Taking games from the floor to the JumboTron
Along with basketball season comes roaring crowds and a Spectrum filled to capacity. With all the excitement wrapped up in Carroll’s jump shot, it’s easy to miss a key play here and there. But thankfully, Utah State is one of few universities to not only own an in-house JumboTron, but to also have USU students operating it.
“Instant replays, live KJZZ TV coverage and game highlights are all courtesy of Utah State’s Multi-Media Services,” full-time staff member Ryan Christensen said. “It all started with the new scoreboard. That launched us into production, enabling us to tell a visual story and provide good coverage of Utah State Basketball.”
Since then, the department of Classroom & Multimedia Services at USU has been increasing momentum and building upon their already stellar foundation.
“Not many people or universities do what we do at our caliber, let alone completely student-operated. That’s the beauty in it,” Christensen said.
Scott Hyldahl, a senior majoring in graphic design, says, “One of the greatest parts of our program is that it is entirely student-run.”
USU students comprise about 90 percent of each TV crew, including cameramen on court and the crew inside the production truck capturing highlights to air on Salt Lake’s evening news. There is a student involved in every aspect of production.
“It’s the real world; it’s a career,” Hyldahl said. “It’s not very often that a college student gets to go on live TV. I consider myself fortunate to be able to experience this magnitude of production and hopefully I’ll be able to do more of it.”
Hyldahl offers the following advice to other graphic design or journalism and communication majors interested in production: “Find a camera and just start shooting. Don’t worry about the different angles, just practice taking good shots.”
The USU media team will be providing live Web coverage as the Aggie basketball team enters the 2006 WAC tournament held in Reno.
The technology of Web streaming will be combined with commentator Al Lewis’s radio feed in order to provide students and fans the full coverage of important games to come.
Whether covering games inside the Spectrum or in Reno, Nev., the USU Media team will be right there alongside the Aggies. Although the applause may not always be for the cameraman capturing a shot by Harris shot, it certainly is noticed that the players aren’t the only students involved in basketball games.
-morganr@cc.usu.edu