I am confident that I am not the only big fan of ESPN’s award-winning “30 for 30” Films, a series on the famed network of outstanding documentary film original programming written, directed and produced by some of the best independent filmmakers around today. In fact, I am so much of an enthusiast that I am convinced that even non-sports fans would be and have been enthralled to such works ESPN has been distributing since their original series program began its run—back in 2009. And, as much as an enthusiast as I am to the stellar work of ESPN’s repertoire of nonfiction sports film storytelling is the very elements and production value the makers—executive producers, producers, directors, writers, and their entire production team—have continuously put out since the inception of the television series. ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” is marketed in the logline as: “The series that highlights important people and events in the sports world and in sports history.” This includes long-form documentary film content ranging in the full-length time frame of narrative documentary work but also docu-shorts ranging from as little as five minutes to as long as sixty minutes. For this blog entry I want to point out what I think makes ESPN Films—particularly their long-form documentary narratives—special and significant. Significant enough that we, documentary film enthusiasts, should commend and thank Bill Simmons and Connor Schell for creating and ESPN for assigning, distributing, and marketing. In doing so—they and company have pushed the bar forward in 21st century documentary film production—a gift worth cherishing and honoring.

ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series is nothing new in sports journalism and nonfiction sports film storytelling. PBS Frontline is known to have dabbled into sports topics in long-form documentary format from time to time—including one of their latest in the documentary, League of Denial, that tackles NFL’s current issue on concussions and brain injuries. Fox Sports’ five-season run of “Beyond the Glory”—the sports version of biographical documentaries to VH1’s “Behind the Music”—did its part in a sports documentary television programming. Even ESPN’s earlier version of “SportsCentury” added to the slate of sports documentary film production with over 250 episodes of award-winning long-form content in an eight-year run. But, what is most impressive of this current run of ESPN’s growing volumes of “30 for 30” films is the use of great documentarians expounding on a range of interesting and powerful sports stories. Filmmakers from Brett Morgen, Alex Gibney, Morgan Spurlock, the late Albert Maysles, Steve James, Rory Karpf, Barbara Kopple, John Singleton, and Jonathan Hock—among many others, all add their expertise and talent to at least one of the slated ESPN Films to date. This steady flow of high caliber talent creates a dynamism of original programming that is both compelling and influential. Although while it is easy to create a television series of original content by employing seasoned, award-winning A-listers to go create and produce, ESPN goes even deeper in their approach. They take powerful documentary filmmakers and allow them to drive the nonfiction narrative only when the story itself is near and dear to their hearts. Tackling and documenting a specific story close to home is what brings out the lucid, powerful depiction of characters and their actions for a powerful and complete film one after the other.

