Safety Third started as a video journal project to document a week at the 2007 Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada. Over the course of the week I witnessed my campmate Jason slowly loosing his grip on reality. He went missing for several 24 hour periods each time returning acting more strangely. Having never seen a person go insane, I mistook his erratic behavior for drug abuse and filmed a lot of it.

By the last day of the festival he was missing again and the police returned him to camp nearly naked, badly sunburnt and babbling incessantly about hell, pyramids, space stations, and the illuminati. I got him in the van and assured the police that I would take him home but this was just the beginning of my journey.

Eight hours later I pulled the van into a Reno Motel 6. Jason never ceased his frenetic monologue and the humor in the situation had worn off many miles ago. I suspected he had ingested a large amount of psychedelic drugs and that if he got some sleep he would be back to normal the next day.

Unfortunately I lost him in Reno and when I located him he was incarcerated in Nevada's correctional facilities. His girlfriend informed me by telephone that Jason has a history of mental illness. I posted bail for him on an assault charge and four sherifs reluctantly released a happy lunatic into my custody.

It was a long drive home.

I spent some time editing the footage, Jason spent some more time in jail and mental hospitals. Many months later I decided it was wrong to show this footage to anyone as it seemed to exploit an unfortunate situation, but somehow Jason found a rough cut of the piece and approached me saying he liked it. He agreed to shoot a follow up interview one year later and we sat down and talked about what had happened and why.