There is no shortage of weird jobs out there, especially in Hollywood, but this one might take the cake: A recent New York Times article profiles the self-described “Blur Man Group,” a.k.a. the people responsible for obscuring all of the sensitive body parts on the hit show Naked and Afraid.
While blurring boobs and crotches might not exactly be new work, the sheer amount of nakedness on Naked and Afraid has made it a full-time job for five visual-effects artists. Sound excessive? Each blur must be done frame-by-frame. It takes 50 hours to blur one episode with a run time of 42 minutes. The artists also work hard to make sure that the blurs are as inconspicuous as possible, as the Times puts it, to make it “smaller and smoother” than the average blur job on TV.
The success of the show rests in the hands of the production company. An insufficiently blurred body part could lead to lawsuits and jeopardize one of the biggest shows on Discovery.
While the job isn’t without its dramatic moments (the only woman on the team, 27-year-old Ilgin Esemenli, is quoted as saying, “I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before” — while looking "a little pale"), the Blur Men emphasize that it can be tedious, like any other desk job, albeit one with a unique set of requirements.
Adam Burns, one of the supervisors of the team, told The Times, “I can recognize a nipple from 600 yards in the background behind a leaf at this point.” Not exactly something you’d see on most people’s LinkedIn profiles, but a marketable skill nonetheless.
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