F rom the COVID-19 shutdown and since restarting production, GC Studios, a student-led production crew, saw an expansion of over 20,000 views a week.

Luke Winstel, Bailey Clark and Joel White make up the current version of GC Studios. The team of junior and senior mass communication majors began as Georgia College Athletics student workers, and now work together to manage athletics’ social pages, boost excitement for student-athletes and produce original content. 

“Everything we do at GC Studios is for the athletes to get the clout they deserve, it’s not for us,” Clark said. “I felt that they were underappreciated, so this is to make athletes feel wanted.”

Their enterprise started with Senior Sundays, where the team would introduce senior star student-athletes to the Georgia College community. Since then, administration in athletics has given them room to grow with a converted office space and major equipment upgrades.

“Once they invested in us, I knew they wanted us to execute,” Winstel said. “And we’re going to prove them right.”

Each student assists with idea creation, footage and production, but they all have a niche. Winstel is often the voice of GC Athletics but helps with editing. Clark conducts interviews, and White is their producer.

“You don’t really think about it when you’re watching TV, but there’s a lot of background stuff going on in making sure every camera angle cuts correctly, all graphics look good and everything runs smoothly,” White said.

Many changes have led to the success GC Studios now enjoys. The team created an all-new graphics package, like broadcast overlays, and implemented a direct-to-consumer approach to social media.

“Now we’re about bringing it to you, more than it being on our YouTube page, and you check it out if you want,” Winstel said. “We’re embracing a more modern social media strategy, and I would say, more creative.”

They started with the goal of 6,000 views per month over nine months. But on any given week, the team can now expect 6,000 views in a few days. Recently, they hit their biggest viewership mark when a single Instagram video surpassed 10,000 views.

“Every time we get more than 2,000 views on a video, we’re like ‘this is awesome,’” Clark said. “We watch the engagement and its gratifying because we put so much work into the videos. I don’t think we could have ever imagined that we’d have this much of a blow-up on social media.”

Through the students’ work, GC Studios has brought student-athletes and the wider GC community closer together.

“This kind of work spreading to the student body as a whole and giving them a sense of pride in the athletics department is the ultimate goal,” said Alan Weston, assistant athletic director for communications. “These students care so much, and I appreciate their hard work. It’s going to pay off for them professionally, and it’s exciting to work with them and see what they come up with on a day-to-day basis.”

GC Studios is looking to add more staff, especially in videography and broadcast production. Interested students can contact GC Studios at alan.weston@gcsu.edu.