Today we wrapped up a production project that started, improbably, in the summer of 2021. The last day of the shoot was in one of our new studios, Studio 9. (The last shoot of the year for IUSTV was simultaneously taking place one floor down, in Studio 7.) In 9 we had faculty from the School of Public Health talking about their work.

Each person that came through was even better than the last, with their titles and dual appointments and achievement. Almost all of them would much rather be doing their work than talking into a camera about it. So, today and these last few weeks, we’ve been coaxing performances from these seriously impressive people.

A few of them have done some on-camera work. Some were able to accept the contrived nature of a video production with ease. But a few, a few of them were extremely trepidatious about the prospect. These are the ones that are actually a lot of fun. If they can just get through 10 minutes of this, they can stop dreading this thing they’ve been ducking for a while, and get on to their weekend and finals, to summer and research. They’re also the ones that take the best coaching.

One woman just raced through her mic check, like she was an air traffic controller who just finished her auctioneering course. I said straightaway, I can already tell, you’re going to want to slow down. She raced through her first take. I pointed it out. She slowed down for the casual parts of her second take, but again raced through the names and titles and terminologies. She tried once more and I stood next to the camera, just nodded my head along to her script, and she slipped into that rhythm. It was good fun.

One woman was so complimentary of our work with her, because of the coaching that we offered, the encouragement from our ace production students who were crewing the project, and how painless they made it. After one of her takes, I said to her, “I don’t know if you noticed it, but there was a place in there, an exact syllable, where you relaxed and everything slipped into place.”

One of the guys was very expressive. Someone said he was using his face well, and we decided he should keep using his face. Somehow, I have to work that into regular usage.

Anyway, next week I can take this project of the tote board. I figured, we’ve been slowly marching to this moment since June of 2021, I can stretch out the feeling of achievement for one more day.

Late this evening I took a bike ride, ticking one more Makuri Island stage off the list. It was just 27 miles, but it was late at night and I was moving fast. I set three new Strava PRs. I finished sixth on the first sprint, had the third-best time on the second and third sprints, and won a green jersey on the fourth sprint. (I am not a sprinter.)

Also, this was a scenic route. I could ride on roads like this all day, even if they’re just virtual.

There’s a charming little village to breeze through. If you go through at night the lanterns give off a great ambiance.

And then, just as soon as you leave that little digital village, you round a curve, and there’s a Mount Fuji facsimile.

The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 103 routes down, 26 to go.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2023 at 9:12 pm and is filed under cycling, Friday, IU. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.