Running Nerd, part 2 of 4 In part 2, David parks his bicycle, gets his first reactions to his helmet-cam, goes through the runner registration, meets with some of his relatives, and takes his place behind the race start line. (more)(less) Added: June 17, 2009, 02:39 AM Time: 7:35 Views: 12 Rating: 0.0 Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: runningnerdpart2of4.mpg Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote Download MP4 The Adventures Of Running Nerd, part 3 of 4 In part 3, the race begins, slowly, because the pack is very crowded at first. The pack gradually spreads out and speeds up. Kids whoop under the Route 3 bridge to hear their echos . The people along the route cheer Dave on and wave for his camera. The race finishes at Chelmsford Center, where Dave gets a free cool drink, and meets up again with his relatives that also ran in the race. (more)(less) Added: June 22, 2009, 03:15 AM Time: 9:35 Views: 11 Rating: 0.0 Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: runningnerdpart3of4a.mpg Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote Download MP4 The Adventures Of Running Nerd, part 4 of 4 In part 4, Dave starts walking home back though Chelmsford Center. On the way a local newspaper reporter interviews him and takes his picture. After stopping briefly to talk with his neighbors, Dave enters his apartment and takes off the helmet-cam while the camera is rolling. Audio from various events of the day are played while the credits roll. (more)(less) Added: June 17, 2009, 09:47 AM Time: 6:39 Views: 6 Rating: 0.0 Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: runningnerdpart4of4.mpg Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote Download MP4 1 - 5 of 5 Try YouTube in a new web browser! 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PARTIAL SCRIPT: The Adventures Of Running Nerd by: David W. Roscoe[fade in helmet cam view of race]
[title appears]
The Adventures Of Running Nerd
[page turn transition to Chelmsford TeleMedia footage showing parade and race]
Narrator: If you live in Chelmsford Massachusetts then you probably know that every year on the forth of July holiday, the people from there and the sarounding towns have a parade.
You might also know that immediately before the parade, they have the John Carson Memorial Road Race, a 2 mile race that's open to the public.
If you've seen that race then you've probably watched the runners pass from the side of the road.
If you have cable TV then you might have seen it this way, from a camera in the back of a truck.
But how many of you have seen a race from inside the race, as one of the runners? If you haven't then you might want to watch this video. It will show you two things.
First, it will show you the experience of being one of the runners in Chelmsford's John Carson 2 mile road race.
Second, it will show you the experience of being in front of thousands of people with a camcorder on your head, because that's how I produced this video.
[zoom in on segment about construction of the Bicycle Helmet Cam]
Narrator: For the camera, I used an ordinary Sony HI-8 TR716. It has a threaded hold in the bottom for mounting on a tripod, but the hole will accept an ordinary bold from the hardware store.
This is the helmut that I used, a Bell bicycle helmet. I drilled a hole in the exact top of the helmet large enough for the bolt.
To spread the force from the bolt, I placed a large metal washer between the foam padding inside the helmet, and the concave inner surface of the outer shell.
Next I inserted the bolt through the hole from the inside. On the end of the bolt on the outside of the helmet, first I place a large rubber washer to make good contact with the convex outer surface of the helmet. Next I placed another large metal washer. To hold them all together, I used an ordinary nut that fits the bolt.
The next piece to go on, also held on with a nut, is a piece of bent coat hanger wire. The purpose of that is to help me keep the camcorder level.
The last step is to screw the camcorder and the helmet together.
I needed to experiment a little with spacer washers between the camcorder and the helmet, to make certain that the camcorder was pointing straight ahead when it was tight.
There it is, the Bicycle Helmet Cam.
[zoom out to the morning of the race inside my apartment]
Narrator: On the morning of the race, I got into the helmet cam. I connected the output of the camera to my television set, so that I could make certain that I could use that bent coat hanger wire to keep my head, and the camera, level.
This is what I look like when I'm wearing the helmet cam. Go ahead and laugh. I don't mind. And you know you want to.
The purpose of the little mirror that you seem me holding here, is to help me see the little orange or red light on the camera, so that I can know when the camera is recording.
[switch scene to outside of my apartment]
Narrator: It's time to go.
There are a couple of things I should tell you about the helmet cam.
First, it's very difficult to put on. I needed to stand in front of my bathroom mirror to do it. I'll have more about that later.
Second, if you're wearing one of these things, you probably can't fit in your car. You're simply too tall. I couldn't fit in mine. That meant that I had to ride my bicycle over to the race start line.
