December 6, 2017 • 57 mins
Coach Jerry Glanville joins the show (41:50) to dive deep on one of the most fun teams in NFL history, his 1991 Atlanta Falcons. He shares stories about James Brown attending a Falcons practice (55:17) as well as discusses Brett Favre’s time in Atlanta (49:13) and much, much more. The guys talk about the making of The Timeline: ‘91 Falcons with the show’s producers: Greg Bocchetti and Anthony Smith. Finally, director Rob Gehring jumps on for a bit of film geekery about how he achieved the show’s unique look (28:40).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Go to grasshopper dot com slash films to get twenty
dollars off your first month. Today on the NFL Films Podcast,
we'll take a dive into The Timeline Falcons, a new
documentary that covers perhaps the most fun team in NFL history,
(00:45):
with the producers of the film, Greg mcketty, Anthony Smith,
the director, Rob Garring, and the head coach from that team,
Jerry Glanville. Paul, Good morning, Keith. I have a question.
How can I help you? What is the Timeline? The
(01:06):
Timeline is a documentary series on the NFL Network. It
is in its third season this year. For the documentary
fans of the NFL Network who know Football Life, which
has been running seven or eight years now, seventh seasons
going on its hundredth episode this season this fall, the
Timeline came around kind of as a spinoff, we would
(01:28):
call it right in the TV parlance in a sense.
In a sense, there were some some episodes of the
of the Football Life series which started to take on um,
I guess a conceptual tech for lack of a better term.
There was there was the Immaculate Reception. There were the Browns,
the Oilers, shows that were the life, the football life
(01:52):
of a team, or a topic almost or a moment.
There was a time where NFL Network where the executives
in pro Rammers at the network said, we think we
should focus Football Life strictly on biographies and we could
create a new series based on topics and teams and moments.
(02:13):
And that's where the Timeline came from. The Timeline really
was derivative of that last word. Keith used moments, the
moments that made history. We find ourselves even on a conversation,
I think when we were brainstorming, we'd we'd be saying,
almost as fans, remember the moment when when Barry Sanders
did this on Thanksgiving, Remember the moment when you know
Montana threw the tailor and that phrase the moment. In
(02:34):
delivering the moment is something that we try and do
in all of our stories. However, long form the duration
is so we said, well, let's take the place where
all the moments live, the timeline of NFL history, and
and let's use that as our universe for this new series.
And that's how we got here. So with us today
(02:55):
we have NFL Films producer Greg Backetty goodmar and Greg.
How are you, Keith, Paul Good, thanks for being here.
And we have um, We're in Mount Laurel at NFL Films,
and we have with us from Los Angeles, Anthony Smith,
the film's other producer. Hello, Anthony, how's it going guys.
(03:15):
It's great to have you with us, Anthony, who has
Anthony has collaborated. Now NFL Films and NFL Network, just
to um go a little deeper, are two separate entities.
U NFL Network is part of part of the big
NFL media colossus that exists in Los Angeles as a
(03:38):
physical entity that includes NFL dot Com, all of the
NFL digital properties, and then of course NFL Network. NFL
Films is on the East Coast outside of Philadelphia and
Mount Laurel, New Jersey and UH is a separate entity,
but we are UH in a lot of ways, um
(03:59):
right hand left hand sibling entities, and we collaborate on
pretty much everything, but not always in a situation like this. So,
Greg and Anthony, you two are partnered together on a
project like this, and maybe you can tell us a
little bit about what this project is. Yeah, sure, I
(04:20):
mean so, so the project it's, uh, it's the Falcons,
the ninety one Falcons team, which everybody you know remembers,
you know, for having some of the biggest characters and
in NFL history and um, you know, Dion Sanders and
Andre Risen and Brett Farbe and Clanville and a lot
of these characters, a lot of the biggest characters in
(04:40):
NFL history on one team. But the thing that's interesting
about this team also that's the fact that Glanville created
this atmosphere where there are all these celebrities around as well.
