NBC

Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics are an event unlike any other in the world of sports. Every four years it brings together elite athletes from all over the globe to compete in tests of will that exceed the limits of ordinary competition. The “games” take on almost mythical proportions, offering its audience extraordinary inter and intra personal struggles that rival that of classic storytelling. We witness contests that involve athletes competing against each other — against themselves — and against the indomitable forces of nature itself. 

It’s a gathering known for creating moments of human drama, and as a director with over 25 years of experience that includes filming events on the highest peaks and in the most hostile conditions — I look forward to the opportunity of being involved. 

It’s what I live for, and my hope is to bring my passion for live action filmmaking, my instinct for using natural light to enhance the dramatic beauty of moments, and my undying directorial curiosity for searching out moments of human truth, to our coverage of the games. Those are the elements that I believe will help viewers connect on an emotional level to the stories we’ll tell. It’s a journey I’m looking forward to sharing with the audience, and what follows are some thoughts on how I would like to capture the heart and soul of this amazing spectacle — and the people who participate in it. 

A Bold & Natural Look

When I’m filming my goal is never to just to capture something accurately. The camera and the photographer’s eye always alter reality, and when I’m shooting events like this, I always strive to bring my imagery a look that reflects the emotions of the moments. I don’t want the audience to feel as if they are simply watching. I want them to feel as if they are immersed in moments that fully engage the senses, and evoke visceral, gut-level responses. 

Gaining this level of connection comes from combining the raw and immediate authenticity of documentary filmmaking with the cinematic sophistication of a feature film. It’s an approach that yields imagery and actions that are unquestionably real — but heightened to the point of delivering intensely powerful moments that reveal the drama and humanity of sports competitions.

If I were to draw a comparison, it would be to bring the bold realism of sports coverage together with episodic filmmaking like Game of Thrones. It will be both epic and intimately honest; beautiful, but at the same time rich with grit; triumphant, and at other times vividly evocative of man’s ceaseless, but often fruitless, efforts to succeed.

Technically, in order to bring the film a look that is fully unified, regardless of where or what I’m filming, I will use the same lensing, lighting, cameras, and techniques throughout. This will lend the visual stories a continuity that provides us with the editorial freedom to mix and match footage from a widely diversified mix of venues and events— ultimately offering us footage that can be woven into one united visual sports experience. 

The Forces of Nature

When filming an event like the Winter Olympics, the elements become like characters in and of themselves. That cast of naturally occurring forces include Gravity, Speed,  Velocity, Inertia, Energy, and of course… the Ice, Snow, and Wind of Winter. Along with filming the athletes, I want to make sure that these elements are ever-present in our coverage. If we’re watching a downhill skiing event, luge, or bobsled  — I want our viewers to feel all those forces coming together in stunning visual detail. 

The same rule will hold true for all events like hockey, speed skating, figure skating snowboarding — even curling. It will never be just about taking the role of a spectator capturing views that feel removed from the action. Each and every moment will be filmed to involve viewers in an experience that will have them feeling like they are right in the midst of the action.

The Cinematic Tools

Like the athletes, I have my own favorite pieces of equipment to bring along. In order to capture these moments in the most powerful and dynamic ways, I’ll be using the ARRI 65mm Alexa, the ARRI M / Codex, and the ARRI Mini. The ARRI cameras have been used for the most recent James Bond Films, adventure films like The Revenant, as well as powerful human dramas such as I Saw the Light, and The 33. My feeling is that they are the best cameras available for capturing the imagery we’re after, while also affording us the flexibility needed to film live action moments at indoor and outdoor venues alike.

We’ll be using these cameras to shoot hand-held, with a STEDI-CAM, and with a Telescoping Stabilized Hot Head Libra Crane. For tracking and traveling shots captured at speed, I’ll be employing 4X4 snowmobiles mounted with the SHOT OVER Stabilized Aerial Ball, and/or the crane mounted on a snowmobile — which will free us to film at any location and under any condition we’re presented with. No traditional dollys are necessary, and the tools we use will never limit or dictate the type of footage we want to capture. They are there to serve the story we’re telling, and to tell it in the most stunning and emotionally powerful way possible. Put simply, they are the tools that will help me bring my A game, and for an event like the Winter Olympics, nothing else will do.

