More Than A Game: Q & A with “The Guys”

This is the final piece on the experience at the Silverdocs Film Festival.  In case you’re late getting here, to gather context you can catch my review of the film from Tuesday and Wednesday’s interview with the filmmaker.  After the screening of the film on Monday night, there was a Q&A session with the film subjects, filmmaker Kris Belman, and Producer Harvey Mason Jr.  The session was moderated by NPR’s Michele Norris.  This is my recap of the Q & A, as well as some photos from the after-party (though nothing really exciting, as I left the open bar after-party to go home and write my film review – lame!)

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Moderator:  One thing I noticed sitting with you guys, and spending time with you previously is how amazingly close you all are.  I’m really drawn to your relationships – how do you see your relationships?

Kris: I set out at the start to void stereotypical doc.  I wanted to avoid preconceived notions and have story and make it like a narrative.  As a filmmaker I was like “this is good drama”.  In reality, nobody more frightened than me.  If they didn’t win the national championship, the whole movie could have gone in one swoop.  To make things worse, Coach almost don’t give a halftime speech (in the last game).

So ended the Q&A.  From this point, the went from the Silver Theater to the Discovery Communications building to attend the after-party.  We were led across the street by the Blair High School Marching Band, who was playing the STVM fight song.  The marching band lined the stairway going into the party.  The stairs were darkly lit, with a smoke machine billowing dry ice smoke down the steps.  Once inside the party, we were greeted by a giant version of the film poster and a basketball hoop.  There was some guy on stilts with a basketball hoop on his head that kids were shooting at.  There were plenty of folks taking video of the crowd and the people involved with the film.

A few things that I figure I’ll make note of here, since we’re going all TMZ on y’all these days:

- LeBron showed up around 6:15 (same time as me, though I took the Metro and walked a quarter mile to the theater. He took a limo and walked 8 steps.  Then again, he can probably walk about a quarter mile in 8 steps).  He mingled with the media outside before coming into the theater at about 7:15 with the guys and his girlfriend.

- Our favorite Brian Windhorst was an invited guest of Lionsgate Films.  He was in the film and was in attendance at the screening.

- About 15 faculty and staff from St Vincent-St Mary’s were in attendance at the film, also invited by Lionsgate.  I thought this was pretty cool, that the people who helped mold these your men were brought to celebrate the film with them.

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This concludes my coverage of the event.  Though I’m sure you guys don’t care to hear it from me, it was absolutely awesome to attend.  I’ve never been to a film festival to begin with, let alone as a member of the press.  The accessibility of the people involved with the film was great.  I’m really grateful to have gotten the chance to see the attend the film and Q&A, meet up with Kris, and to have been in contact with the wonderful people that run Silverdocs.  Thanks again to everyone at Silverdocs and Lionsgate – everything was fantastic.  One last reminder that DC area folks can catch the Sunday evening screening of the film.  Otherwise, you can catch the film in October in NYC, LA, and Cleveland.  More info is available at More Than A Game’s website.

Lastly, here’s the preview for the film in case you haven’t already seen it: