WARRIORS OF WINTER

In high school all my friends played hockey. I did not. Instead I filmed them play hockey. This was a convenient way to hang out, it was also basically my strategy for making friends to begin with. HBO had a show at the time called Road to the Winter Classic - which nowadays is not so extraordinary - but at the time was a unique and cinematic telling of a professional sports teams journey. I decided I would do the same. I borrowed as many go pros and microphones as I could and mounted them all over the rink, on the bench, in the penalty box, gave mics to the coaches, players, and refs. The media management and battery charging at the end of the days was bananas. But I made it through. Ultimately I edited it into five one hour episodes. I used all copyrighted music because I didn't really have any sense of what to do with it other than share it with the team when it was done, nor did I have any understanding of copyright law. Consequently when it was done, it was just done, and I entered a phase - which I think a lot of filmmakers go through with projects - which is the obsessive-trailer-editing phase. I think I cut together over 15 different trailers. Ultimately this was a probably the best one. Indulgent, yes, self-aggrandizing yes, but I think it's fun nonetheless and it saves you from having to watch all five hours. I also learned the hard way that you should tell your interview subjects to spit out their gum.