From Finish to Start

Newton Marshall’s journey took him from Jamaica to Alaska, from reggae to frostbite, from obscurity to E:60.

         Producer Mike John’s journey was the opposite – minus the obscurity.

         “Mush Mon” is the story of the first Jamaican to pilot a dogsled in the Iditarod, the 1000-mile Anchorage to Nome race.  It is a light-hearted story, a variation on ‘Cool Runnings’, about the Jamaican bobsled team of 1988, and as inspirational.

         To tell it, Johns and reporter Seth Wickersham, a native of Alaska, started near Fairbanks, where the 27-year-old Marshall trained last February.

         “You think of him going from Jamaica to Alaska, but we did the main interview in Alaska and the follow-up in Jamaica,” Johns said.

         Johns shot Marshall on a rural expanse owned by Lance Mackey, the four-time Iditarod champion who was hired by sponsor Jimmy Buffett to teach Marshall the ropes. The weather was milder than expected.

         “Zero degrees,” said Johns.

         To shoot Marshall on his dogsled, Johns put a camera in a sled towed by an all-terrain vehicle.  But when the ATV braked, the sled kept on going.  Wipeout.

         Minus a smashed camera battery, Johns soldiered on.  He shifted from an outdoor shoot to a heated indoor location.  Oops.  His cameras fogged up from condensation.

         “They needed at least 45 minutes to warm up,” Johns recalled.

         The crew flipped on the light switches in Marshall’s cabin, adjacent to Mackey’s house.  No light.  Broken generator.

         They used natural light from a window.

         “Given the humble nature of the cabin that kind of limited lighting worked,” Johns said.

         Marshall, raised in poverty with little education, proved to be a strong character, after he overcame his initial shyness.

         “Our first day around him I was a little concerned that he wasn’t going to be as expressive as you would like to tell his own story,” Johns said. “But this was a kid stuck in a cabin in Alaska for four months – after a couple of days with him – in some ways he was anxious to talk to people.  Once we sat him down we couldn’t shut him up.”

         When the race began early in March, Johns was gone.  Footage from the race and interviews at four checkpoints came from Iditarod organizers. 

         Johns finished in Jamaica, where it had begun for Marshall.   He shot the back-story about how Marshall came to be in the race, as well as Marshall’s reflections on his 12-day mush and 47^th place finish.

         In the telling Johns and Wickersham managed a bit of story magic.  Marshall had related that at his lowest point, in the second week, he had sung to himself – a popular Jamaican tune.  Wickersham asked him to sing it for the E:60 camera. 

         Marshall offered up his front porch version of “All Will Be Fine”, by Buju Banton.  Johns transitioned from Marshall’s song, at the Jamaican location, to the Buju Banton studio version, over a shot of Marshall guiding his team across a frozen trail.  

         Johns called it “a device for emotional resonance.”  He could have said it was a device to tug at the heartstrings, or to make the spirit soar.   In the end, “Mush Mon” did both.