What makes ESPN Films work in gifting stellar, award-winning documentary films is how they employ directors and producers who are so infused with the very story they are covering. Social critic Nelson George’s film, The Announcement, that profiled the events and aftermath of Laker great Magic Johnson’s sudden retirement after his revelation of contracting HIV serves as a perfect example of ESPN finding that director who can tell a vivid storyline simply by a filmmaker’s connection to it. What drove Nelson George—known more as a social critic, author, and columnist—to convey the topic of HIV and Magic Johnson’s story of an abrupt retirement to a storied NBA career was driven in motivation of losing his sister to AIDS around the same time. Here, the personal becomes filmmaking—a great and proven element in documentary film production. In The Announcement Nelson George brings the audience into his world of the impact HIV had on his family at the time of Magic’s retirement that paralleled America’s sudden connection to HIV as a national epidemic. Billy Corben’s documentary, The U, and his follow-up, The U Part 2, was rendered stellar because of his personal connection to the University of Miami being a fellow alumnus. All ESPN allowed Corben to do was take us back as viewers to the good ol’ days of “The U”—when the University of Miami’s football team dominated college football. Actor Kevin Connolly who took on the exploit of businessman John Spano and his fraudulent buyout of the New York Islanders hockey franchise in the film, Big Shot, worked well because of his childhood love affair with his neighborhood’s only professional hockey team. His memory of the Spano fiasco struck a chord with him as he laid out the film portrait of what exactly happened. At one point in the film Connolly confronts Spano in a sit-down interview where Spano retells the story of his high-stake scandal. Noticed the trend ESPN has directed and managed in their filmography of the “30 for 30” series—allowing the filmmaker to take on the personal space of their storytelling process making for a real, captivating film portrait of a sports character or sports event. The list goes on—Steve James, the standout documentary filmmaker known for his legendary 1994 masterpiece of a film, Hoop Dreams, produces the probing ESPN Films documentary, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, a film on the young Iverson’s high school arrest and subsequent trial. Steve James hails from Hampton, Virginia like Allen Iverson. This hit home for James who remembers all too well the events of the story that almost ended Iverson’s burgeoning basketball playing career. Coodie and Chike—the black filmmaking duo from Chicago leads the direction and production of Benji, the film about a 1984 Chicago All-American high school hoopster who was fatally gunned down his senior year. Only Coodie and Chike could pull off the story of Benjamin Wilson in light of on one of the most long-standing and egregious problems in the Windy City—gun violence. With intimate portraits of Wilson’s family members and close friends coupled with profound cinematography of Chicago’s fascinating and bleak neighborhoods the director tandem puts out a great yet tragic film story of the untimely death of a basketball prospect. Actor/comedian/director Michael Rapaport, a product of Manhattan, helmed the documentary, When The Garden Was Eden, a film that looks back at the New York Knicks’ championship teams of the early 1970s—when he was an impressionistic youth and newfound fan of the game of basketball being played at the legendary arena of Madison Square Garden.

The style of employing filmmakers on a personal journey to delve into quaint, powerful, and strange storylines for award-winning documentary filmmaking is the hallmark of ESPN’s “30 for 30” series. The vantage point of taking this documentary style is combining the emotion and feeling of the story with the characters involved through a lucid depiction and portrayal. This unique drive at storytelling lends itself to an exploration that may not go deep enough with different documentary filmmakers on board and their production team involved. Not to knock such talent that ESPN scouts for in their award-winning series but such assigning to filmmakers not totally invested personally to the story they are capturing ends up diluting the power and magnetism of a potent and vivid story worth documenting in film format readying for release to an engaging audience. Something should be said about this simple yet uncanny approach to documentary filmmaking—turning the personal into filmmaking. In the murky world of documentary film production an arduous journey encompasses all who embark. With challenges in access and budgets with limited to no return on investment through the even murkier world of film distribution documentary filmmakers need an even greater character trait and motive to pursue such projects. This character trait is only fully endorsed when a personal component is added to the documentary film process. Whether the personality or the personal story of a given filmmaker makes it into the final product of the film or not the personal engagement, nonetheless, renders a film unit to deliver a powerful effect in the film once complete. Television screenwriter Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, a graduate and professor of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, was the perfect insertion to helm the production team of this year’s ESPN “30 for 30” film, Trojan War, a film profile of the rise and fall of the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans football team during Pete Carroll’s coaching tenure in the 2000s. Here, Thomas’ intimate connection as a student-turned-professor during those years of Coach Carroll’s tenure brought out a great story-driven plot that only he could have delivered in a documentary. Documentary filmmaker Thaddeus Matula found widespread acclaim with his first documentary film feature entitled, Pony Excess, which tells a quintessential story of his native city—Dallas, Texas, chronicling the darkest hour of his favorite sports team, the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Mustangs. ESPN Films with the collaboration of MLB Productions granted access and space for Mario Diaz to produce and direct the film, Brothers In Exile. Diaz’s connection to the Miami community, Latino culture, and being of Hispanic Caribbean descent was enough for him and his team to powerfully depict on film the journey of Liván Hernández and his brother Orlando “El Duque” Hernández as Cuban natives who defected to the United States and, soon after, emerged as baseball, championship-winning royalty.