Golden Dome Productions (1982–2001) — the city's production company

1982–2001 · owned by the University of Notre Dame · seated in South Bend in the trade record

The company: For twenty years South Bend held something almost no city its size has held: a full-scale professional production company of its own. Golden Dome Productions began inside the university's broadcasting arm — Bazil O'Hagan, who came to WNDU as chief engineer in 1956 and rose to president and general manager of Michiana Telecasting Corporation, the university's broadcasting company, created it, in the Indiana Broadcast History Archive's words, as a television production unit with platforms for documentaries and other media — and the university's own trademark filings date the name's first use to 31 July 1982. By the decade's end it had grown past the station that bore it: the trade magazine SHOOT, in a 1990s account that locates the company in South Bend, describes it as owned by the University of Notre Dame, set up to produce documentaries and promotional films for the school, and by 1990 branching out into commercial and industrial video production for regional clients — "a huge production company," in the successor company's history, when Christopher Salvador joined it in the late 1980s. Its own later web presence, under the name Golden Dome Media, dated the business to 1982 and described a client list running from Coca-Cola and Whirlpool to the Bayer Company — the company's own description of itself, printed as such.

The work: The production the archive preserves at scale is Today's Life Choices, a series of thirty-minute programs produced by the university — the Hesburgh Libraries' record group for the company is built largely of its video recordings — examining attitudes and beliefs on contemporary social issues through personal stories and leading experts, produced on location throughout the United States and overseas. The trade record adds the working texture: documentaries and industrial videos for outside clients, a documentary series carried by PBS under the short title Life Choices, local commercials, and station promos — one of them, for the sports department of local station WNBU, won the Gold Medallion at the 1993 Promax/Broadcast Design Awards. The company was, in short, the region's production house: when a national director-profile in SHOOT needed a South Bend dateline for professional film and video work, Golden Dome was the dateline.

The end, and the succession: In 2001, the successor company's history records, the university brought in consultants and decided to dissolve the company; millions of dollars' worth of equipment was sold off and scores were laid off. Within minutes, that history says, the clients began calling — and four of the company's men, Larry Bilinski, Christopher Salvador, Douglas Thomas and James Salvador, formed New Group Media in South Bend, a production company for faith-based programming, which carries the line forward in the city to this day. The Producers history in this record carries Golden Dome among the city's producers at its size; this entry carries the company itself — its twenty years are the Story of South Bend section of South Bend's claim to have been, for a generation, a place where films and programs were not only shown and shot, but made.

Sources

1. Indiana Broadcast History Archive (Indiana University), the Bazil O'Hagan record — his WNDU and Michiana Telecasting career from 1956; "He created the Golden Dome Productions, a television production unit with platforms for documentaries and other media."
2. United States Patent and Trademark Office records for GOLDEN DOME PRODUCTIONS (serials 74084242 and 74084285, owner: The University of Notre Dame du Lac) — first use anywhere 31 July 1982; the service classes, including "motion picture films and videotape production services"; registration of 4 February 1992.
3. Hesburgh Libraries, ArchivesSpace — Record Group GDM, Golden Dome Productions: the records and the large collection of video recordings, most having to do with Today's Life Choices, the thirty-minute series produced by the University of Notre Dame on location throughout the United States and overseas; dates 1980s– .
4. SHOOT magazine (SHOOTonline), "Spontaneous Adds Mowen" — Golden Dome Productions, South Bend, Ind.; owned by the University of Notre Dame; set up for documentaries and promotional films for the school; the commercial and industrial branch by 1990; the PBS series Life Choices; the WNBU promo's 1993 Promax Gold Medallion.
5. New Group Media, the company's published history — Golden Dome Productions at the University of Notre Dame, begun in the early 1980s; "a huge production company" by the late 1980s; the 2001 dissolution, the equipment sale and the layoffs; the four partners' formation of New Group Media.
6. The company's own later web description (Golden Dome Media), as preserved in directory copies — in business since 1982, initially as Golden Dome Productions; the client list as the company gave it.