Full Sail Stories

Full Sail grad Gabriel Acuña Garnier never imagined himself being a podcast producer, let alone for one co-hosted by one of the world’s most famous cyclists. Over the past year though, he’s been working on THEMOVE podcast featuring Lance Armstrong.

THEMOVE has been ranked as one of the top sports-focused podcasts on Apple Podcasts and was also featured on Peacock during the most recent Tour de France. Gabriel describes his duties working on the series as doing “everything besides the talking.”

He remotely sets up a live video stream of the show for paid subscribers, serves as a Zoom host, ensures the sessions are being recorded, switches cameras among the co-hosts and guests, and makes notes about where to make edits in post-production. In addition to Lance Armstrong, the show features accomplished cyclist George Hincapie and media personality J.B. Hager. The crew spends a month in Aspen, Colorado each summer during the Tour de France for live, in-person sessions in a studio where Gabriel manages the production.

He also identifies and captures short segments from each episode to help promote THEMOVE on social media.

“I pay attention to any Lance-related clips, Lance’s opinions,” he explains. “I’m always looking for juicy things and any opinions related to the races. I also pull things that will make me laugh or that sound interesting.”

Before he was a podcast producer, Gabriel grew up in Costa Rica. He learned about Full Sail in high school and went on to study digital cinematography at the university. As an online international student, he says he felt very included in the Full Sail community. The online curriculum also taught him to be more self-disciplined, a skill he has carried with him to effectively handle lots of remote work.

He found his job at THEMOVE through Full Sail’s online career portal, CareerSync. It was J.B. Hager, a co-host and producer of the podcast and Content Director for WEDŪ Media (THEMOVE’s parent company), who brought Gabriel on board in 2023. He says he had doubts he could find someone with the diverse skill set he needed – so he turned to Full Sail for help.

“What stood out to me about Gabriel is that he can do it all. Looking at his resume and reel, he could write, storyboard, shoot, edit, and do just about everything required to make a film,” J.B. shares. “He has more than lived up to my expectations and is a great sounding board.”

According to Gabriel, working in the podcast space has been exciting and unique.

“Podcasts are an opportunity to learn about different things and get inspired,” he says. “It's a fun medium to play around with and have interesting conversations [in].”

And what’s it like working with a big name like Lance Armstrong?

“He’s pretty much like the guy you see on TV,” Gabriel says. “He pushes you to be your best self. He treats people very well. He and I share a birthday, and he sent me a signed racing jersey for mine.”