IRC building at Ferris State

The Interdisciplinary Resource Center Building (IRC for short) is a major building of note at Ferris State University. Originally a separate building, it became attached by way of a new vestibule added on in 2008 and 2009 to the College of Business building.

Description
The IRC contained several state-of-the-art classrooms, an open walkway, a Starbucks, and the TV studio in its basement. The lounge / lobby area served as a vestibule connecting the main IRC classroom areas to the much-older College of Business main building. Featuring prominently in that lobby from the fall of 2009 until at least the end of the spring of 2010, was a Starbucks.

Fall 2007
The first-known instance of the IRC being used by the Dozerfleet founder for a class was the audio production class TVPR 136. Not much survived of project work from this class; but The Trapezoid Kids' "All Your Shapes Are Belong to Us" and the Apple Pecan Lodge ad did. Both AYSABTU and Apple Pecan Lodge ads were submitted to a room in the FLITE Library on completion, however, rather than in IRC.

Spring 2008
In the basement TV studio setup, there was a main stage area, a live production lab, and a higher-up lab for magazine-format show editing. The live production lab doubled as a classroom for Studio Operations class (TVPR 389.) Of that, only one paper from the class has survived in a presentable format online: an ATSC summary.

"Service Workers," an episode of Who's Who at FSU? was shot in this lab during this semester. It was produced by the Dozerfleet founder, who struggled to get talents to appear for it. It was followed up by "The Ferris State Criminal Justice Program," an episode of Beyond the Campus that focused on where CJ students went upon graduation. Both episodes of both shows were shot for the junior media production class: TVPR 345.

Perhaps most notably in the spring semester of 2008, the Dozerfleet founder was inspired to draft a pitch for Volkonir. While the initial pitch and script were very crude compared to current Volkonir standards, it was a start. This was for the Video Production 2 class. Inspired by The Sherpa Sheriff, most of the class wanted to make hardcore action thrillers. However, limitations resulted in most of the class settling for wanting to make slasher or zombie flicks instead. Having already made a mock-J-horror five years prior, the Dozerfleet founder elected to make a fantasy film instead. However, the zombie-and-serial-killer-obsessed class distanced themselves from him on account of this. When backup actors failed to present themselves, Volkonir got a prequel instead: Volkonir Journals: Attempt #43, with the title a nod to a line from the YouTube parody series Zeroes (making fun of Heroes.)

Summer 2009
Dozerfleet wasn't involved directly in anything on campus in the summer of 2009. However, the founder's classmates set out on their own to make a film called Pine Springs, which he would gladly have been a part of if he'd qualified for any classes that would warrant the grant money. Lack of grant money for the summer being the case, he had to stay behind in Grand Ledge, while the crew went on without him.

Fall 2009
Two classes were of note happening here. One of them was a film history analysis class, in which all that has survived to the present is a paper about Hitchcock's film Rebecca. The other class was TVPR 389, the practicum class. While main class sessions were held in Bishop Hall, several scenes in Blood Over Water were shot in IRC:


 * The scene in part 2 where Aaron meets up with Chris to discuss Mark going missing was shot several times in the IRC. The first take on this had a Starbucks logo in the background, which could have led to broadcast safety issues with regards to reckless product placement that Starbucks didn't appreciate.
 * This scene had to be re-shot in a different part of the IRC, on demands from instructor Nathan Meadows - but not because of Starbucks. Instead, the instructor took issue with how Chris and Aaron come off so coldly in their meeting.  A latter part of the production had Aaron claim that he and Mark treated Chris "like family," and the line's implications are not supported anywhere else in footage.
 * Actors Chris and Zach were instructed to "man-hug" each other on greeting, to make it clear that they were "like family" in the teacher's eyes. Chris Wilson took issue with this, claiming that it would make him "look gay" to be seen that way.
 * Re-edits for broadcast removed the actual hugging part, in order to make Chris happy.
 * Part 5 shows Chris in a slightly different part of IRC, looking up and getting ready to walk away from Clyde and Sleet Mountain forever.

Spring 2010
Finally, Spring 2010 saw the beginning of senior sequence. TVPR 499, Advanced Producing and Directing, saw many papers submitted in an IRC classroom. While Seminar and Instruction Design were held in Bishop, IRC was the main building for producing live episodes for Ferris State Live and magazine sketches for episodes of Ferris in Focus. The lab for Ferris in Focus was also where ads were shot to fill content both for Fox 32 Cadillac segment showings of Ferris State Live and for ad filler on the Ferris Access Channel pertaining to Ferris in Focus and its runtime. The ads shot that semester were one for Mancino's, one for Gilberts' Carpets Plus, one for Fox 32 Cadillac, one for Innovative Grafix, and one for Big Rapids Furniture.

The class decorated the lab with various posters to spruce it up; including a Dark Knight poster featuring Heath Ledger's Joker and a 3D lenticular Marvel poster. A puppy poster was chosen to make the girls happy; but more of the guys wound up liking it. The Dark Knight poster was later replicated for inclusion in The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff.

After meeting Cara at the Rec Center, the Dozerfleet founder was puzzled as to her suddenly vanishing. She later explained that she was abducted by the city after an unfounded rumor started by an RA that she didn't get along with. The false arrest was conveniently timed to just two weeks before finals, in order to ensure she was held on flimsy charges until after finals - in a bid to get her expelled. She was later released with all charges dropped, when it was clear that there was no grounds for a conviction. When asked if she would sue the city, she claimed to not need to. Her story later inspired that of Karla Wimberton, a friend of Hank Froli's in the remake of Blood Over Water.

Trivia
This building in its entirety was considered for a build for The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff; but turned down due to lot size requirements and complexity. At the time, The Sims 4 still did not play well with the concept of split levels - which were needed for the IRC basement.

Further viewing

 * IRC on Google Maps