Today’s Workout
I mentioned last week that I flew to Atlanta to film a video for Mizuno.
I suppose I should start at the very beginning of the story. If you have been reading my blog for awhile then you may remember that I received a free pair of Mizuno Inspire 9s last year through the Mezamashii Project.
Mizuno created the Mezamashii Project to help runners find their “brilliant run.” Rather than spend a lot money on advertising, they sent free pairs of shoes out to runners and let word of mouth and social media be their advertising.
Fast forward to about two weeks ago – I received an email from Mizuno saying that they saw I had received the shoes and blogged about them and would I possibly be interested in helping spread the word about the Mezamashii Project?
Of course I would. I love my Mizunos. I figured they wanted a blog post or something along those lines. I was wrong.
Long story short – I ended up submitting a super quick video talking about myself and running. I wasn’t even going to make the video because I am not very comfortable behind the camera - which is why I blog and not vlog. I figured they were maybe going to make a compilation video with bits of pieces of different runners stories.
Wrong again.
I filmed my video in one take, no edit, and sent it off assuming I’d never hear from them again.
Did you guess that I was wrong again?
After a few days, I was contacted by the producer and asked if I would like to fly to Atlanta, Georgia the following week to film an online video about Mizuno’s Mezamashii Run Project.
Yes. Yes, I would.
Luckily, we got it all worked out with the kids, my niece, and Danny’s work. It was a really quick trip, so it worked out well.
There were about six other people (that I met) that also flew out to film the video including Amy from Running Escapades, Michele from NYC Running Mama, and Louise from Runner’s Ramblings. Some of the others were there the whole week filming. My part was smaller so I was only there a short time.
I left Wednesday afternoon and flew home Thursday night.
I flew into Atlanta the same time as Amy and one of the Team Mizuno members from Texas. We were picked up from the airport and taken to our hotel. We stayed at the W Hotel in Atlanta. Since Amy and I didn’t shoot until the next day, we dropped our stuff off in our rooms, freshened up a bit, and then went out to dinner.
We lingered over dinner, eating and talking about running and blogging. Amy is so nice and gave me a lot of great advice on running gear (I’ll be looking into those aspaeris compression shorts).
Mizuno goody bag:
While some of the other people were filmed running and sharing their running stories, my part was a smaller part - talking on film at the Mizuno warehouse.
A driver picked us up from the hotel on Thursday and took us to the Mizuno warehouse.
After waiting around for quite awhile and changing into Mizuno clothes and being approved by wardrobe, it was my turn to film.
Food on set:
My part of the video is basically talking to the other members of the Mezamashii community about the cool things that Mizuno has planned. I was originally given a script, but then they decided to just give us bullet points to talk about so it sounded more natural, like I was talking normally without having a memorized script.
Although my part wasn’t too long, it takes a long time because they have you say your lines over and over and over until you get it perfect.
I was a little nervous going into it because I wasn’t sure what to expect, but surprisingly when I got behind the camera, I was totally fine. Yes, of course I messed up a few times, but I didn’t feel nervous while speaking. I think it helped that the director was so incredibly nice and made me feel totally comfortable and told me that it was expected that I messed up.
So, I did my little speaking part on camera, and they had me repeat the last line over and over again with a different smile every time. Apparently, my real smile was a little too big and fake looking. It’s hard to smile so many different ways when you’re used to smiling how you smile. So, if you happen to watch the video and I seem normal the whole time and then I smile all crazy at the end, you’ll know why.
Waiting to film:
It was such a wonderful experience that I was so lucky to be given the opportunity to do. I got to see what it was like on a real commercial set and meet some incredibly nice people and bloggers. Everyone I met the entire trip was nothing but nice and friendly. For me, it really was a once in a lifetime experience.
A big thank you to Mizuno for letting me be part of their project.
Even though I was gone a short time, Danny missed me and brought me flowers when he picked up at the airport. How sweet.
I’m not exactly sure when the video will be online, but I believe that it will be sometime in July. I’ll keep you posted if you want to see it! In the meantime, you can sign up to be part of the Mezamashii Community and learn more about Mizuno!
Have a great day!
