Jirasek contributes to ABC’s Solve It pilot
IU Journalism senior Molly Jirasek and The Media School shared on-screen credit in last week’s Solve It pilot show on ABC.
The new show from ABC News premiered April 8 and featured the disappearance and still-unknown fate of IU student Lauren Spierer.
Jirasek said ABC contacted her last summer to shoot reenactment video around Bloomington for the piece. The producers particularly wanted point-of-view footage, requiring Jirasek to walk where Spierer had walked before she went missing.
“It was weird walking in her shoes because I had never really understood where it was she went missing,” Jirasek said. “Physically tracing her path was kind of eerie when there was suddenly nowhere else to go.”
ABC’s producers and writers provided her with a clear set of instructions and a tight deadline. Due to her familiarity with Bloomington’s changing downtown, Jirasek was able to collaborate with the producers and help create the vision that ultimately aired on the national network.
“I had to explain how the downtown landscape had changed since her disappearance and why some shots weren’t obtainable,” she said, “and those things mattered to the case as well.”
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