The Mental Game

One of the training and preparation routines that has become very common in sports, is the habit of actively pre-visualizing the event you’re about to participate in. Often, you’ll see athletes swaying back and forth with their eyes closed as they play out the run they are about to make in their mind’s eye. I would like to use this act of pre-visualization as a metaphor that can give us some insight into the years of struggle and training that went into getting these athletes to the pinnacle of their sport. 

This can include taking a trip back in time prior to the games, or capturing moments in which they arrive at the Olympics and begin to prepare — before finally launching off toward what they hope will be a personal, and hopefully an Olympic, victory. 

Rather than being completely literal with the narrative, we can get a bit more abstract with these stories-within-stories, and create beautifully impressionistic pieces of human portraiture. Prior to, in between, or after an event, these personalized pieces can bring an added texture of humanity to the competition, and I think it’s essential to make this part of the films we create.

A Multi-layered Sensory Experience

I want to push the limits of storytelling by bringing the film an aesthetic that is artistic, impressionistic, human, and at the same time, incredibly cinematic and real. Rather than just play on a visual level, I want to use elements such as sound design to bring scenes an added texture of immediacy and realism. When the camera is so close to someone that you can hear their breath, I want it to have an emotional impact similar to the way it was used in Gravity. 

At times, we can use the camera and sound to heighten moments, and bring them an almost surreal quality that instills the film with emotion and drama. This can be enhanced with in-camera effects like using large amounts of steam or smoke (in combination with over-cranking) to bring moments the dream-like quality of floating or drifting. In other instances, we will create VO scripts to help create a better understanding for what makes these athletes tick. 

There’s even the possibility of having the athletes read the VO, and then possibly going back in during the edit to get additional VO reads. Often, after shooting events, you get a better understanding of the emotional needs of a story, and this would provide us with an opportunity to tweak things a bit - just to help the narrative feel more impactful. 

While the body of the film will be captured in-camera, experience has taught me that there will most likely be instances in which we will need to use CGI. Typically, as a consequence of weather conditions, the quality of the light, or the inherent nature of some locations, we’ll need to do some landscape replacement in post. To facilitate this, I’ll make sure to shoot extremely wide angle (plates) of landscapes that will give us the depth and breadth we’ll need to deliver the breathtaking scope and scale of these beautiful natural locations.

No Detail Too Small

The true success of shooting live events often comes down to carefully considering all the details involved — both big and small. We don’t always want to see the athletes in their performance gear, so this means paying close attention to wardrobe to ensure we have options available for lifestyle moments. 

In addition to this, it’s also critical to go in with a plan to capture both the Yin and the Yang of film coverage. That means preparing to shoot footage that runs a range from the most intimate close ups with great depth of field — to incredibly wide views that allow us to see well beyond human and geographic boundaries. 

While filming the athletes, I also like to take opportunities to give viewers a better understanding of their character, personality, and the challenges presented by the elements they are about to encounter. Capturing the spatial relationship between them and the expanses of the environments they’re in can offer us moments of stunning beauty that can be used to express the quiet, but powerful emotions of being present at these events. They’re all part of the visual language that will be used. In some cases an image can make a bold statement. In other cases, it might simply provide the perfect punctuation for the moment being seen. My job is to make sure that you have all you need in the edit — and much much more.

Editorial and Final Color

As a director and filmmaker, I go into every project with the intention of being 110% available for working with the team, all the way through the final edit. It’s all part of the process. I’m a big believer in being part of the collaborative process, and I look forward to an opportunity to work with the NBC post team, the SFX department, and the Sound  department, so that we can create completely cohesive and incredibly compelling pieces of film. 

As always, this will include the need for color correction, and for that part of the process, I will employ the expertise of the colorist I’ve worked with for two-and-a-half decades. He’s been involved in every piece I’ve done, and has played a part in every accolade ever awarded to my work. His professional efforts have won him the honor of Colorist of The Year, time and time and time again. He’s one of the key players that I like to have on my squad, and I’ll be enlisting his talents for these games as well.

Summing up, for now…

These are some of the details that need to be considered for a project like this. But given the nature of an event as big as The Winter Olympics, the production approach will continue to evolve and become more and more defined as we progress. 

The key is to spend all the time preplanning that’s needed, and to always work in a close and open collaboration that will allow us to craft these films into stories that will live on, and honor NBC’s long history for bringing its audience the best and most extensive coverage of the Olympics imaginable.

Thanks again, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.