Eeyore’s Birthday Party Project
The idea of making a documentary had been nagging at me for years and just would not let me be, so in 2008, I set out with my partner, who had his own journalistic ambitions, to do just that.
Since phones were still phones and not cameras in 2008, to secure the equipment and resources we completed courses at Channel Austin, determined our topic of focus, and began organizing interviews and attending any and all Eeyore’s Birthday Party-related events.
We tracked down Lloyd Birdwell who was one of the original founders of the events and ultimately shared his historical photo collection of the event with the Austin History Museum as part of our Eeyore’s Birthday Party Project. We also interviewed President of Friends of the Forest, Scott Sexton, hung out with local band El Tule during their jam sessions, interviewed Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle, Doc Ayers, Bob Coffee, Les Carnes, and many other local Austinites who have served to make Eeyore’ Birthday party one of Austin’s longest-running and most-loved traditions. All in all, we shot over 37 hours of footage of the preparations, day of, and clean-up after the event.
At the time, YouTube was so new that uploaded videos were limited to just 10 minutes maximum. Being a first-time video editor, I was facing quite a challenge cutting 37 hours of Eeyore’s Birthday Party Project footage into a cohesive story of not more than 10 minutes in duration, but I wanted to get something posted to YouTube as a priority, so I worked tirelessly for several days straight drinking a lot of coffee and learning the craft of video editing.
We had planned to make a longer version to include more of the interviews and other footage that we had, but lo and behold, we were surprised to learn that we were soon to be new parents, and this naturally shifted our priorities.
13 years later, I maintain friendships with many of the people I met through the experience of making this little video, and even though today I would make different choices with regard to font selections and some camera angles, I enjoy a great sense of nostalgia anytime I watch it.
It’s a good thing that I got this portion of our efforts posted to YouTube at the time because, unfortunately, most of the remaining footage was lost in a house fire a few years ago, and so I don’t have any real hope of this particular effort becoming any more than what it is. There is one 8mm tape that I found recently that I think may contain some of the missing footage, but until I find the proper equipment to read and digitize it, nostalgia will have to be enough.