So you have guys like Travis Tritt and and Vander
Howley Field and James Brown and mc hammer that are
hanging out on the s eide line as this team
(05:01):
is having the greatest season in team history. Um, so
it's you know, as Greg has said, you know and
add it like this is almost a murderous row of
just characters. Uh that you know that we were able
to put it into the film, uh, which is a
gift in a curse in some ways. And you know,
Gregg and got to go into that. But it's you know,
you have all these great characters who were given great,
(05:22):
great interviews and great sound and you're trying to fit
them all into into one film, which is which is
a challenge, but it's a good challenge to have. Yeah.
So I mean when we sit down and have great
bites from Brett Farve, Dion Sanders, I mean, just the
murderers right like we said Jerry Glanville, it was you
know sometimes they're just having a conversation with themselves on
the ab and you can just put these bites together
(05:43):
with Dion talking about taking Brett shopping and Brett also
talking about it, and it just it worked so well.
And there's just so many great sections that worked. Um
with those guys. Let's listen to to Dion and Brett
Farve going shopping and then we'll we'll dive a little
deeper into into this moment in time and why it's
worthy of a film. The Falcons had a fresh look,
(06:06):
but their rookie quarterback appeared out of place. Brett and
I had played against each other in college. Dion was
so awesome, took me under his wing when others would
just shun me. I remember taking Britt shop and look,
I can't let you come to work like that every day.
You you gotta stop there. So I remember taking him
downtown to the end the city and I did all
the shop. What's what's that? Man? Get that you need?
(06:28):
That you need? That got the whole new oar drole
took me and bought me clothes which I never wore.
It was way too good and stylish for me. Brett
used to roll around stop and thought bullet for the
yards on a dime and was like, whoa. It's one
thing to have a film that stars Brett Farve and
(06:48):
Dion Sanders and Jerry Glanville and a litany of hip
hop and country music stars, But a film also has
to have a narrative that makes it worthy of sitting
down and spending an hour. What what is it about
this moment in history and Falcon's history and NFL history
that makes it worthy of a documentary? The interesting thing,
(07:10):
the thing that that excited me most about just kind
of going back and looking at this team, um, you know,
because I remember, I mean I was ten nine, ten
eleven years old when when when this was kind of happening.
So I remember MC Hammer was the biggest, was the
biggest deal ever. And it's funny. Dominique Wilkins says that people,
young people don't really understand how big Emsey Hammer was
(07:32):
at the time. So you know, he's he's this guy,
he's like, you know, EMC Hammer was probably bigger than
any hip hop star has ever been, you know ever,
you know, this guy at commercials and cartoons and Pepsie
Dells and toys and all of this. So I remember
MC Hammer. That's the thing I remember most about the team.
You know, I remember EMC Hammer and I remember Dion Sanders,
but I also remember just kind of growing up in
(07:52):
the South around this time, as Atlanta being this place
where African Americans were going to drive and achieve and
and go after the American dream. It was becoming at
this time, you know, it was being called the Black Meca.
It was almost like a Harlem uh from the nineteen
twenties that was happening in the nineties. So you had
the city of Atlanta that I remember just kind of
growing up in Alabama as being the place that everybody
(08:13):
wanted to get. So you had this team, uh that
that was coming of age at the same time. In
many ways, the city was coming of age. I mean,
the Braves were doing their thing, um going starting their
streak of i think fourteen fifteen division championships in a row.
The city had just had just been awarded the Olympics,
So all of this was going on at the same time.
(08:34):
As you dig a little deeper, you also had Atlanta
hip hop that was starting to come to you know,
prominence around the same time late late So it's this
conversion of all these elements that was that was kind
of happening at the same time. Um, you know, this
American city looking to looking to get respect and looking
to become an international city, with this football team that
(08:59):
that had not had success that was also looking to
get respect and looking to get prominence. Uh So it
was a very interesting convergence of a lot of different
things going on at the same time. There's a kind
of a micro genre here, um, I mean not just here,
but that we've done over the years, these city shows
we call them, uh, and I think all of us
(09:19):
at this table, I know Anthony has Um, We've all
worked on shows that that, sometimes explicitly and other times
implicitly sort of allow for a city, a location to
almost become a character. Even within the Timeline series. Anthony
has worked on was a co producer of the Tale
of Two Cities film in the premier season of the
Timeline documentary series, which was a story of San Francisco
(09:41):
and Dallas in their unique relationship in history. And Greg
last year worked on a film called Knight of the
Living Steelers, which was about filmmaker George Romero, the godfather
of the zombie genre, and his relationship to the Steelers
in the seventies. But as all seventies Steelers films are,
it was a had a strong thread of the time
in the town and the team kind of all interwoven.