I had never worn the helmet cam while riding my bicycle before. I was a little unsteady at first, but I didn't have any serious problems.
You might be wondering why there are all those chairs along the side of the road. In Chelmsford, people put chairs out the night before, to reserve good positions for watching the race and parade which go along this route.
I was wondering how people were going to react to me in my helmet cam. At one point, a police car passed me, and he stopped. I wondered whether he stopped to check me out. I rode past him, and he didn't say anything, so I turned right onto Parkhurst Road, and continued on my way.
By the way, the reason the date in the lower right hand corner says July 5th, is because July 4th fell on a Sunday.
After locking my bicycle, I started walking toward the registration area. This is the first people would get to see me in the helmet cam close up, and was wondering what there reaction would be.
Okay they've spotted me.
[brief conversation with young runners]
Narrator: I thought that went well.
As I approached the runner registration table, I noticed that the numbers on the racers number tags were fairly high. There's a lot of runners in the race this year.
Then I heard someone calling me. It was my cousin Alan.
[conversation with Alan]
I became confused about whether the camera was actually recording or not. I tried to use my little mirror to see the little light on the camera. The problem turned out to be that the bright sunlight makes it difficult to see that light on the camera.
Next I went over to the runner registration table.
I didn't need to fill out any forms, because I had preregistered for the race through the mail weeks earlier. So I got into a special short line.
By the way, if you're willing to pay a few extra dollars, they'll sell you an official John Carson Memorial Road Race teeshirt.
Eventually they took my name, looked me up on their preregistration list and found my number.
They give you 4 safety pins to pin your number tag to your teeshirt.
I'll show it to you in a moment here. I keep forgetting that the camera is several inches above my eyeballs. So I'll pause the video when the number tag comes into view.
There it is.
Next I went to another location to meet more of my relatives. Alan and his wife Michelle had already arrived. A few minutes later my other relatives arrived. They cracked up as soon as they saw me in my helmet cam.
The helmet cam has that affect on people.
This is my Uncle David. He's Alan's father. He'll be running in the race today also.
And this is his daughter Beth.
This is Jen, my uncle's other daughter. She'll be running today also.
By the way, the reason the world seems to be going up and down the way it is, is because I'm trying to loosen up by doing some deep knee bends.
Oh, and this is Emily. She's Alan and Michelle's daughter.
At 9 o'clock, the people who weren't running in the race went to places where they could watch it. The people who were running in the race went to the start line, all except for me. I stayed behind to do some last minute tests on the helmet cam. At about quarter past 9, went to the start line.
The start line was behind the shopping center on Parkhurst Road. The police department had already started detouring traffic.
By the way you don't need to be a human being to run in this race.
[brief conversation with dog owner]
I arrived at what I thought was the start line, and I looked around for my relatives. I didn't see them at first.
As you might expect, the camera on top of my head was getting a lot of attention.
You might be wondering: what should you say to impress a young lady if you have a camera on your head?
Answer: nothing. If you have a camera bolted to your head, you will *make* an impression.
I was looking around at all the other runners in the race, and suddenly I realized that we were moving.
It wasn't the real start, but the officials were moving us into position for the real start.
The race is about to start. Listen for the sound of the starter's pistol.
That was it. We're off, sort of.
We can't move until the people in front of us move, and we're in the middle of a very large crowd. The people at the front of the race, they took off immediately. We're moving now, but we're not moving at anywhere near our top speed. There ae simply too many people in the way.
In fact, you might not be able to see them, but there are a bunch of little kids directly in front of me. You might see a pony tail popping up in front of me every now and then.
We're approaching the Route 3 bridge. Kids love to yell when they can make an echo, and this bridge is an excellent echo chamber.
I'm still behind that pack of little kids, but there's an open space up ahead, so I'm going to try to get around them. There, now maybe I can make some time.
One of the kids in the race has been mugging for the camera. You might have noticed him at the beginning of the race. Well he's going to do it again. There he is. What a ham.
If you pay attention, you'll see the half mile mark. It's a red line painted across the street. That was it.
We're approaching the end of Parkhurst Road. We're going to turn left onto North Road, and head south toward the center of Chelmsford. When we do you'll probably notice a lot more chair and people along the side of the road. That's because this is where the parade route joins the race route.
Were approaching one of several watering stations along the route. This is where spectators pass out water to runners during the race and to parade marchers during the parade.
There's another watering station up ahead on the left.
This is also the half mile mark. If you listen you can hear a timer reading the half mile times to the runners.
