News Story

A team consisting of Media School faculty, students, and alumni is in the midst of producing the first ever Little 500 docuseries. In collaboration with the IU Student Foundation, “Two Days in April” aims to give audiences a more personal and in-depth look at the largest intramural bike race in the country.

The documentary series is funded through a gift from Tom Miller, BAJ’12, who directed the 2015 Little 500 documentary titled “One Day in April.” Unlike a conventional docuseries, “Two Days in April” is produced and edited for social media.

Episode one, titled “Dedication,” is available to view now on the IU Sports Media YouTube and Instagram. The episode focuses on the history of the race, dives into the commitment it takes to be a part of the race, and how the cyclists form deep bonds on and off the race track.

Brian Johnson, the director of “Two Days in April,” is a Media School graduate student studying documentary filmmaking. He said he wants to showcase a larger story about the Little 500 and what it means to be a part of the event.

“I never want to lose sight of the riders as people and their struggles and triumphs,” Johnson said. “I’m not interested in stories that focus on events, specifically. I want to know the people behind the events.”

As the director, Johnson said he tries to film cyclists doing laps at the race track at least once a week. He’s also conducting interviews and working to capture the reason students join a Little 500 team when it takes so much hard work and physical effort.

“There’s no money and they don’t get a prize,” he said. “But there are riders out here every day — even when the weather is crappy. They’re out on the streets, out on the state highway. It’s all about that camaraderie. I don’t think anybody would be out here if it was an individual race.”

“Two Days in April” is Johnson’s first time working on a sports documentary, and he said it has a natural excitement built into it that helps add energy and excitement into the project.

For Emma Watson, a Media School senior studying sports media and multicam production, “Two Days in April” will be her third year working to produce media content for Little 500. Watson is the student producer for the docuseries and said her experience with the race gives her insight and enables her to do a lot of the interviews.

“My job is to not only take into account who the commentators are going to be but also what the storylines are, what graphics to show and what music we’re going to use,” she said. “You’re like a conductor and telling a symphony. And sometimes, it’s not harmonious. Your job as a producer is to take what is given and make a good product of it.”

For Watson, her work to produce content for the race is deeply personal and emotional. She said the first time she worked as a student producer for the Little 500 in 2022 forever changed the trajectory of her career because it proved that sports production is something she can do.

“I remember every single lap of those two races and the adrenaline going through me,” she said about her first time working as a student producer for the race. “I can also tell you what happened when we finished the men’s race. I collapsed out of exhaustion and joy and I started to cry. It was the coolest experience and the closest I’d gotten to a professional broadcast at that point. Just to say that I did something like that felt like a huge accomplishment.”

Watson also said April is an interesting time in Bloomington because the media shifts its focus from basketball to the Little 500, and local media outlets need lots of coverage. She said the student help can be really beneficial.

This year, alongside Watson, a team of other Media School students will work as reporters for the race, collecting b-roll footage and conducting interviews to give audiences Little 500 play-by-plays and broadcasts.

Galen Clavio, the executive producer of “Two Days in April,” wants the docuseries to reflect that the Little 500 is more than a social event for college students. As the Media School director of undergraduate studies, the head of the sports media program and the director of the Sports Journalism Center, he believes in the power of visual media in the social media era, and hopes the docuseries shows audiences another side of the race.

“That kind of storytelling is incredibly powerful and effective at introducing people to something they’re not familiar with already,” Clavio said. “Shorter form, personal story-driven things can give you individual insights to open your mind and heart to an event you might’ve not paid attention to.”

Clavio also plans to produce a new season of the “Two Days in April” docuseries each year.

“I look at this as the first season in a multi-story arc,” he said. “Every year, we build on this. We have interweaving narratives that run from season to season.”

With contributions from Media School students and across different fields of study, Clavio said the docuseries is exactly the kind of converged media project we should be striving for.

The first two episodes of the first season of “Two Days in April” are available to view on the IU Sports Media YouTube and Instagram accounts.