(10:02):
I wonder if you, guys and Greg, I'll throw it
to you first, could talk about putting together a city show.
How do you go into the field and capture the
place and then how do you bring it to life
on screen? And kind of what, uh, what what asset
does that give you as a filmmaker to have kind
of a vibrant place at your disposal when you're when
you're putting a piece together. Oh, Sureed Lennon is very scenic.
(10:25):
And when we went down there, we knew whither we
were bringing this social angle to it. So we shot
all the historically black colleges down there. We shot the
Martin Luther King sites and everything, and and visually they
just look stunning um in the film and and just
I know Anthony went down there and shot those with
Rob who will talk to you later. But putting them together,
as you know, editing here, it was just I mean,
(10:46):
it's one of the most scenic cities that we have
in America and it was just great to shoot. And
you know, doing Pittsburgh last year is the same thing.
It's it's one of those cities that it's just the
skylines and everything. Put them together editorially is great. One
of the most fun things is when you interview you
and famous people, players, people who have been in a
city and have had their own passions ignited by a
(11:08):
place make It brings these stories to life in a
way that's really exciting as a storyteller, and you can
hear it right away in this film. UM. Here here
some of the many luminaries who appear in the film
talking about Atlanta. UM. Starting with Dion Sanders. Um. You'll
hear from Dion, Jermaine Duprie, t I, and Big Boy
(11:32):
in this clip. I went to Atlanta, and when I
got there, I was amazed, the reason being I saw
black folks in prominent places. I had never seen black
doctors and lawyers, political figures, and it blew my mind.
And driving nice cars and one getting pulled over for nonsense.
(11:53):
So I had in my mind from way back when
this is where I want to be. Atlanta was a
place where African Americans could express themselves, Unlike anywhere else
in America. There was no more expressive art form than
hip hop, which was just beginning to emerge on a
(12:13):
national level but already had deep roots in the Dirty South.
You could go all around the city and see talent arrested.
Development was putting themselves together, boised. The men here in
Atlanta put out Criss Cross. At that same time I
had TLC. All of this happened in that wave set
the stage for the next wave, which was Outcast Goody Mob.
(12:36):
When we started it wasn't cool to be from Atlantino.
So I think we had a strong sense of Southern
pride when you think about the rise of the South
in terms of hip hop, but in terms of pop culture,
Atlanta is the heartbeat, the benchmark, the bellweather, the burgeoning
hip hop scene in Atlanta, tremendous star appeal. All of
that coming together was a real burst of excitement. That
(13:00):
was sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson talking about Atlanta's hunger
for respect and guys just curious, did you go in
knowing that you wanted to tell this story about Atlanta
in this moment or is that something that rose up
through the process. Definitely throughout the process. Um. Like I said,
(13:21):
Anthony brought in this angle that we hadn't really you know,
gone into before with the Black Mecca. And it's something
I learned a couple of years agohen I was doing
a documentary on Jerome Bettis with Jerome, you know, obviously
has a lot of Pittsburgh ties, being with the Steelers
and from Detroit, but I was surprised how many interviews
were in Atlanta, how many ex players lived down there.
Jerome lives down there. Cordell Stewart. I believe Hines Ward.
(13:44):
We kept having to go back to Atlanta, So you
really do see that these that's where these ex athletes
want to live. They want to be a part of
what's going on down there. Yeah, and I mean I
think that, you know, the Gregg's point, um, like, I
didn't know that it would be to the extent that
it was. Um in terms of Atlanta. You know, I
(14:06):
knew Atlanta and again as a kid, I knew Atlanta
was was a cool place and it was a place
to be and it was a place that was kind
of emerging. But I didn't know to the extent that
these guys were looking for respect. And they were looking
for respect on a on a national stage and the
international stage and in many ways, you know with the Olympics, um,
and they wanted to be thought of as an international city.
