Welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and video

graduates about the industry, the film/video major and alumni profiles.

Welcome everybody to the podcast series covering the history

of Grand Valley Television.

With me is a cohort of many of my good old friends, who joined me

from around 2016 to roughly 2021.

Can I have Gillian Noonan, please introduce yourself real quick.

I'm Gillian Noonan.

I was a producer of Late Night Brew on a late night talk

show while I was in school.

And then I was actually Kyle's Vice President my junior year, and then I was

President of the station my senior year.

It only seems right to follow that up with, Mary, considering that

you followed Gillian as President.

I was in charge of Laker News for most of the time, because

of my journalism background.

I was the news director, vice president, and then president for pretty short

times just because of when I graduated.

I think it's only fair that we just follow up with your husband.

Noah Genson.

I started, working on the sports show, After the Whistle; producer

for After the Whistle for a year, year and a half; and I was sports

director for my last semester for GVTV.

Excellent.

Savannah, let's just go ahead and throw it to you.

I'm Savannah and I did a lot of work with Late Night Brew and I ended up

being a producer and co-head writer of Late Night Brew for a little

while, right before the pandemic.

And I did just a bunch of other random stuff, kind of all my years at GVTV.

Thanks for giving us the foreshadowing, Savannah that our era ends with.

A bit of a bummer.

We're gonna get to that later.

Harley, do you wanna follow that one up?

Hi, I'm Harley Collar.

I worked on Late Night Brew, and a bunch of other things on GVTV.

I also co-produced Black Box, and was the studio manager at one point.

I remember you were in 2020-2021, studio manager.

I think you followed up Noah here, who I'm gonna ask to introduce himself.

Hi, I'm Noah Houchlei.

I was the studio manager at my time at GVTV and I worked on Late Night Brew

mostly, but pretty much anything that required someone to hold a boom pole.

Thanks for that, Noah.

You were the certified boom operator for our time there.

My name is Kyle Macciomei.

I started off working on a show called Catastrophe, foreshadowing that the show

was a catastrophe to make and produce.

This was followed by my time as writer And then I was president for a year,

with Gillian as my vice president.

Thanks everyone for being here.

This is great that we get the chance to catalog the history of GVTV.

It was a very formative time period for me.

It's time that I took very seriously and I got a lot out of.

So I'm glad that we all get to chat about it.

Everyone just gave their introductions of what they did on the show, I think

it'd also be really great if everyone could just really briefly, one sentence

summary what they're doing right now.

I work, at GVSU full-time creating educational video in

their e-learning department.

I am a project manager at a production company here in Grand

Rapids called Ideology Productions.

I am a journalist and a photographer in the Ann Arbor area.

I am a middle school teacher in the Ann Arbor area.

I am an administrative assistant and I do freelance production design.

I work at GRTV and I do, shorts on the side.

I work at GVSU and make them e-learning materials and other content for teachers.

Thanks everyone, for that brief about where you're at right now.

I think that we're gonna be able to tell a lot of stories about how they

tie in together with our times at GVTV, which I think is gonna be very valuable.

If it's okay, I'm gonna set the scene for GVTV in 2016, which is that

when I enter it as a baby freshman.

Was probably my third day on campus.

I go to a meeting that was a little intimidating, as I'm sure a lot of

people will probably recite to as well.

It was very packed, it was very active, and it seemed like a full fledged

kind of production was going on.

GVTV presented itself as the hub for all of the filmmakers.

If you were a film major, you should be in GVTV was the kind of vibe that I got.

Which I didn't think at first, 'cause I didn't imagine the

filmmakers would be drawn there.

But ultimately it's the place that had the equipment, it's the place that had the

studio, and it's the place where all of these creative people gravitated towards.

At the time, the journalism side of it, the news program and sports programming,

they were there but I would say they were almost kind of on life support.

The last few major leaders were still holding the torch, but they were about to

graduate and leave this kind of vacuum.

2016 is this era where the filmmakers start taking over and they kind

of hold onto that for quite a few more years until we're able to fill

that leadership gap again and start bringing in new talent for specifically

Laker News and After the Whistle.

I know that I showed up to the first meeting and then I didn't

show up again for another semester.

I was just intimidated.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I just kinda got scared.

And for a whole fall semester I didn't do anything, until finally I was still

on their mailing list and a producer had reached out via email, and he said,

"Hey, I'm producing this show called Catastrophe and I'm looking for help."

And I said, "Well, I can help." And I was one of only two people who showed

up to that meeting, which means that I got to direct the second episode.

And that's kind of how things go sometimes.

Showing up really is half the battle.

And as I said before, Catastrophe was kind of a catastrophe.

We'll talk about more of that later, but it's this reoccurring theme of doing

too much and making things too big.

We were gonna do 10 episodes a year, each episode was gonna be 40 minutes,

each episode was gonna feature 10 different cast members in this office,

mockumentary style kind of show.

We made it through like four episodes and it kind of killed everyone and

we all hated each other by the end.