posted by Steve Marantz, October 22, 2010

Roundtable: Not A Con

Production assistant Max Brodsky senses something amiss. The E:60 roundtable segment on disgraced former basketball star Rumeal Robinson is into its 12th minute, and has yet to yield what Brodsky needs.
As the cameras roll, Brodsky signals Executive Producer Andy Tennant, at the table with six others, and mouths a question: “If he’s not a con man what is he – without giving away the details.”
Tennant nods, turns back to the table, and breaks in. He references a comment by reporter Lisa Salters, who earlier had called Robinson a “con man”.
“Go back to what Lisa said,” Tennant says. “If he’s not a con man, what is he?”
Reporter Jeffri Chadiha re-focuses. He ponders Robinson, convicted in September of eleven federal counts from a sham business deal, and of Robinson’s adoptive mother, who lost her Cambridge, Ma., home in her effort to help him.
“What he is...he is a guy who had a lot of success as a basketball player, and got in way over his head, and once he was over his head, didn’t know how to reach out for help. He wasn’t humble enough to go to the people he loved and ask them to help him out.”
Chadiha says more, in a tidy and poignant summary. Brodsky has enough.
“Cut”.
The 10-person production crew and the roundtable participants relax. Brodsky shakes his head. He is 25, with a thick shock of brown hair, three-day stubble, and wry sense of his work.
“Sometimes they forget that it’s about the big themes – not about the details,” he says.
The shoot is into its second hour, at a meeting room called the “garage”, at ESPN the Magazine, East 34th Street, Manhattan. Roundtables for three of the six fall shows – 15 stories total – are being shot on a weekday evening early in October.
The roundtable is a simulation of a news meeting in which producers and reporters discuss the news value, characters and themes of stories.
When E:60 was conceived by ESPN Content Development early in 2007, the roundtable was not unanimously embraced - some feared it would appear “phony”. But advocates believed if it was unscripted, and captured the spirit of a real news meeting, it could work.
Fast forward to October 2010. E:60 is the first show to migrate from Content Development to Production. Now in its fourth season, E:60 features the roundtable before and after most segments – as a preview and postscript.
It reaches for big themes, as Brodsky insists. It also evokes casual banter, and a thoughtful and irreverent take on sports.
At the table, which is not round, are Tennant, along with coordinating producers Robert Abbott and Michael Baltierra, and, by turns, reporters Chadiha, Salters, Jeremy Schaap, Rachel Nichols and Seth Wickersham, magazine editor Gary Belsky, and columnist/commentator Bill Simmons. All are made up and miked.
Only Tennant, Abbott and Baltierra are familiar with all of the stories. The others know about their own, but hear about the rest with fresh ears and opinions.
Brodsky directs the crew, which includes an overhead camera, two handheld cameras, and a dolly camera that moves on a semicircle of tracks. Production manager Sue Friedman hovers at the periphery.
Tennant acts as a moderator – initiating and guiding discussion. Typically, a reporter explains his or her segment, and others chime in with comments, questions and wisecracks. The conversation, at its spontaneous best, mirrors an actual newsroom.
Typical is the discussion about Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez.
Nichols pitches it as a story about a second-year quarterback facing high expectations because Jets coach Rex Ryan “loves to talk and draw attention” and because Sanchez is the “first Hispanic-American playing quarterback in a market like this” and because of Sanchez’ popularity with celebrity/gossip media which taps into the cultural legacy of Broadway Joe Namath. Whew.
Schaap disagrees – he thinks Sanchez is not burdened with particularly high expectations because the Jets aren’t built around him the way other teams are built around their quarterbacks.
“He’s in a position where he doesn’t have to be a great player,” Schaap says.
Nichols demurs – she points out that after the Jets lost their opener he was pilloried. She goes on to say that he draws more attention because of his USC pedigree, which draped him in the glamour of “Hollywood”.
Simmons points out, as a Los Angeles resident, that Sanchez was not as big a deal as two USC stars that preceded him – Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush.
“That’s like following the Beatles – nobody is going to win in that situation,” Simmons says.
“I think he did quite well,” Nichols says.
The discussion veers – with ribald humor - towards Sanchez’ sex appeal. Abbott mentions that the Jets’ off-field problems – the DWI charge against Braylon Edwards, and the harassment of reporter Ines Sainz, are making Sanchez’ job more difficult.
Sanchez is up against a phenomenon, Nichols explains, in which opposing defenses get ahead of second-year quarterbacks.

“We got behind the scenes to see how he will hold himself together for this season,” Nichols says.

At this point, 12 minutes into the Sanchez discussion, Brodsky has what he needs – and probably too much.

         “Cut.”

         The participants wander off to snack on pizza and Friedman’s brownies, save for Simmons, who taps furiously on his Blackberry, absorbed in a white-knuckles Twitter drama.


Soon the roundtable will enter its fourth and final hour. Shoulders will sag, eyes will glaze, and voices will drone. The dolly camera will de-rail. Brodsky will shrug and help put it back on track. The dolly – and the show – must go on.
On the seventh floor of a deserted mid-town building, a custodian leans in the doorway to watch the making of journalism and entertainment.
“Roll ‘em.”

(Posted by Steve Marantz, October 12, 2010)

E:60: More B-Boy from E60 on Vimeo.

E:60 B-boy teaser

E:60 B-Boy Teaser from E60 on Vimeo.

The Prime of E:60

TRAILER: E:60 Bhopal India from evolve. J EDWARDS on Vimeo.

E:60 shooters Joel Edwards and Bill Roach went to Italy in August – for a story on model/skydiver Roberta Mancino – and India in September – for a story about children who play cricket on the toxic fields of Bhopal.

         Before they left they acquired new equipment that – they hope  - will deliver those stories with greater impact.

         The just-out Zeiss CP.2 prime lens, Edwards said, “offer serious upgrades to image quality, aperture control and dynamic range.”

         Filmmakers long have used older versions of prime lens. Now, television is using prime lens as it gravitates towards digital cinema.

         In Italy the new lens were used for some specialty and scenic shots.  In India they were used, when possible, on the A and B cameras, for interviews, scenes, and scenic b-roll.

         Prime lens creates a “huge” depth of field, which leaves some of the image out of focus, and draws the viewer’s attention to what is in focus.

         For a shooter, the prime lens poses a challenge.

         “The big difference is that it slows everything down – it makes you think out your shots,” Roach said.  “You can’t zoom – you have to walk closer or change lens.  It’s a very methodical way of shooting.”

