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Not long ago I woke up in the middle of the night, television on, sound muted. A film was on HBO, ”House of 1000 Corpses”, from 2003. The plot, as laid out on IMDb: “Two teenage couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of serial killers end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.”
What ensued was an uninterrupted barrage of violence, sadism, torture, agony, blood and twisted limbs. It was so off the chart there could be no chart. Did I turn the channel? No. I waited to see how each scene would outdo the last in psychosis. Which is what director Rob Zombie intended, no doubt. Zombie was an awful musician who transitioned seamlessly to tasteless film director. Read more... (211 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)
To tell a story that happened in the past it’s important to get the interview subjects “in the moment” – re-living the action without referencing subsequent events. It’s particularly important if one of those subsequent events is the dramatic “reveal” for the story.
E:60 producer Dave Salerno pulled it off in a story about Tulsa quarterback G.J. Kinne, as detailed here.
Permanent link to this post (62 words, estimated 15 secs reading time)
Sports journalism isn’t always a perch in a comfy pressbox. Here’s a story about a producer for E:60 who went undercover to an illegal cockfight in Texas, with a buttonhole camera.
Rough crowd. Had he been unmasked no telling what would have happened. Fortunately he survived with health intact, stark footage, and a powerful story.
Permanent link to this post (56 words, estimated 13 secs reading time)
I tend to be slow on the technology uptake. But recently, at the ESPN Cafe, I put on a pair of Elton John glasses and watched college hoops in 3D. It took me about 10 seconds to understand that 3D is the future of live action. The viewing is dramatically superior. When a point guard “penetrates” in 3D, you see virtually what he or she sees on the way to the basket.
As for feature programming, the imperative is less obvious. E:60 will debut ESPN’s first 3D feature on April 12, a 4-5 minute piece about a professional knife thrower called “The Great Throwdini”.
Permanent link to this post (105 words, estimated 25 secs reading time)
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Now Released! 
"Four decades after George Wallace ignited a race riot in Omaha, Steve Marantz goes home to tell the story of a high school basketball team and its tragic star. A heartbreaking look inside the lives of white and black students fighting and falling in love as they grow up amid historic upheaval."
-- Ian Thomsen, Sports Illustrated
All information here.
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