So I was looking for an escape.

I accepted an e-board position as PR even though I had zero experience in marketing

or anything like that literally because, again, I was the only one who applied.

So that just kind of shows you what you get for showing up.

And then I realized that Catastrophe was a sinking ship, so I ditched it and I tried

to join this other show called Late Night Brew, with this late night comedy sketch.

I come on as a writer, and then a crew hand, and then eventually kind of

doing a lot more in every aspect of it.

The next year follows and I'll say that this is the part where a lot of you start

coming into the picture, I feel like.

Everyone who is a part of Late Night Brew, which is basically everyone

here except for Noah Genson, I'm gonna popcorn around, talk about how you got

started with Late Night Brew and then what it meant for you at the time.

And I'm gonna start with Harley, if that's all right?

Yeah.

I remember the first meeting I ever went to for GVTV I was super, super excited.

I was like, yes, this is my first time getting hands on like equipment

that I can use and basically creative freedom to do whatever I want.

I think I came into that with an idea for a show, and I remember

hearing about Late Night Brew and how you guys wanted segments.

After pitching my segment, I remember just also being part of

other things with late Night Brew.

Being there during the shoots, I think I was also one of the writers for

the news segment on Late Night Brew.

And I just got sucked in.

Fantastic.

Mary, do you wanna follow that one up?

I joined Late Night Brew right away, because there

wasn't a huge space with news.

That was what I was into at the time, but being a freshman, I wasn't really

gonna just take that on first meeting.

I needed a space and everyone was going to Late Night Brew and there

was a lot of freshmen that year.

I don't know if that's abnormal for other years, but I just remember there being

a lot and everyone was really friendly.

I remember Savannah specifically was really welcoming and she was kind of like,

"Hey, let's go to this meeting!" And so, I just followed the crowd there and it

ended up being really fun so I stayed.

Comedy wasn't like the main reason I did GVTV, it was for the news, but it

was really cool to be in that space.

And I still did it as the years went on, just because I thought it

was fun, and the people were fun.

But I can't really remember specifically how much I contributed

as far as like skits and stuff.

Think I was just along for the ride and helping set up stuff.

And that's similar I think to what I was doing with that show I was talking

about, Catastrophe, where I just kind of showed up and I said, "I'm just here

to help." Then if you just do that long enough and you just are reoccurring,

reliable figure, people start giving you responsibility pretty quickly.

Savannah, you wanna follow?

Sure thing.

I went to my very first GVTV meeting and I remember that we had split off

into different shows and they had said something about Late Night Brew and I

was like, that's the jackpot for me.

That's exactly what I wanna do is like comedy television.

Like that's everything I want.

And after that I kept going to meetings and not really doing anything quite

yet, but there was someone else that I had met, Carter Penny, who had

kind of roped me into being in this friend group that had kind of taken

over Late Night Brew a little bit.

And that's also why I was so welcoming to Mary.

I grabbed her and a few other people, and the freshman attacked Late Night

Brew and it was a really good time.

Noah, could you follow that one up?

Absolutely.

I kind of just got a good pitch in one of the film classes about GVTV.

Came in one day and just found a group.

They were working on a horror project called Alone.

And, instantly just, " Alright Noah, you can come in and you can hold, boom on

this one." And I just got sucked in the same way everyone did to Late Night Brew.

And then after Alone was done, I went off into Late Night Brew, became studio

manager there and boom op extraordinaire.

Gillian, do you wanna follow that up with the transition from Alone to Late Night

Brew and maybe explain what Alone was?

Yeah, Alone was a fiction show that was kind of like a thriller,

mystery, touch of horror.

There was some special effects.

I worked on that my freshman year with Noah Houchlei.

And then I was also doing a segment on Late Night Brew called Haas Hunters.

Which is so cringey to look back on, but I'm proud of myself for

making something with my friends and putting myself out there.

But the premise was me running around campus in camo trying

to find President Haas.

And then I moved into a producer position my sophomore year

with Kyle as head writer.

And I got to live direct Late Night Brew, cause we had an in studio

portion that was in the GVTV studio.

And we had two hosts that we'd switch between a main cam,

side cams, things like that.

And then that would be intermixed with segments, which people

have been mentioning that they had their own segments.

And what was great about Late Night Brew is that could be reoccurring

segments or they could be one-off segments and they allowed people

to get to actually make things.

That's the cool thing about GVTV is that you get to actually make what you

wanna make, with gear available to you.

So that's one of the reasons I love Late Night Brew is 'cause it

was such a great mixture of live broadcast on top of fiction segments.

So yeah, that's what I did.

Gillian, thank you for giving me this ramp to talk about what the

environment was around 2016-2017.

I entered to GVTV in a period where there was kind of this scarcity mindset.

I think for good reason.

'Cause everyone who showed up to GVTV wanted to have their own show.

And there was just this recognition well, not everyone gets to have their

own show, so if you wanna have a show you gotta kind of be here for a while.