         Said Edwards: “It's all about mood setting and image control when choosing a lens - so depending on the creative content of the scene - we'd use the best matching equipment setup accordingly.”

         Shooter lexicon is rich with arcana such as iris ring, flare suppression, aperture, and t-stop.  My personal favorite is “bokeh” – the out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a lens.  But viewers need not know any of that to appreciate the next flight of E:60 stories, which starts October 5.   You can just watch.

         Posted by Steve Marantz, Sept. 23, 2010

          Here’s the link to Zeiss:

http://www.zeiss.com/compactprime

Justin Timberlake

On Labor Day weekend, an E:60 production crew headed to Memphis, TN, to complete it's feature with Justin Timberlake. His biggest fans probably know how much of a golf fan Timberlake is...BUT everyone else might be surprised to learn how much passion Timberlake has for the game of golf.

Long before he made a name for himself -- first as a member of the New Mickey Mouse Club, and then as one of the lead singers of the boy band 'N Sync -- Timberlake learned the game of golf from his step dad, Paul Harless. His first round of golf was played at a public course in Millington, TN, his hometown, at a place called Big Creek.

Then about 10 years ago, while on tour, Timberlake played a round with some of his roadies and ever since has had a love affair with the game. He told E:60's Rachel Nichols in an interview -- perhaps half jokingly -- that on his concert tours, he would adjust the travel schedule to accommodate golf.

Then a couple years back he got a call from his mom, Lynn Harless, and Paul, telling him that Big Creek was up for auction. For less then $1 million dollars, Timberlake became the owner of the course where he first learned to play the game.

Last fall, E:60 started this project with Timberlake at his PGA Tour event in Las Vegas, The Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.  Since his involvement, the event has been gaining in popularity with pros on the tour. Timberlake has a celebrity Pro-Am that kicks off the event each October at the Summerlin TPC, and he also throws a concert on the night before the final round.

On Labor Day, after investing at least $16 million of his own money, Timberlake was back in his hometown and E:60 cameras were rolling as he cut the red ribbon at the grand re-opening of Big Creek, which he has renamed Mirimichi, a native American word which means, "Place of Happy Retreat."

After the ceremony, Timberlake sat down with Nichols for an in-depth interview about his love for golf, before showing off his tricked-out golf cart, and giving Nichols a driving tour of the course. Mirimichi is a luxurious and upscale par 72 golf course, which stretches more than 74-hundred acres. And after all of the improvements and upgrades Timberlake and his team have made, it is now recognized as among the most eco-friendly golf courses in all of the Americas.

Tune in to E:60 in October for this entertaining feature with one of America's Most Sexiest men, Justin Timberlake.

T. Sean Herbert
E:60 Feature Producer
9/7/2010

Bhopal, India - September 6, 2010

You're probably wondering why I haven't written a blog in the last couple of days. I thought about it a bunch of times. After all, we've sat in traffic for far too long (jeez, and I'm not even in Mumbai yet.). What can I tell all of you about India?  What would you like to know?  I just never felt I had a theme for a blog entry. But maybe my theme is just what India's all about.

Is the food good? Yes. Fantastic, actually. I love Indian food, and here, the spices pop. I always describe Indian food (in America, of course) as spicy, but not in the hot way. In the flavorful way. Here, it is a mixture of the perfect heat with the perfect taste.

Is it crowded? Indeed. So many people. Everywhere. There isn't a street corner that isn't populated, a road not full of mini-taxis, and a slum devoid of naked children running barefoot through waste. India is dense. And claustrophobic.

Here's what you need to know about India: Imagine you want to direct a movie, and inside your cozy studio, you need to create a scene of poverty and despair. What would you put in there? Sewage in streets? Dead frogs in your drinking water? Barefoot children walking through shit?  You can find that everywhere in Bhopal.

Ok. To India's defense, this is Bhopal.  I've spent much of the last week within a couple of miles of the Union Carbide factory. As you know, the factory still stands. Corroding. Toxic. And dangerous. Why would you live by the site? Well you wouldn't. Unless you were so poor you couldn't go anywhere else.

What's worse is that it appears no one cares? Ok. People say they care. But they let them live. And no one intervenes. Why is that?

India is all about a sense of community, and these people like that. No matter if they live in filth or wealth. Especially the filth. I can't quite wrap my head around that. How do you live in a place so dirty? Well, they don't know anything else, and for most of them, they'll never be afforded any other opportunity. But they smile. And they live through it. After all, they have no other choice.

I promise. Next blog entry, I'll tell you more about the story out here. It's about a factory. Its destruction. Its presence. And its aftermath that lingers through the streets both visibly and invisibly.

Yaron Deskalo