Gage Duchon was a junior in high school when the world got shut down. He was a competitive lacrosse player living in San Francisco who suddenly found himself cooped up and quarantining at home.
So, a little bit bored and uncertain how to spend his time, he began editing NBA clips from YouTube and playing around with video editing softwares.
“I started to teach myself, and just very quickly fell in love with it,” Duchon told CelticsBlog.
Fast forward four years, and what was once a pandemic-era hobby has become a fast-growing career. As a video producer for the Boston Celtics, Gage Duchon is now creating some of the most compelling video content in all of sports.
It all happened so fast. In 2022, Duchon began to shoot videos for the men’s basketball team at Northeastern University, where he was studying communications and media studies. Then, he took a chance and applied for a digital content production internship with the Celtics, an experience that recently turned into a season-long job.
For Duchon, filming and editing compelling videos is a way to tell stories about a sport he’s long cherished.
“My first motivation is my love for creation and this art form,” he said. “I don’t see myself as a content creator, I see myself as an aspiring filmmaker, editor, and director. Being able to tell stories and do it in a unique way, and use my voice through video – it’s really my childlike passion.”
The Celtics fan base has celebrated these videos all season long, frequently flooding the replies with comments that praise the “media team’s historic run” and parallel the digital production team’s online excellence to the Celtics’ on-court dominance. Some of the fans have figured out that Gage Duchon is the creator behind some of the team’s most viral content, while others praise the media team more broadly, speculating which artist is responsible for the latest innovative approach.
“I can’t even put it into words how much these fans care about this stuff,” Duchon said. “It’s crazy to me, seeing so many comments. People reached out to me personally about the video – they’re not even talking about the team, or the players, they’re talking about how cool the video is. I have a very strong appreciation for that.”
His job entails a lot more than just turning a creative vision into a viral masterpiece – Duchon has plenty of other less exciting responsibilities that include filming every pregame and postgame pressers and helping other photographers and videographers by going through their footage throughout the game.
“My game days are super hectic,” Duchon said. “I’m trying to find time to shoot on my end. I shoot everything, I just roam around in the stands and find places I can shoot from, but then I’m also labeling footage, swapping SD cards, managing to shoot the pressers before and after.”
His Celtics content has gone viral on a number of occasions this season. Most recently, he shot and edited a video showcasing a sequence of baskets from Sunday’s historic win against the Warriors – a video that amassed 7 million videos in its first nine hours on Twitter alone.
That masterpiece tells the story of a Celtics team that took a franchise-best 44-point lead into halftime against an opponent that eliminated them on their home floor just two days earlier. It highlighted a number of Jaylen Brown baskets from his 19-point first quarter explosion. That run held particular significance given that the Warriors game-planned to leave Brown open on the perimeter, a decision that Brown said postgame felt “a little disrespectful.”
The wheels started to turn during the game, and in total, the video took Duchon about six hours to edit: “I had the idea mapped out in my head, and during the pressers, in between pressers, I was bringing out my laptop and pulling clips into my editing timeline and getting them prepared.”
He typically uses his own video footage for these videos, and films from TD Garden’s 9th floor during games, situated within the rowdiest of balcony fans, who he describes as extremely passionate. It’s in those moments — when he’s filming, immersed in the crowd — when it strikes him that at their core, the fans and players are inherently similar.
“The players are all just completely normal guys who are really good at something, but they’re just totally normal, nice people,” he said. He hasn’t yet gotten to know many of the Celtics players on a personal level, but did note that Oshae Brissett – who’s also a filmmaker and has a YouTube channel chronicling his NBA adventures – recently stopped him after a game to ask him questions about his camera. It was a moment that felt a bit surreal, though he’s now grown used to seeing the players on such a regular basis.
Duchon wasn’t always a Celtics fan; he grew up in San Francisco and was in 7th grade when this Warriors core won their 2015 championship. In fact, he credits Steph Curry and Klay Thompson for making him fall in love with the sport, and got to cover a Warriors game at Chase Center because the trip aligned with his winter break in December.
“But I’m definitely a huge Celtics fan now,” he said, laughing. “It’s been a funny transformation, to become a part of not just the organization, but the fanbase as well.”
As a video producer, Gage reports to Sam Crocker and Matt Carney, who respectively serve as the Director and Manager of Digital Content Production.
“I owe those guys a lot,” Duchon said. “’I’ve never really worked a job before this, but [they’re] super awesome people to work with. I could not be more grateful – just coming to work is so fun, and the people I’m around. It makes it even better than what it already is.”
Meanwhile, the fans have increasingly gone out of their way to credit Gage for his videos, a gesture that has caught him off guard but meant a lot.
“I don’t ever go and try to take credit for something that I made, because it’s my job,” Duchon said. “But people are like ‘oh this was Gage!’ They’re so nice about it. They really ride for their people. It’s like nothing else, working in a sports team like this.”
At the end of the day, he credits the Celtics players for giving him so much elite basketball and storylines to work with. After all, the 2024 team holds a +11.4 point differential – the 5th best differential in NBA history. They also have a striking 8-game lead for the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference standings.
In turn, putting together top-tier videos feels like the only way to do justice to the roster, and showcase the magic that’s happening on the court.
“This Celtics team is insane,” Duchon said. “There’s a million stories to tell. Every player is doing something crazy, and the team is playing unbelievable. It’s my job, but it feels like my duty to do the best I can to bring those stories to life.”