And that was something that kept coming up, um, you know,
(14:28):
not just from the hip hop artist, but from the
from the athletes, from the you know, from Mayy Andrew
Young America seem Read also said that was you know,
Atlanta was looking for a respect. I mean, there's a
there's a whole angle that didn't get put into the film.
Uh that, you know, guys, I mean didn't matter if
it was a rapper or athlete or whoever. I think
(14:50):
that I did five interviews in a row where everybody
was talking about the fact that there's more production film
production in Atlanta than anywhere else in the world, you know,
like more than Hollywood, more than India, and everybod he
kept saying that, and but in some ways they were
still kind of beating that drama, you know, almost like
we made it now, like we are we have accomplished
what when we set out the accomplish in the lay
(15:10):
Ladies in early nineties. But that was something that everybody
made sure that me and Rob and the crew knew
that there was more more business happening in Atlanta than
anywhere in the world. When we talk about the rise
of the profile of the city of Atlanta, as this
film does, and we talked about the goal of the
timeline to talk about significant moments in history for me,
(15:31):
and I think it's pretty clear in the film. The moment,
uh that reflects that rise in our story here in
this in this one hour doc is the arrival of
Dion Sanders. He had the high profile, the sort of
the look before he even made it. He was he
was splashy before he got to the NFL and had
the NFL stage to stand on. And one of the
things I love in the show is um obviously the
(15:53):
role of Dion as it comes out on the screen.
And Anthony, you conducted that interview, and I wanted you
to kind of describe approach to it because I think
the challenge for me for with a guy like Dian
would be how do I capture the natural energy and
enthusiasm that this guy has and how he tells stories,
but also cajole him to be introspective and reflective, which
(16:13):
you clearly did because he he goes into not just
the fun storytelling anecdotes, but he's he's also reflecting on
on the the experience he had kind of emotionally with
his teammates and with his this place. Yeah, I mean
I think that uh, just our approach kind of going
in is I wanted Dion too to fully buy in
(16:36):
in regards to what we're doing and fully buy into
the story that we were telling. UM, because I mean,
as as all of us know, like Dion, Dean is
not gonna do every project, So it has to be
a project that Dion is you know, is you know,
invested in is something that you know that he believes
is a story worth telling. So I think the biggest
part on on on my end was just getting him
(16:58):
excited and make sure that he knew the story that
we were trying to tell going in and once you know,
once we were able to convey that to him and
let him know the different different angles we were taking
with the story, and and letting him know some of
the people, you know, outside of outside of the football
team that we're looking to make a part of this. Um,
he had complete buying. So once he got into the seat,
(17:20):
I mean, Dion was, Dion was money. I mean, Dion
was great. It was more work on the on the
front end than actually in the interview. Uh. I kind
of let him know the questions that that we're gonna
be coming his way in the topics that we're gonna
be talking about, and uh, and he's a pro. He was,
he was ready to go. Was there anything you learned
that you weren't expecting? Um, you know what I mean,
(17:41):
I I was. I was surprised the way I mean
specifically was rising because I had heard him talk about
bred Fard before a couple of years ago, we did
a cleated a thing where we sat Bred and Dion
down and they talked for an hour and just kind
of talked about you know, being in Atlanta and college
and just being friends for for all these years. Um
So that was something that that wasn't a surprising to
(18:03):
me that maybe the some other some some of our viewers,
but him talking about Rising and their friendship and brotherhood
and and the way that the way that I don't
want to say it ended, because I mean there's still
you know, they're still on speaking terms, but it's obvious
that things aren't the way that they were, and both
of them were open and honest about that. Um So
(18:25):
I was I was pleasantly surprised that he went there.
Um in terms of his relationship with with Rising, I sell.