[Error, this is actually the half way point, which is the 1 mile point.]
We're approaching the bridge over Interstate 495. We're also approaching the one and a half mile mark. It's another line in the street. There is it, right there.
We're not much more that a quarter of a mile from the center of town. But I am very tired. Even though I've been running for decades, I've never experienced what runners call the second wind, or the runners high. So I'm going to stop and walk for a while.
But then I see everybody passing me, and it makes me feel like a wimp. So I start running again.
I'm sorry I can't show you a picture of the finish line. I was concentrating so hard on the race, I forgot to take one.
I'll be crossing the finish line in approximately 15 seconds.
I finished.
I'm about to exit the runners' shute. Listen for my number. It's number 105.
Next stop, the refreshments.
After you cross the finish line, assuming you cross the finish line, they give you free refreshments.
They have water, fruit juices, other types of drinks, fresh fruit, and other snacks. I got myself a cool drink.
It was a hot sunny day. So after I got my drink, I went and found myself a shady spot, to rest.
I watched for my relatives for several minutes, but I didn't see them, so I went to look for them.
It took a while, but I eventually found them.
First they wanted to check out the condition of the helmet cam. It seemed to be working okay.
Next we wanted to compare race times. We were all running a little slower than the previous year.
Next they wanted to mug for the camera a little bit.
We planned to meet up later for a barbeque. But I needed to go home first. So we went our seperate ways.
To get home I needed to walk through the center of town. There were a lot of people there waiting for the parade. And there were a lot of other people there with cameras. And the helmet cam was getting it's share of interest.
But as far as I could tell, my camera was the only one on top of somebody's head.
At one point I noticed a woman standing out in the middle of the street taking a picture of me. She didn't want me to look at her. She wanted me to act natural. It turned out that she was a reporter for the Chelmsford Independent, a local newspaper. She asked me my name, where I lived, and about my helmet cam. So I thought that picture might be in the local newspaper. I'll have more about that later.
It was almost time for the parade to start. And the police were running up and down the street clearing it of people.
Before going home, I stopped to say hello to my neighbors.
One of my neighbors was running a watering station.
But I really wanted to get home, get out of my helmet cam, and take a nice cool shower. So I didn't talk for very long.
Ah, home again.
I'm going to show you how you how I got out of the helmet cam, to give you an idea of what is was like to get in to the helmet cam.
Getting in was difficult. I needed to put bits of cloth between my head and the helmet, to keep the camera from jiggling while I was running. You'll see those bits of padding falling out in a momemt.
Something else that I did was to wrap the camera strap around my neck and twist it. I did this to prevent the camera falling on the street and breaking.
This is the July 8 issue of the Chelmsford Indepent, all about the events of July 5th, the parade and the race.
Remember that reporter that took the picture of me. I looked all through the paper to try a picture of me, but I couldn't find one.
But I did find me in the race results.
These are the first 8 people that finished the race. I was not one of the first 8.
I finished in 624th place, with a time of 19 minutes and 49 seconds. I suppose that's not bad for a man of age 46, which is how old I was that year.
For reference, there were 1127 people that finished the race.
I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you for watching.
[fade in credits]
Credits: The Adventures Of Running Nerd Produced by David W. Roscoe Directed by David W. Roscoe Written by David W. Roscoe Camera by David W. Roscoe Edited by David W. Roscoe Narrated by David W. Roscoe Bicycle Helmet Cam designed and constructed by David W. Roscoe Sound by David W. Roscoe Titles by David W. Roscoe David W. Roscoe "produced" by Norm and Jeanne Roscoe Additional footage supplied by Chelmsford TeleMedia Music by QCCS Productions Michael Brewer PBTM Production Music Library v09t02: Finish Line. v09t08: Cat Walk. v15t06: Straight Ahead. v15t08: House Party. v19t06: Industrial Park. v19t09: Techno Talk. v22t02: Homeward. v22t04: Auto Rock. v22t05: Jazz Land. v22t09: Robot Dancer. v22t11: Pulse. v23t05: Stars and Stripes Forever. Race results provided by the Chelmsford Independent Newspaper Thanks to Chelmsford TeleMedia and its people for their help producing this video. Thanks also to the John Carson Road Race organizers, runners, and spectators, without whom this video would not have been possible. This video was edited using Adobe Premiere 6.5 (for PC). The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Chelmsford TeleMedia Chelmsford MA --- September 2003 The Adventures Of Running Nerd[Click on (Back) button now.]
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