You gotta pay your dues, and then you gotta pitch at the end of the semester and

say, "Hey, I wanna do a show, and here's what the pitch is gonna be." And then

the whole of GVTV votes on whether or not they think that you should get a show.

By the time that I become president, we get rid of that

system because, hey, if you've got an idea, if it's good we'll do it.

And you don't have to go through this whole rigamarole.

But at the time, Late Night Brew was the easiest on-ramp, because Late

Night Brew is this sketch comedy thing where they're compiling usually

3, 4, 5 segments into each episode.

So you can just make a segment and even if it's bad, like who cares?

It's only one of five as opposed to being a part of the whole.

So, this was really useful to be able to get your start somewhere.

And I think that that's just a good mindset in general to have.

The biggest thing is that you just need to go through the repetitious

cycle of creating things and then reflecting on the thing you created

and then start creating again.

And I think it's a problem for like, when I was talking about the show

Catastrophe, 'cause we were trying to just do so much and we didn't have

time to just breathe and reflect and have a moment to be like, "Oh, this

is working and this isn't working".

'Cause we were trying to make these 40 minute episodes, one after the other,

after the other, after the other, and then we just experience intense burnout.

So Late Night Brew is great for that, where you get to have these shorter things

that are all kind of working together.

Does anyone have a real favorite thing that they ever made with Late Night Brew?

Can I say my favorite one that you made?

of course.

The French New Wave with Griffin one.

That's also kind of the favorite thing that I ever made there.

That was perfect.

My favorite thing was definitely the one shot that we did

towards the end of the show.

we made a big finale episode and there was, gosh, 5-10 minute

long one take that we moved all throughout the building of Kirkhof.

And we just had all of our crew members populating the shot.

And it was just really special because it was a fun way to end it

and just kind of see everyone who actually participated in it on camera.

And it was a big feat.

We moved all throughout Kirkhof and we did rehearsals and then we shot it.

Like that's impressive.

I would've to agree with Gillian.

That one shot was so much fun, as stressful as it was.

Especially with all the little references to everything

that's been on Late Night Brew.

It was just such a special thing to make.

The one shot that we did made me think of the 48 hour challenge.

All of us working together and all of us, doing it constantly for

a very short period of time and throughout the whole school basically.

Yeah, that was a really good time.

I love film challenges like that because it gives you just the

opportunity to go all out in one period.

So many times people would say like, "Oh, I want to make something." And then

they talk about making it for so long and then it just never comes to fruition.

And that's just a normal part of filmmaking.

It's just difficult to make anything.

But what's great about a challenge like that is it just says " Hey, you and

other people, you're gonna be committed.

You're not gonna do anything else.

No distractions.

You have to have a final deliverable." And I remember we did it two years.

The third year we tried to start our own challenge for other people to

do, and then a pandemic happened.

But the first two were really valuable for me.

I got to direct both of them.

The first one was a script we wrote, which was inspired by Bo Burnham, who did a left

hemisphere, right hemisphere sketch once.

And we decided to write a script about a character who's deciding if he wants to

come out of the closet to his parents.

And the left brain, right brain are kind of having this argument

about whether they should do it.

The short is relatively good for what it is, but also it was like two years

later that I just realized there were like 22 people involved in making this.

I don't think a single one of them at the time was like openly queer.

And I think there was just a lot of straight people in the room who

are like, "let's tell this story".

I don't think we did a bad job.

But I think that there's a part of it, there's like a naivete and an

ignorance that we brought to it.

Like an overconfidence to tell a story that we truly didn't understand.

The second year I remember someone had the idea that it was gonna be all D&D

fantasy, and we made it a little too big.

And it kind of got away from us.

But I remember it being one in the morning with the two people

who said they would write it.

And I remember asking them both about like interjecting more

D&D references into the script.

And both of them revealed to me that neither of 'em had ever played D&D.

And that was a lot.

That was stressful.

Anyways, those film challenges were really valuable.

They give you a chance to experiment and try big things.

And I think that's the best thing that GVTV can offer you.

Is just a chance to just get out there and make something.

Make it bad.

It doesn't matter if it's good or bad.

What matters is that you're getting better each time.

We entered into GVTV and this late 2010s experience where there was technically

still a cable channel that was running throughout the campus that was technically

running 24/7, 365 to all of the TVs.

We were technically programming it, but no one was watching it because why would you?

You need to have a TV in a dorm, connected to the cable, and you'd have to

actively choose to start watching GVTV.

I watched Late Night Brew on my freshman year cable TV in my dorm.

And I thought it was a very cool experience to see my name

go across the screen on my tv.

So it was so still kind of

cool.

I remember seeing it at like Kleiner and stuff.

We would be sitting there for a late night and we would see

something we made be up on the TV.

I thought that was cool.

No, and you should.

It's just an interesting contrast against what I heard from the past.

'Cause I would be talking to older alumni who would say like, " We knew

that people were watching it, 'cause like we'd be in class and people

would reference it or something.

