(From left) Nicholas Wetzel, Ryan Nelson and David Torrence received UMSL Hero Awards in July. The three work together on the video services team at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

University of Missouri–St. Louis Chancellor Kristin Sobolik and her cabinet continue to recognize the exemplary efforts of staff and faculty members from across campus by bestowing the UMSL Hero Award on up to three individuals each month.

This month, they chose to recognize a team, tapping Ryan Nelson, David Torrence and Nicholas Wetzel from the video production crew at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center for the honor. Nelson leads the group as the video services manager, Torrence typically mans the camera as a senior stage assistant and Wetzel works as an operations supervisor with expertise in audio.

Together, they have been providing video recording and production across campus over the past five years.

Sobolik has witnessed the quality of their work and their professionalism, and she championed their nominations for Hero Awards.

“Throughout COVID, this team did a fantastic job of videotaping everything, including my inauguration, the State of the University, Founders, everything,” Sobolik said.

Demand for their services has only grown since, whether it be live recording on or off site, video editing or setting up live streams for different events.

Last month, Nelson, Torrence and Wetzel filmed a video featuring Sobolik and Dean Shu Schiller in the executive classroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall as they announced the naming of the Ed G. Smith College of Business, and the next day they captured the chancellor in her office in Woods Hall for a separate initiative. They also recently did a shoot for the School of Social Work in which they captured simulations of interactions between health providers and patients.

The footage from that shoot will be used to help train students on how to interact with their future clients.

“This is an expansion of their job helping run events in the Touhill,” Sobolik said. “This is a fantastic, professional team and they are greatly appreciated.”

Nelson, Torrence and Wetzel each followed a different path to the Touhill. Nelson first landing a part-time position in 2011 after graduating with a degree in sound design from Columbia College in Chicago. Wetzel also began as a part-time staff member, in 2013, and had a degree in music business from McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota. Torrence studied photography and video at the Art Institute of Atlanta and had done work as a product photographer in Atlanta and St. Louis before joining the Touhill crew in 2017.

None of them arrived with specific plans to work in video. They were stagehands doing whatever was needed at a time when the venue regularly welcomed touring performers from around the country.

“In 2011, I would take a lot of lighting calls, just building light rigs, any carpentry work, flipping floors, anything to get in here,” said Nelson, who reported to Touhill Director Jason Stahr. “It was the spring of 2012, we had a big corporate event, and they needed a video person. At that time, I had never worked live video, but they knew that my degree had the word visual in it, and they said, ‘Here, you go,’ and just threw me in the deep end. Luckily, I was surrounded by a lot of people who were very helpful and patient and didn’t scare me off that.”

Wetzel told a similar story – erecting lights, building sets, setting up tables and chairs and sweeping the floor when needed.

“I learned things quickly, and that was very helpful,” he said. “It got me more calls, and the more calls I got, the more calls I took – as much of those carpentry and electric gigs that they would give me. Then one day someone realized that I could operate a sound board. That was a great day.”

He often wound up running audio for MADCO dance company performances in the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater.

As video requests became more frequent, Nelson found himself directed to more of that work, and he’d often record shows using a single mounted camera in the back of one of the theaters.

Torrence remembers a day Nelson spotted him doing some work at the Touhill. He happened to be wearing a Fox Sports Midwest T-shirt, and Nelson asked him where he got it.

“I said I worked there and did baseball and hockey (telecasts),” Torrence said. “He goes, ‘Does Jason know that you do video?’ The next thing you know, I started working with Nelson. He was by himself at that point, and we just kind of grew the department.”

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was a pivot point for everyone at the Touhill. Shows were abruptly canceled as public health measures limiting crowd sizes and requiring social distancing took effect in an effort to control the spread of the virus. It also forced people to come up with new ways to communicate and deliver their messages.

“It all started during the pandemic,” Nelson said. “The Chancellor needed some speeches recorded, and she came over.”

That September, rather than speaking to an audience of faculty and staff members in Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall, Sobolik delivered her annual State of the University Address via livestream from the Lee Theater.

Nelson, Torrence and Wetzel were among the fewer than 10 people in the room as they manned the cameras and audio board.

Sobolik has continued to call on them in the years since, and others across campus have also caught wind of their talents, and they’ve had no trouble staying busy assisting with video needs.

The bulk of their work still happens in the Touhill, recording performances and running live streams. But they’ve also gotten to branch out across campus and film in locations such as the Ed Collabitat, Oak Hall, the Provincial House and the Social Sciences and Business Building.

“One of the greatest things about this job is that every day can be a completely different experience,” Wetzel said. “It’s not one job. I’m not just coming in to set up a camera or mix a show. One day, it could be information technology. The next day it could be video. Maybe the next day it’s audio. Sometimes I will stack some chairs, and that variety keeps me going.”

The team enjoys their interaction with other units.

“We were kind of in this bubble over here, and I really like getting to meet other people around the campus, building those relationships and showing them what we can offer the campus as a whole,” Nelson said.

He has started keeping a map of campus and is trying to tick off the buildings where they’ve done recordings.

“We want to hit them all eventually,” he said.

All three of them were humbled to be selected for Hero Awards.

“I’m totally humbled and blown away that the chancellor did this,” Torrence said. “I’m honored. The Touhill’s a great, great institution. UMSL is a great institution.”

For people used to working in the background, having a spotlight on them feels unnatural, but Nelson hopes the attention from the Hero Award can help make people aware of the services they can provide.

“I think in the past, the campus has outsourced video needs because they didn’t know that we could do that for them at a fraction of the cost,” Nelson said. “It creates more work for people on campus. We’re here and ready to work. Give us a call.”