The thing I learned about Dion in this film, Guys,
is that there's a continuing and there's an ongoing debate
about the Jerry Curl. And that's the funny thing about
it is we we a lot of these interviews and
the questions we had to get together at once, so
(18:47):
we sent down a whole batch down and it's funny
how we didn't have questions about the Jerry Curl in there.
Yet everyone started talking about it and what they thought
about it, and yeah, I learned it was dry. Who knew? Well?
I think there's debate. Yeah says it's dry, but Dominique
will it. Wilkins, among many others, claims otherwise, let's let's
(19:07):
let's listen to the debate about the Jerry Curl. Prime
time came out. He had the Mr t Starter kid,
all the jewelry on. I don't know how he walked
with all those chains on. I don't believe they were real.
They just had to be changed painted gold. I don't
know if I've ever seen his Jerry Curl out of place.
Curl was fresh, just came from the salon. So when
I turned, I think just turning with it. You know
(19:29):
what I'm saying. The wet is Jared Curl. I was
seeing the most moisture wise curl in history ever. You know,
the curl looked wet, but it was dry. It was wet,
real wet. The debate will continue. Yeah, what do you think,
I mean, is there any evidence that that proves it
one way or the other, that you found their extensive
(19:49):
research guys, I think I think it was wet. I
think he had activator in that thing like coming to America.
But but he says otherwise. So who are we to
argue with Dion? This film is, as you guys said,
it's an embarrassment of riches and characters. We're going to
talk to to one of them, the coach of this circus,
(20:11):
Jerry Glanville, a little bit later. But the other character
who emerges in this story and is almost running parallel
with his own story is Brett Farve, the unlikeliest character
in the story. And you know the backstory is Brett
Farve gets drafted by the Falcons. You know, this is
(20:34):
this little known fact in history that Brett Farve's career
starts this season and in Atlanta. And it's an odd story,
is an odd fit from the very start. Let's we'll
have a conversation about this. Let's let's hear a little
bit about how it Brett saw things when he arrived.
(20:54):
I was pretty confident, also was extremely naive. Twenty one
years old. You think you got it all figured out,
just never say snow. At Long South, Mississippi, there is
a never ending debate over who wanted to trade Brett
farve away from Atlanta and who wanted to select him
in the first place. I wanted to draft him, Jerry,
(21:16):
what do you think you know? I I don't really
like him. I like this brining and eagle guy. Jeez,
I'm brought ready to choke. I read the story. I
never wanted to draft him. All that, that's all fictitious.
What my gut tells me is that Ken Harrock wanted
to draft me and Jerry did not. The first time
(21:37):
I set foot on the Falcons facility, Glanville looks at
me and he says, Mississippi. What school are you from?
I said Southern miss and he says, we drafted the
wrong guy. We wanted a guy from Mississippi State. He
didn't know. I joked with all the players that way.
There was a lot of that that went on, and
you know, overcoming that was probably harder than overcoming the
game itself. Mississippi, you're not gonna play, then, I'll tell
(22:02):
you what we gotta have to playing Rex and four
cornerbacks go down and you're in. I was like, you know,
I don't know how, I don't know where, I don't
know when, but I will prove this guy wrong. So
that was Jerry Glanville, of course, and Brett Farve and
the former general manager of the Falcons, Ken Harrock, And
that's a dispute that has been litigated over many years
(22:25):
between her Rock and Glanville. They each other side of
the story. And how did you guys attack both that
story and fitting Brett into the larger narrative um of
Atlanta and the Falcons and Dion and everything else. That
was our trouble with this film is we have so
many leading men, so many main stars, and weaving those
(22:47):
storylines together was the main problem of this film And
I think the way that we did it is the
quarterback storyline becomes very important earlier in the season when
their starter Chris Miller is kind of throwing interceptions and
Brett far It is still on the bench, So you
kind of know that this legend is sitting on the
bench on a team that really needs a quarterback. So
(23:07):
putting those together and kind of weaving far throughout was
it was challenging. Yeah, I mean I think that that
you have a character like bread far on a team
like this, you have to find a way to fit
him in. So so it's a problem. It's a challenge.