" Whereas for us it felt like we were in our bubble and we were making content

for this cable channel, but also online on YouTube and things like that.

And feeling like we'd have to really advocate for our friends

or family to start watching it.

There was just so much competition with content as opposed to maybe 10 years prior

where there was like, oh, you might have some DVDs, or you might have some early

version of Netflix or something like that.

There wasn't a whole lot that you could watch as a student on

campus, and so GVTV kind of had this greater stronghold on the campus.

Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions about that transition to online

distribution or any other examples of like when it was going on cable?

When I first started at GVSU I remember I had really liked the school.

I knew they had a film program.

I was very excited.

I had no idea about GVTV to be honest.

And I remember doing the first couple days or whatever and I would talk to older

students and they would be like, " Oh yeah, I think there's something for you.

I think there's some kind of club for you maybe."

And when I found it and it was such a big community, I was so

shocked because it wasn't visible as it maybe was a couple years ago.

But I think that it also gave us a little bit of freedom to kind

of get silly and goofy with it.

To make stuff that was a little bit weirder maybe, and just do what we

really wanted to do because we were just like on YouTube, you know.

I think with After the Whistle, there was a huge shift.

I just remember coming in, 2017, I transferred in from a community college.

I was an upperclassman, but I was still really fresh and new, to the

whole program and everything like that.

And when I first got there it was 85, 90% scripted.

It was recaps of Grand Valley State games we would have scripted.

And then every once in a while, we would put into the script some national news.

After that 2017 year, DeAngelo Starks and myself, were named producers of the

show and we kept that scripted format.

But with everything really going online, we thought, sectioning things off and

creating new segments for the show.

Instead of having one 10 minute segment that was scripted, we would have four

or five segments about 10 minutes long each, where each segment we would

recap some major league baseball or some NFL or NBA, college football or

basketball, whatever was going on.

And it really gave us the chance to do what we really love to do

as the sports kids around there.

Before me it was Maitlynn Mossolle and Natalie Longroy.

They were there and really had a good set of bones and a

good structure for the show.

I think when we were able to get our hands on it and create what we

really felt comfortable and wanted to create, personally I really think

the show started rolling a lot.

I think we saw a lot more people want to be a part of After the Whistle.

First getting on there was really only a couple of spots a week

that could be filming anything.

And now adding these extra shows, we're able to get six, seven different faces

on every week to showcase their talents.

And so, I really think transitioning there, because of everything going

on to YouTube, was a big change.

At least from my end.

Noah, you've got me thinking then about these transitions.

Mary you're the one who introduced TikTok to me.

You were explaining to me how it functioned and I didn't fully

understand, as most people don't when they first hear about it.

And then very quickly it started becoming popular.

I don't remember during my period we were ever making any vertical short form

video by the time that I left in 2020.

But did anyone here ever work on any short form vertical content for GVTV?

I remember hearing one thing about pitches for a reviewing the bathrooms

on GVTV show, and that one was gonna be short form content reviews, I believe.

But I don't know if that idea ever got off the ground.

Yeah he made it.

he made a couple episodes.

I do remember the bathroom ones for sure.

And yeah, I definitely don't remember doing any type of TikTok 'cause it was

still like relatively new and like it was something like kids were doing.

But I remember taking a video of the Noah's and Gillian

doing the Heather's dance.

That was like the first TikTok I ever took.

Yes 'cause I watched you make it and that was me being like, what is happening here?

And that was very much like what was going to be the thing for many years to come.

Oh, that was awesome.

We're taking a short break to tell you about the Dirk Koning

Memorial Film and Video scholarship.

Here's Gretchen Vinnedge remembering Dirk Koning.

The Koning Scholarship enables students to get that kind of an education, to be

a good filmmaker, to be able to express their voice and to continue Dirk's dream.

For more information, and to donate to the scholarship, visit

the link in the description.

Now, back to the show.

One thing that I was very proud of, was this idea that, I realized YouTube had

targeted advertising, and ultimately I had this goal that I wanted every piece

of content that we put online to be watched by at least a hundred viewers.

We were averaging 20, 25, maybe 50 if you were lucky.

We were producing a cooking show called U Cook, we had After the Whistle which

was a sports show, we had Late Night Brew which is the sketch comedy, we had Alone

the horror anthology series, as well as a different one called Crack Clouds

that was kind of a successor to that.

Am I missing anything?

I feel like I'm missing a couple.

Black Box which was bringing in local musicians and basically like

Studio Live recordings of them.

Which was I think genius and was one of the great things that we were able to do.

Noah?

Can't forget Interhughs.

Which is technically a part of Late Night Brew, and then

spun off into its own thing.

But all of this content we were producing, I wanted to make sure that there

were eyeballs on it and specifically targeted to the GVSU community.

So I realized you could just spend like $10 and your video will get spam added

basically per anyone within a square mile of the GVSU campus in Allendale.

And so if you watch an ad long enough it actually turns into a view.

I was kind of buying views, but in a somewhat legitimate way.

