Today was our second event of MIT CPW (Campus Preview Weekend for prefrosh). We had two back-to-back activities lined up this afternoon. From 12-2 PM, MIT PN2K was out on the Student Center Front Steps, giving passing pre-frosh info about MIT PN2K and campus bike maps, as well as some little kids who passed by with their parents some tanuki stickers.
Pre-event planning consisted of moving boxes of items from our "office base" in Central Square to the Student Center Front Steps, with a detour to pick up John Reyes at Simmons who had begun to receive Amazon boxes filled with fun stuff over the past 1-2 days -- items ordered for our "Tykes for Bikes" kids' bike program (with thanks from the MIT Community Service Fund). There, we greeted Will, Dingfang, and Yaoming. Will did most of the talking with the prefrosh, and Tian joined us a bit later. Dingfang and Yaoming went around campus to take some shots of bike cages and useful scenes for our music video. I made Tian and John work with me to start brainstorming ideas for our "Get out of the bike lane!" sticker that we hope to plaster on vehicles illegally double-parked in bike lanes. We came up with some pretty fun ideas, that we shall hold in secret until final production! Let's just say, we came up with many versions, with the styles evolving from "adamant" to "crude"; we scratched those for "passive-aggressive" versions (think adamant message, tempered with smiley faces), but then John came up with some very simplistic, clever versions that we just might go with and iterate a bit more upon at our next meeting.
One of the most exciting things we ordered was a box of vehicles (including a boat, helicopter, huge truck, cars, traffic cones, and more!) for our "Tanuki" song video, which constituted the second part of our day (2-4:00 PM, filming for "What does the Tanuki Say?") The filming was at Northeastern University's Recording Studio in the Snell Library, which Yaoming helpfully reserved for us weeks in advance. I was on the first floor getting the Wifi password (note: MIT affiliates have free access to the Snell Library, just bring your MIT ID!), when I saw Yaoming and Dingfang coming down to fetch me. So I went up with them to the second floor; they said John Innes had already arrived ("He's very excited," Yaoming said with a smile, and Dingfang laughed, too). I finally reached the recording studio, and all I can say is that the place was impressive -- I'd never seen so much legit recording and audio equipment (I definitely saw a Mac Pro), and standing behind the microphones practicing with John Innes the most bizarre lyrics I've ever co-created with Carmel, I began to forget about being fearful or music-shy and began to focus on how the lyrics sounded and trying to produce quality work that Dingfang, Yaoming, and Rebecca could use for the video. Garrett, a guy/student who was working the studio at the time, thought we sounded great, as did Tian who joined us a bit later. I must say, singing was not something I thought I would do, but the entire experience was definitely a worthwhile one to have and to remember!
We will be holding future video sessions, and the final music video will be uploaded sometime in May, we predict. In the meantime, Dingfang created a snazzy little video that, for now, you can find on our facebook page here, titled "Tanuki Music Video Recording Session One" -- gives you an idea of the ambiance! Keep Calm & Pedal On, folks.