But again, it's a good problem to have. So it's
just put it our collective heads together, you know, with
each other, with with the showrunners, and just trying to
(23:30):
figure out the best way to not only bread Far,
but to get all the threads in. But I mean,
I think that we figured out a way two in
many ways, introduced him early, you know, kind of come
back to him, you know, and then the middle blocks
and then obviously tie up everything at the end with him,
you know, ending up getting traded from Atlanta and having success.
You know that we all know that he had in
(23:51):
Green Bay. Um. And one thing I do want to add, uh,
Like in many of these clips that you guys have played,
you've heard the voice of Ken Harrock. Who is I
mean again, he's not a name that has known to
some of the other guys in the film, but this
guy's another character. And do himself who Again, we just
had guys that gave great interviews, and he gave one
of the best interviews that we had. UM and he
(24:12):
was great on Far and having Glanville talk on Far
to the extent that he did, but also having Far
in many ways open up in ways that I hadn't
really seen him open up about this particular year, because
I've seen Brett far talk about everything else, but I
didn't really seen him talk about this year in Atlanta
to the extent that he did, which was which was
(24:32):
great to have as well. Sure, and with Ken Herrock
and Jerry Glennville, you got the impression that they've been
asked this question. Like you said, this is a debate
is going on for years. They have their stories so
ready and exactly. To finally be able to intercut between
them talking about it and you know, Ken Harrock giving
his story about how it happened, Jerry giving his, and
all the details that they had, it was very interesting.
(24:55):
I think it's one of the fun things about doing
these deep dives is we talk about Brett Farve as
the legend that's sitting on the bench, but when you
dive into the story, you realize he wasn't a legend yet.
In fact, Brett is very candid about how his approach
was probably less than professional at that at that moment.
We get back to this idea of a moment. When
you explore a moment, you see Brett Farve obviously wasn't
(25:17):
what he would become and maybe only by being traded
did he sort of blossom into the star of the
legend that that would You know, some guys are sort
of a perfect fit from jump and other guys need
to have that that course correction. You see how close
to Brett really came to washing out and and and
really what a mess he was. He was not ready
(25:37):
to play. In the NFL. Brett Farve was drafted as
the backup to starter Chris Miller, but then Atlanta traded
for veteran Billy Joe Tolliver and Farv slipped to third string.
You're draft in the second round, That in itself tells you,
you know, you're kind of the error apparent. And then
they trade for a guy and put him by in
(25:58):
front of you never give you an explanation, which they
you know, as I look back, I didn't deserve one.
And I'm in a situation here where I've got to
wait my turn, and I really don't mind. I'd like
to play, but you know, I understand my role right now.
I'm only years old, and hopefully I've got a bright
future here. Every week, Mr here like, I need to
talk to you, Okay, what do you need? We do
want Brett I'm better than these guys, and I ain't
(26:20):
getting the opportunity to get a chance. Brett, when you
get your opportunity to get your chance, show him what
you can do well. He wasn't showing him. He's going
to practice. Uh. Sometimes I've drunk, not knowing the plays. Overweight,
I did pretty good. I could probably put on about
twenty five pounds that year. I was two hundred and
fifty five pounds. I think I went from a thirty
(26:42):
six to forty pound. That was back in my beer
drinking days. I knew we had a problem because he
couldn't come in and stay awake in a meeting. Probably
lost my patience with him when we took a team
picture and he didn't show up for the team picture.
So if you look at the team picture from that year,
you think, I think for spooling our leg. He never
played for the Falcons. So to think that I had
(27:03):
a wonderful career after the start is pretty remarkable. The
great what If of the Falcons farms like the hero
with a hundred origin stories. Every step of his story
from the from the home movies with Bigger on the floor,
through through the ups and ups and downs at Southern
midst to the ninety one Falcon season, to the too
(27:25):
many rocket balls in Green Bay. I mean he he
is to Minnesota. I mean it just doesn't end. So
all these characters, as we've been talking about, are are
the blessing and the curse. How do you capture him?