And we were starting to have people go around and be like, "I'm getting

these ads for these things and I'm seeing my classmates faces and

whatnot that are being popped up." And I was just proud of that fact.

And I don't know if that would still be a viable tactic now.

But certainly being smart about the geography of your space and figuring

out how you can kind of hack it.

When I started with GVTV, it was very much closed off for the studio space, which

was that if you are an E-board member, you got a key and you'd really use it if

you were recording and then nothing else.

By the time that I come in charge, there was this transition period

where everyone started wanting to hang out there all the time.

I don't know what the GVTV studio is looking like in this day and age in 2025,

but I certainly hope that it's similar to the experience that we all had.

Which is that it was basically my home base between classes.

And everyone would tag team in and out of like fostering ownership of the studio.

And if anyone was walking by and wanted to poke their head in that they'd be like,

"Yeah, come on in. This is a cool space to hang out." Did anyone wanna talk about

that experience as a college student?

I remember painting the back wall at one point over a summer.

That might still be up.

We didn't get approval to do it.

But the wall looks good.

That whole space just sort of grew from the years that we were all starting when

it was locked most of the time and nobody was in there , then just as time went

on everybody just contributed something.

Kyle, I think you brought a bunch of DVDs and a spare TV you had.

Everyone would just bring in stuff and then there's a rotating group

of people down there and you're just kind of keeping one long

conversation going for the whole day.

It was really, really awesome.

I hope it's still being used that way.

Yeah, I definitely will second everything that Noah said with

it being that second space.

I never felt like "where am I gonna go? Should I go home?" Like, no.

I was just gonna go to the studio.

And like we had houses, we could have hung out, but like we all hung out there

because we knew that everyone would just pop in, it was a fun space, Kyle had his

setup with the tv so it was super fun.

It just became this space where everyone was gonna be talking to everyone.

It didn't matter if you were on the same show with them.

It didn't matter if you were an e-board.

Everyone was just friends in the studio.

Yeah, for my first two years of college I was basically in the

GVTV studio more than my own house.

And that's how I made all of my friends that I still have to this day basically,

is like from the people that I was spending time with at the GVTV studio.

And it was so fun and awesome.

That's how I was introduced to so many movies and TV shows because everyone

was just watching something at the time and just showing everybody other things.

It was just such a b eneficial space, to spend all of my time at.

But unfortunately I do think that the pandemic killed the space a little bit.

I don't think it's being utilized like that as much anymore.

I would love for that to come back.

It was the best thing I think for my experience at GVSU.

I was only a part of the e-board for a semester and my favorite part

of my last semester was hanging out in there and I think I'm a little

biased because I got a pretty good relationship out of it, I would say.

But, I kind of felt like the outcast 'cause I was like the sports guy.

I thought I wasn't gonna be able to fit in.

And it was so easy to fit in with everybody.

I remember having my call with Gillian when you guys told me I was gonna

be the sports director and Gillian saying, "Well, you have to have

office hours two days a week." And I'm like, " Two days a week, that's

gonna be awful." And like, I loved it.

I was in there way more than my office hours and I was in there so much more than

I ever expected to in that one semester.

I forgot that I asked you all to do office hours if you were on e-board.

Did people come and talk to us during those office hours for actual GVTV things?

Definitely not.

But it was a great excuse to be in there.

If there's any GVTV eboard members listening right now, make office

hours, make that studio a hangout space 'cause I think everyone's

talked about how beneficial it was.

E-board members are often upperclassmen, so like you could just be working

on an edit or you could just be working something on the computer and

people are around learning together.

The film program is pretty small overall, we're a smaller major.

And broadcasting's also not huge, so like you're already

kind of creating that dynamic.

But being a part of GVTV, you're meeting people to work on stuff

together and you're growing your skills and you're learning from them.

And I made connections that truly are my best friends.

I've made connections of people that I still work with today in the industry.

And when we hopped on this zoom call, it was so great and it felt like we

were just transported back there, 'cause I miss everyone so much.

So I think that would be our biggest advice.

Hang out in the studio.

Make it a space.

Cause you'll love it.

You'll definitely love it.

I think that a baseline requirement if you wanna build GVTV.

If you're listening to this in 2035, 2045 whatever, and that studio is still

down there in the basement of Kirkhof and is struggling to get started,

it really starts with good vibes.

It starts with just having this third space where people can just come into.

It means getting the people that you know that can build those good vibes, bringing

them in and then being like, please just be in this space and draw people in.

And build relationships out of that.

My college friendship group is just the GVTV group that I

still see and hang out with.

We kind of skirted over it earlier but Noah and Mary, I do claim partial credit

for because I said, "Mary, you're head of news . Noah, you're head of sports.

And hey, we have to make an introduction video so I need the two of you to go over

to this corner and I need you to like talk for a minute on camera and look like the

two of you're discussing business." Turns out the business you were discussing was

maybe like your first date or something.

I don't know, because now you're married.

It took a little longer than that day for us to get on our first date.

It was actually six years ago yesterday we made that video.

We watch it every year.

We watch it every year on our anniversary.

Are you you serious?

We see, little Noah with his up north accent and we see

Mary talking with her hands.

And now we can show our daughter and it's awesome, it really is.

The fact that I reluctantly went into this position because the former sports

director, Jacob Hunting, said " I'm actually not going back to school.

I'm gonna move to Florida.

Gillian's gonna give you a call and give you a rundown." And I'm like. " All

right, cool. I guess I'll do this." I was fully okay with just being a part

of After the Whistle and now I have to go to all these meetings and do all

this extra stuff and you know what?

I think it was worth it.

I remember you were like "Mary, you're with the sports director." And I was like,

"Oh brother, I gotta talk to this guy.

What am I gonna talk to him about?" And then I guess talked about like

our towns being small and I was like, "Yeah, he's pretty cool."

But it's funny 'cause that exact spot, was right outside the studio where we

met . We went back there this summer and we showed our daughter around.

I mean, she was a year old at the time, so not even We took like a selfie.

Gillian, you and I are on some promotional materials.

outside, the GVTV studio.

I was just there, two weeks ago.

Pretty much everyone here is featured in some way right outside the front door?

Yes.

Yeah.

so cool that we have a spot.

And the fact that we have that to share because Kyle Matchmaker decided to

film this video and put us together.

It is amazing.

I can never thank you enough for like, allowing me to be a part of

GVTV so I could meet my future wife.

The funniest part is, is the year before.

Mary's office hours were the exact same time After the Whistle

shot and I don't think we knew either one of us were in there.

I didn't know he existed.

I was so mad that that's when my office hours were, because they had to have

it really quiet 'cause they were doing the in studio, out of studio things.

The lights had to be off and everyone had to be silent.

And so none of my friends could come visit me.

And I was like, is this?

What's the sports guys?

I guess I should have chatted 'em up.

I don't know.

It's crazy that just that one decision has led to the next

six years being what they were.

If that ain't the most beautiful thing I've heard all week.

Thank you for sharing that.

I wanna talk about this transition where we had originally, Len

O'Kelly, who is this very well known and respected, radio broadcaster.

He was the faculty advisor of GVTV for many, many years.

And it's, it interesting because he oversaw this news period and

this broadcasting period where he had to fight a lot of battles with

administration sometimes about content.

Like there was a period of time where a lot of, the buildings were

being named after rich donors . GVTV decided to make some content that

was A kind of highlighting that, and B like making fun of it.

And he had to step up and play defense for GVTV in order to like have journalistic

integrity slash content integrity.

I feel like that's something that gave away later on as we were

getting more filmmaker focused.

And honestly, we were just starting to put stuff online and no one was really just

seeing what we were doing, so we could kind of just get away with more stuff.

Then James Ford takes over and I believe he's still overseeing it now.

And he was really passionate and still is about broadcasting.

But I think that was just not really a concern that we had at least in our

years because it just wasn't really something we were interested in doing.

I want to talk about, this era towards the end where we tried

to make a lot of podcast content.

Which honestly seeing how much podcasting has really hit it off

the past five years , we were really on the right trend for that.

But do you two, Noah and Gillian, wanna talk about What the Food as

well as our podcasting experiences in general for a quick minute?

Yeah, I think it's probably, and I don't know if this is hyperbole, like the

greatest thing GVTV has ever created.

I loved it.

I know we only did two episodes and again, wish I could have been around

longer, so we could have kept doing it.

Like man who cares about that student debt if we could have got

like three more episodes of What the Food out before the pandemic hit.

And Gillian, I teach middle school and you know middle schoolers, they

find out your name and they wanna find out everything about you.

And well, wouldn't you know, I got some kids coming into my class and

saying, " Hey , you do a podcast?"

And so initially I'm thinking, oh it's my podcast I did with my friends,

the sports podcast we did on Spotify.

And I said, "oh the sports podcast?" They said, "no, not that one.

What the Food.

You know, the muck bang videos that you would do." I'm like, " How did you

find that?" Because I genuinely don't know how they could have found it.

But Gillian, I just want you to know you are famous in Milan middle school.

Like they would tell me they would fall asleep listening to us eat food.

I downloaded the creator app to see the year in review.

And I had two people where their number one podcast was my sports podcast I

made, and the last episode was in 2022.

In 2019 I wasn't thinking when I was making this man, there's gonna

be some 14-year-old later on.

That is amazing.

I'm glad if only we would've made more,

I really think having the video podcast be a part of GVTV I think It

was another avenue to create content.

And I think that would've just really helped with the creation of more

and more different things at GVTV.

I think what was most valuable about this story of like you guys just wanted

to eat food on camera and you did, is just like give people opportunities

to really just try anything.

Especially if it's low effort, it doesn't take a lot of resources and if

you can promise that you'll get it done.

Even if it's wild or crazy and you're not entirely sure who the audience is

for, try and get people to make things.

And I think a Muck Bang podcast is an example of that.

