I was initially approached back in July by a filmmaker named Jason Meath, who explained that he was doing a documentary on Colorado politics and wanted to ask me some questions on campaign spending and demographic shifts in the state. As these are issues I’ve researched and taught, I happily granted the interview. My university’s communications office signed off on it, and I even checked out the filmmaker’s Web site to look at some of his past work. Everything seemed fine. The questions seemed perfectly neutral in tone, and I thought my answers came off well. I heard nothing more about this for months.
A few weeks ago, I was informed that Citizens United was putting together a film concerning the gubernatorial race in Colorado. I was also informed that I was in it. This was rather stunning to me. I suspected that this might have stemmed from the earlier Meath interview, but I couldn’t be sure, and my e-mails to the filmmaker went unanswered. Only last week did I learn that that interview was one of many used in the making of “Rocky Mountain Heist.”