Behind the Scenes with the I-STARs

You can find the group photo featured in the thumbnail of this blog post on Chancellor Robert Jones’ Instagram at @illinichancellor here. I do not own the rights to this photo. It is, however, an honor to be in a photo featured alongside our awesome chancellor on his social media!

There are a few times in life that you get to be apart of something truly amazing and special, and this summer was one of those times. As you may or may not already know, I spent the summer at the University of Illinois (my university) campus being a tour guide for students.

A lot goes into becoming a tour guide like remembering fun facts, staying on schedule for your tour, and walking backwards. But what doesn’t always happen to those who are tour guides at universities is being apart of the welcome back for students of the upcoming semester. However, that is just what I and so many of my fellow I-STARs (that is what our job title is called) were able to do!

The filming that I was involved in only took a little while to accomplish, but all together we had to do it in two separate days. Scene number one was a group of us walking and clapping as Chancellor Jones received his name tag.

Since this was the first scene that I had helped film, the excitement was really getting to me. I felt nervous, of course, feeling like I would do something to ruing it like Lucille Ball in a classic I Love Lucy episode. Luckily, that didn’t happen and I ended up having a ton of fun!

Although my “role” was small, meeting Chancellor Jones and getting to be apart of this special scene was so much fun! It was especially interesting to see how things were set up and used for filming! Another aspect of filming that was really intriguing to me was how many takes we had to do. I didn’t count how many times we filmed the same scene over and over again, but I can tell you that my hands were red and itching from clapping by the end of it. But that is okay with me, I was just happy to be there!

Most of the video, as you will see, is filmed without all of the I-STARs being in it, but we did have another scene to film. Before the filming was finished we all gathered in a empty classroom to pretend we were being trained for the tour guide job. Once again, Chancellor Robert Jones was there and he was as kind and gracious as ever. Also, he had some pretty cool orange and blue socks on!

Because I was in the other group scene, I had to sit in the back of the class with the other I-STARs who were in that scene too. But that didn’t dampen my excitement of filming another scene for the welcome back video!

This time I wasn’t nervous. It was pure excitement and adrenaline running through me. I kept thinking about. all of the freshmen that I had helped schedule classes over the summer seeing this video and all of the people who had been on my tours. This was a moment to remember and to leave behind a little piece of my personal college experience.

All of the future college students will be able to do the same thing, and it doesn’t matter what university you attend! No matter what, you can leave a little bit of an impact wherever you are and you can make your time count for something. You have something to add and something to share.

But enough of my philosophies on life, we had a video to film. The director announced that he wanted us to do the stuff we would normally be doing when we first arrive to class. So me and two other I-STARs decided to pretend we had just gotten to the classroom by standing near a chair, talking, and sitting down.

Like the first scene we filmed, this one took a lot of takes. So the three of us were doing a lot of standing and sitting. It is needless to say that my knees were worn out after that.

Overall it was a really amazing experience, and something I will forever remember. I feel really lucky to have been apart of this welcome back video because of all the summers I could have been a tour guide on campus or doing anything else, I did it this summer. Because of that choice I have met some really amazing people, made some really amazing memories, and I have cemented a small little area for myself in the history of the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign.

If you like the game Where’s Waldo, you are going to love this next game called Where’s Sarah! Linked below is the official welcome back video from the University of Illinois’ YouTube channel. You can watch it and see if you can spot me! Me being pictured in the thumbnail is always pretty exciting, may I add.

Much Love,

Sarah

The finished project!