I'm going to segue again into Hugh Boyd . Hugh Boyd is arguably one of the most

influential figures to come out of GVTV I think genuinely, his content is the most

capable of a crossover appeal to being like massive, large, high quality comedy.

He was basically doing a version of Billy on the street.

He was doing street interviews, but with a real surreal edge and

a weird, factual, historical edge.

Hugh Boyd was just like this enigma on the college campus.

He would just go around and like ask weird questions and then they

would be edited into these really fun pieces that were just wild and crazy.

And he would like walk around just drinking green paint in front of people

and then catching their reactions.

And it could have easily come off as just lame or cringey, but instead

it was genuinely really funny stuff.

I think that we kept trying to put guardrails in front of Hugh because we're

like, well if you wanna make content you have to do X, Y, and Z. 'Cause that's just

kind of the old way of how we did things.

But we realized after a while we should just let him do his thing.

Does anyone else wanna have any final thoughts about Hugh Boyd?

He made that poor boy eat paint, but it was entertaining.

So that's what we were looking to do.

Wait, it was real.

Yes.

Hugh boy, he'd found non-toxic green paint and then he just started

walking around drinking it and asking other people to drink it

with him, and one poor sucker did.

I definitely didn't think it was real.

It was good publicity though.

We had someone making a show on freshman campus talking about GVTV and doing really

weird stuff, that then maybe they come across it later on the YouTube channel and

now they're kind of seeing what GVTV does.

So that was cool.

I'm gonna segue now into the end of our era, which does

continue on a little bit further.

But for me, I was very excited for the last few months of my,

senior year I was gonna graduate.

And I was preparing all this leadership and I was like,

Gillian, you're gonna take over.

This is what that kind of like succession plan's gonna look like.

Here are all the different leadership positions we have.

We're feeling really confident.

And then a pandemic kind of just smacked us all in the face.

And then made it very difficult to continue doing recruitment and

recording and all of the socializing that came along with GVTV.

It was devastating.

We just didn't really make anything for the fall semester of 2020.

And then the winter semester you could come on campus more, people wearing masks,

there was more filming opportunities.

But all GVTV really was, was like our weekly meetings over Zoom.

And it definitely didn't really foster the same type of environment

. Especially because like when you were president, you made the meetings so fun.

So there just definitely wasn't that much opportunity for it to

flourish, during that period.

It makes me sad to think that incoming freshmen at that time, didn't have the

opportunity to build a community that we did or join the community that we did.

But now that it's been a couple years, I'm hoping that it's come out of that now.

The biggest thing besides just school and everything else that was stopping around

the world, is that it stopped the studio where we all collected and gathered.

We just couldn't, , Like Gillian said, something that I hope comes

back, if anyone on the e-board is listening, just go and check out the

space and see what you can do with it.

I was only president for a semester, so like it didn't feel like I could do

much because I was graduating and well we were still in COVID, but we were able

to meet in person with like masks on, you know, we didn't have to be in Zoom.

But even though the meetings were in person and like the masks weren't

that big of a deal, I think it was because we couldn't all be in that

studio 'cause it was so small.

We couldn't have more than like one or two people in the studio.

The culture didn't come back that semester.

And it just speaks to how important that studio space was.

I was the last of us there and I made it through the point where

we were back on campus and like

actively really doing stuff.

It definitely was not the same.

It was really hard to get people to be able to spend time together and like

build that community aspect of it.

And I think like we all said earlier, that was such an important part of

the whole thing It was disappointing.

And I will also tell a quick story of when I found out that we were leaving, because

we were setting up a podcast of our own.

It was supposed to be a movie podcast where we kind of talk about crappy movies.

And we fought pretty hard for it for a long, long time, for months and months.

then we finally got to shoot an episode.

And we set up, we were at the studio, we had some friends there

setting up for it and everything.

We get everything all set and then we all got an email that was like, "you're going

home for two weeks and there's a global pandemic" and we all just had to leave.

We all just had to tear down and I didn't even get to do this podcast

I had fought months and months for.

So yeah, I think that's the biggest thing I miss.

I wish I could have, gotten to do that podcast.

I wish I could have had the opportunity.

So I think it's valuable to talk about what we gained from GVTV.

You know, everyone goes to college for usually a pretty

good reason, which is growth.

Usually we emphasize that as professional growth, but there's certainly a lot of

personal growth that comes along with it.

I want everyone to talk about the most valuable thing that they

gained out of GVTV that really helped them grow into adulthood.

Harley you wanna kick us off?

I think the most valuable thing I gained from GVTV was experience.

it was the first time I was ever on a real film set doing film things,

messing with C stands, figuring out lighting, using cameras.

You taught me how to edit in the GV TV studio.

that's where I learned most of the things I know now.

I walked in not really knowing anything about editing, sound, you name it.

But just due to exposure, being on sets, talking with people, seeing

more films and everything, you really get a lot really quickly out of it.

And if you stay with it, you're just gonna go further and further.

