Yesterday we brought you an exclusive Eventing Nation Puhinui video of rides and audio interviews that I put together with Russell Hall. YouTube is limited to ten minutes per video, and since yesterday’s ran to nine minutes and change, we decided to give Erik Duvander, Kiwi High Performance Team Leader, a film all of his own, “because he’s worth it”! I’ve known Erik for longer than I’d want to admit, back when he was competing against Mark Todd, Andrew Nicholson et al. They all used to have yards within hacking distance of each other, in fact I believe Erik was even based with Mark for a while, and the easy, genuine friendship they all share was so obvious and such a delight to see again at WEG. I was constantly bumping into them at the WEGs, traveling in a pack, with Jock too–the rookie addition who put up with endless teasing in very good spirits. It has been a change though to see Erik as coach, and the respect they have for him, rightfully so. I was glad to catch a few words with him now that the Games can be put in some perspective, and to have a general conversation about his duties as Team Leader!
My interview with Erik Duvander from the other side of the world:
Making the videos: Russell Hall and I came up with the notion of doing this video while we were discussing the level of debate that my posting of Jock Paget’s helmet cam ride on Clifton Pinot had generated last week. I may also have been moaning about the Kentucky weather and wishing I lived, or at least owned a winter home down under. Regardless, at the time, it seemed like there was an interest, and for me, this might be the next best thing to being there. We may have separately regretted the decision several times over the many hours we spent working on these two videos these last several days. I did, inevitably, confuse the hours and end up having to run out of a movie leaving my best friend in the cinema alone on Friday night, sorry Meredith, and I did bail on my other best friends on Saturday night, when Lizzie Brown got corralled by the sponsors after the prize-giving, and couldn’t come straight out to talk to us, as planned and ran later and later and later. Basically I spent most of the weekend on vampire time, hunched over my laptop, talking, typing, tearing my hair out, and working on this. Russell may have drawn the aces weather wise, but he definitely did the lion’s share of the work. First he had to co-ordinate interviews with the riders, with Erik, he almost caught Mark Todd before he left but we were a couple of hours too late, perhaps next time. Then, working with a 17 hour time difference, we recorded the interview via Skype, on my computer my end, and Russell recorded them via video his end. I then edited all the audio, and sent that back to him in an MP3 file, which he then had to edit again, to swap his “clean”, non-crackly trans-atlantic answers over my version. Next the real Russell magic: putting the video together, and adding the audio on top, editing that, uploading that (hours), finally sending it back to me, and to Eventing Nation for final approval. Final approval from me, personally, doesn’t come close to what I felt, I am so proud to be a part of this project, and hope that we collaborate on many more; my mind still boggles that some three days later we can bring you footage and interviews of an international three day event that took place the other side of the world.
Thank you to Erik for talking to EventingNation.com. Thank you to Russell Hall for all your work in this collaboration, and thank you for watching. Go Eventing Down Under!
