By Miranda Donnell | BG Falcon Media intern
Raymond Cotis (left) and Sam Barrett.
BG24 took a hiatus from its usual weekly news broadcast, replaced by while a new spin on the retired show “The Swoop” this semester. “The Swoop,” a student-run sports broadcast, last aired in 2018.
Media production students Sam Barrett, senior, and Raymond Cotis, junior, worked hard to plan and execute its return.
Sam and Raymond were both previously involved with the BG24 newscast. Sam began as a teleprompter and worked his way up to assistant director. This year, he is the director of “The Swoop”. Raymond was the junior technical director of the newscast last semester and is now the executive producer for “The Swoop”.
When BG24’s fall semester plans fell through just two weeks before classes started, Sam, Raymond, and their advisor Jasmine Crighton had to create a new show from scratch. They found inspiration from their fellow students’ interests.
“It was the amount of interest we saw from Falcon Media Sports Network. They wanted an outlet, some sort of talk show,” said Raymond
Jasmine suggested bringing back “The Swoop”, a BGSU sports broadcast that had been dormant since 2018. They saw the potential “The Swoop” had to thrive at BGSU and the improvements that could be made with access to newer technologies.
“We can give it a new taste of life because ‘The Swoop’ back then didn’t have our production equipment or the knowledge that’s available now,” said Raymond.
They kept the same name to honor the original show and the alumni who created it, though everything else needed an upgrade. They found that many things needed to be done in order to revive the show.
“It was a lot of work, especially for me and Raymond. We built it from the ground up, so all of the templates, all of our graphics, we had to make everything ourselves which was probably the biggest challenge,” said Sam.
They also created a new logo, format, and introduction, and had to find a new location. Raymond said the previous BG24 news setup – a simple two-seat desk – didn’t suit the show’s discussion-based format. This led them to use the virtual set, which requires more technology than the original version of “The Swoop”.
“We use a lot more equipment than what they had. We’re in the virtual set, we use robotic cameras. Previously it was filmed on a camcorder and then edited together, whereas we film it live to tape,” said Sam.
The show covers the current BGSU athlete of the week and highlights various BG sports teams. When planning the content for the show they looked to popular sports broadcasts such as those on Entertaining and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) for inspiration.
You can see the most current episode of “The Swoop” on the BG Falcon Media homepage.