So, bring back that studio space if you can.

It goes a long way to fostering good bonds between the classmates

and see what happens from there.

Like everyone mentioned, having access to, gear that you

don't normally have access to.

Like you're getting your hands on stuff that you might not start

working with until like fiction one, and then getting access to

upperclassmen, and learning from them.

It's a great networking experience.

Definitely the experience, getting the hands-on time with equipment and

learning so much that I was able to, in my actual classes, kind of focus on

the more, storytelling aspects of it.

Because I knew a lot of the other stuff from working on GVTV and I had all

the technical stuff my brain already.

But also honestly the relationships that I made I think were so important to me and

are still so important to me to this day.

And I have changed a lot as a person over time, and I think GVTV and the people that

I spent that time with helped me really grow into the person I am right now.

I mean, other than, the obvious meeting my husband and some of my best friends

with GVTV . As far as the learning aspect, I'm a print journalist so I was

never a broadcast person, I was never a film person, but I will say just

knowing how to like edit and learning those softwares, learning the camera

equipment, even setting up tripods and stuff, it's really helped me with my

day-to-day confidence in technology.

I feel like before college I was always the type to be like, "I don't know

what I'm doing" on computers and stuff.

Ever since then I really don't find myself saying that.

I just feel really confident and comfortable in using most

technology and most equipment because of GVTV and like all the

educational lessons that we learned.

The vast majority of people that we tried to recruit and that were a part

of GVTV were either film major or they were broadcasting major, but they're just

really valuable to also just find other people to want to also be a part of it

and convince them, media is a valuable thing so doing whatever you can to

broaden those horizons is always valuable.

Noah?

Like Mary said, obviously finding my wife was a really great experience.

Just having the opportunity to meet new people and meet people

you wouldn't normally run into on campus is something that I think

you can really take away from it.

If utilizing the studio is what, students wanna do more and

more after listening to this.

But even just the lessons that I've learned about media from the conversations

that we would have in the studio.

I mean, there are things that I use in my classes today with the

journalism stuff that I'm teaching, that I learned in the GVTV studio.

I never saw myself getting into education but having those

experiences I think has really helped me in the classroom for sure.

Thank you Noah.

I'm gonna try and wrap up, my final thoughts here as quickly as possible.

I really wanna emphasize the fact that like failure is just

an extremely valuable thing.

And GVTV was just a great place to fail.

We could just kind of do whatever we wanted and it could be bad or

good and it really didn't matter.

We were just going through that iterative creative process over and over again

and gaining those skills each time.

And I think that having that safe environment to do so was really valuable.

I do remember not taking advantage of so many opportunities that I wish that I had.

I remember at one point the head of the promotions office, Bobby Nielsen, came

to us one time and said, Hey, we're looking for people who are willing to

kinda like work with us, do this free, broadcasting work that we need to do.

It's gonna be like out of state, it's gonna be a drive, but

it's gonna be really valuable.

And I remember thinking like, "I'm not going out of state not getting

paid. That's ridiculous." And then like a year later I was applying

to work at Promotions Office under Bobby and I didn't get the job.

And I'm sure it was in for a number of reasons, but part of which in the back

of my mind I was like, "Man, I really should have shown up to that thing he

wanted me to do and really could have just like proven myself." 'Cause I could

have gotten to work at one of the best places to work at for a film major as a

student, which is the Promotions Office.

And I say that as someone who hires students at my other studio.

But Bobby's work there is so valuable and I didn't get to do that , because I

didn't take advantage of that opportunity.

And I feel bad for any film major who doesn't take advantage of the

opportunity of GVTV or broadcasting major, or anyone who just is interested

in media creation because when I was a film major, you know, I'd probably

make on average like three videos per semester, per the limitations of a course.

Like that just makes sense.

But I needed to be making more.

I needed to be doing the practice more and more, and GVTV offered me that practice.

And it also offered me to just try weird things that I never would have,

like figuring out how Google Analytics works and running ads through that.

Or there's a whole period where we were really getting into live streaming and

so I learned how to run this whole live streaming equipment and because I learned

that skill, there's a point in which like a local synagogue was asking for like

anyone who could do live stream work.

Basically I'm doing that every Friday still, and that's a huge, amount

of my income is just being able to use this skill that I really took

for granted as a college student.

So that amongst many other reasons why, GVTV was really

helpful for me professionally.

But personally, it really was the core of my college experience.

I got to meet everyone that I wanted to meet and spend all

the most valuable time there.

And really wouldn't take any of that back.

Are there any final thoughts from this lovely, talented,

beautiful group of people?

You mentioned a lot way back when we were doing this, "fail faster".

And I think when we adopted that as our phrase of get out there,

make something, learn from it, make another thing, learn from it.

That's when we were making our best stuff at GVTV.

Everybody was submitting things and everybody was just getting to

learn on top of everything that they were learning for classes and can't

understate just how valuable that is.

I think we're done, everybody.

I think we did a pretty, good job.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Alumni Live: The Podcast.

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