This season, Golden Eagle Productions celebrates 10 years of recording the annual Toilet Paper game.
What started as an idea and then formed into a club, Golden Eagle Productions now live streams every John Brown University home game world-wide.
The idea to record games came about when a group of students wanted to try something new. Initially, they wanted to film special events like graduation, but the fear of a mishap made them decide on basketball. Over the years, the club has moved to full HD live streams of home basketball, volleyball and soccer games. Even within the past couple of years, the club has branched out to filming a late night and sketch comedy show.
Darren Gould, the club’s faculty supervisor, described the formation of the group as being a miracle. “It’s a little like the Field of Dreams thing, ‘if you build it they will come.’ It really sort of has happened that way and it continues to blow my mind that if we try to do something and say ‘we feel like we should do this, let’s try it’ and then people show up and get involved and do it. It’s like wow, that actually worked,” Gould said.
Quintin Bailey, a sophomore kinesiology major and member of the basketball team, saw clips of the basketball team that solidified his decision to transfer to John Brown. “It looks really professional and high-end … I was like ‘wow it’s big time.’ It was really cool,” Bailey said. Being from New Zealand and knowing his family and friends can watch him live is very important. As far as the team goes, Bailey feels right at home. “The guys are good. There’s good team chemistry and everybody seems to get along which is huge in terms of playing a season. Everybody’s working very hard,” Bailey said.
Kyri Jones, a sophomore psychology major, began working for GEP as a way to get credit for a practicum. After doing that and enjoying the experience, Jones decided to take the position of show runner for Error 404: Show Not Found, a comedy show Jones describes as being “clean, wholesome comedy that will brighten anyone’s day.” The show still needs people willing to be involved with camera work, audio or lighting and even three males who want to be a part of the cast. Meetings for the show are at 5 pm on Mondays in the TV studio and filming takes place Thursdays from 4 pm to 7 pm.
Anyone interested in filming sports can get involved by talking to Gould. Golden Eagle Productions is a Co-curricular activity, allowing students to receive credit.
Student involvement and leadership are highlights for Gould. “I really like that the students are making the decisions on when to change the cameras and they’re actually running the cameras. They’re doing the actual labor and making the decisions like a regular professional crew would be doing. And the fact that they’re doing that is just amazing,” Gould said.