wasteland-baby XX/XX/XX (Day) XX:XX:XX #XXXXXXXX
The Pruder Record was a video uploaded to Youtube in 2007, one of the most mysterious videos on the site. Although it has been taken down, the tapes have kept circulating, and you can still find a copy of it today, if you know where to look.
It begins with a black screen, with simple white text emblazoned upon it.
This is not for anyone but myself.
Thank you for watching this movie.
Presenting: The Pruder Record.
Hard cut.
We find ourselves above an endless sea of trees. The camera takes a slow pan around, moving 360 degrees, briefly eclipsed by the trunk of the tree the cameraman is sitting on. There is no horizon in sight, only the forest as far as the camera can record. The view sits on top of the tree for a minute before it is pointed up, revealing the tree continues upwards into the clouds. The viewpoint then begins to descend to the ground, remaining fixed on the absent apex of the tree.
It takes five minutes to descend, and it quickly becomes clear that this forest is far taller than any known to man. There are no cuts here, or in the entirety of the Pruder Record beyond the title card. The entire tape is presented as a single, continuous narrative.
After the long descent, the camera changes angle and returns to level with the horizon. We are not on the ground just yet, but some fifty feet up, in the midst of a base camp set up on one of the sturdy branches. The floor is a steel network with some kind of tarp pulled taut over the rungs, and it unsteadily supports the weight of the narrator.
The camera is placed to allow it to view the entire camp, and our protagonist finally enters the frame. He shambles into the frame, dressed in an assortment of camping gear. The majority of it is weathered and beaten, some rusted. Along with the state of his hair and beard — both long, shaggy and unkempt — the implication is that this man has been away from civilization for a long time.
Down here in the base camp, there is almost no light at all. When our unknown camper cuts the flood lights, the camp is only lit by a gas stove, and it is hard to make out any details of what is going on at all. The camper moves in the darkness, and the viewer is able to just barely make out the the outline as he makes dinner and walks around the camp.
Once dinner is finished, the camper takes the camera from its fixed vantage point and places it so it can see his face. Light returns, and you can only see the campers face in the frame, not unlike the famous shots from The Blair Witch Project. He begins to speak, the only dialogue in the entire tape.
We learn his name — Georgie Pruder — and that he has been in the ambiguous "here" for a series months. He doesn't explain what or where his current location is, only referring to it with as "the forest". His mission is unclear and might not even exist. He wants to leave, but, at the same time, there is no evidence that he has is even trying. Georgie finishes speaking, and continues to eat his meal.
There is no interruption until a low rumble comes over the forest, from above. Georgie grabs the camera and points it up — revealing a bright green light, shining down from the trees. It illuminates the entire forest, and you can see the monolithic trees standing tall, dominating the field. Georgie screams incoherently, and tries to re-ascend the tree.
The camera isn't angled well in this sequence, instead secured to Georgie's belt and dangling from it. It hangs down, chaotically bouncing around. The base camp always remains in sight, somewhat remarkably. At several points in his climb, Georgie can be heard crying out, yelling incoherently at the light to perhaps stop, or not to leave him.
The light doesn't last long, and Georgie sits in a branch after it leaves, panting. He finally descends, returning to the base camp, where he places the camera back into the vantage point and turns the flood lights back on. He sits in silence for a long and tense period of time. The forest is unnaturally silent.
A shape crashes into the base camp from above. It is the silhouette of a creature, a panther of some kind. Georgie's monologue from earlier plays as a soundtrack. The panther circles Georgie, moving in for a kill. He raises his hands, but it isn't enough. The beast swipes once, and he drops to the ground. Dead. The panther dashes away.
The camera zooms in on Georgie's bloodied face on its own and lingers there for a full minute (exact in the timing) before it cuts to black.
There are no credits. The black remains until the video ends, two minutes later.
wasteland-baby XX/XX/XX (Day) XX:XX:XX #XXXXXXXX
Georgie Pruder is still alive.
He currently works at an indie game development studio operating out of Eugene, OR. He's active on the internet, and while he doesn't deny that he is the subject and creator of the Pruder Record, he rarely if ever speaks about it publicly. The association is known, but all Georgie offers to fans or individuals trying to talk to him about the Record is a simple acknowledgement that he was responsible.
The only major instance in which Georgie ever talked about the Record is in the Pruder Interview, which was released on the same Youtube channel as the Record in 2010. It is shorter than the first video, only ten minutes long, and consists of Georgie sitting in his living room, answering questions asked to him by an unknown partner, who never appears on screen. In both the Record and the Interview, Georgie is the only subject.
The Interview establishes — or, depending on who you ask, claims — a few specific facts.
First: Georgie indeed worked on the Record alone, and received no external help from any party. Everything that happens in the record was filmed by himself, and himself alone.
Second: The record is real. Obviously, this can't be the case, but Pruder insists upon this last point: that everything that happened was real, and that he didn't use video editing to get the point across.
Third: It truly was for himself, and while he appreciates the interest in the Record, it was never meant for public consumption, and he doesn't want to give too much away. The film is a window, however we are meant to take that line.
Beyond these simple clarifications, there is almost nothing at all known about the Pruder Record. It would have been impossible for Georgie to make the movie: the trees are too tall, the forest unlike any on Earth. Georgie has never had a beard of that length in his life, but his facial hair in the film is clearly not fake. The special effects budget needed to replicate the the film would require millions that Georgie doesn't have, to speak nothing of a large team that has never come forward.
But perhaps we should consider the opening warning. Perhaps some things are for the creator to know alone.