How do you harness what is already there in the
archival footage, and how do you put it all together
and give the film a look and a feel that
helps that fund sizzle but helps the story deliver. We're
(27:48):
gonna bring in at this point Rob Garring, who was
the director of the film and helped to solve that problem,
along with Anthony and Greg. Hi, Rob Hi, Keith. How's
it going? Man? Good? Welcome to Paul and Greg and Anthony. Hello, guys,
(28:09):
welcome to the NFL Films Podcast. Uh So, the Falcons.
We've been talking about the story of the film, but
we'd like to turn the conversation a little bit more
to the look and the style of the film and
just a little background a little more as something we
talked about at the top of the show with how
this sort of dream team, this Vultron was put together
(28:29):
for the production of this show. We had the bicoastal
producers Anthony out in l A and Greg here in
Mount Laurel. Who and we say producers, it's sort of
a general term, but they're involved in the pre production,
the direction, in the field, the editing and the post process.
But on this show, Rob Garring was involved in the direction. Uh,
And I don't want to limit it, Rob, and I'll
(28:50):
let you kind of get into the details, but more
on the front end of of the production process, the
pre production, the design of the look of the show,
the caps her in the field, and then handing off
the footage to these guys to edit it. It's a
it's it's not it's not unprecedented, but it's unusual in
our in our process. So we wanted to kind of
explain it because it will help shed some light on
(29:11):
what Rob's role was in terms of the whole collaboration.
So did I did I just? Did I describe that accurately?
Would you say? Right? Yeah? Absolutely? I mean I think
that's and I think it was a great process for
this particular film. I'm really glad that it worked out
the way that it did. Um. I think you know,
when we went into this, the very first thing that
we did once this Gut Greenland was I went back
(29:33):
and watched the Toolgit to Quit video and I just
wanted to get a feel for what that looked like,
what that that environment looked like. Um. And it was
a lot of uh, spotlights on a black stage, blacked
out stage, and it was you know, it was just
very like bright lights, um shining kind of on that
(29:54):
moment and that that and that informed everything after that
in terms of how we tried to capture inter use,
how we try to capture content. Um. Yeah, that was
that was kind of the first thing we do. It's
a great description is it is a a failing of
this audio format that you won't be able to see
that until you watch the film, but it is a
it has a distinct look. I would say that was
a success what your goal was in terms of achieving it.
(30:16):
I want you to go a little further again, when
we talk about these teams, you almost have your own
team when you put something like this together. And in
addition to working with Greg and Anthony, but when it
comes to the director interacting with the director of photography
and the colorists, the guys who do the color grading
on the footage, Uh, that's a process that unfolds throughout
(30:36):
from beginning to end. But you guys do a lot
of work even before cameras roll, and I want you
to talk about that part of it before you ever
go in the field. How do you collaborate with those
more visual artists in terms of the process and and
how do you guys converse and put put your plan together. Yeah,
I mean absolutely we um, there's a lot of conversations
that happened with the director of photography specifically. Um. There's
(30:58):
a lot of little things that you can do that
sometimes are very subtle, Uh, to give give it that
unique look. The colors is critically important when you have
a look like this, because we netted out at wanting
to have everything be focused on the subject so that
you weren't distracted by background. You weren't distracted by anything.
You were just hearing this story and it was under
the same kind of spotlight that they were under at
(31:21):
the time. UM. And so you know, that's not an
easy thing to achieve. You think, you know, a little
black box set up, so to speak, where all you
see is the subject is a really easy thing to light.
It's actually a very difficult thing to light um and
to be able to repeat and we knew and working
with Anthony and Greg beforehand, we knew we wanted to
talk to a lot of people, UM, probably more people
(31:42):
than we might normally for a film like this, UM,
because the the the ripples of this were so far reaching,
especially afterwards in the Atlantic community, and so we wanted
that that set up to be repeatable, and so talking
to the to the colorists about how we could do
that and give them enough but if there were errors
in that, they could save it, so to speak, or
(32:04):
they could kind of unify it more importantly. UM, that
was a huge part of it, and feeling kind of
comfortable where we were in that spectrum. What is the
colorist For people who don't know, I mean just thirty seconds, well,
I mean we know what a director of photography is.
He's in charge of the sort of the shooting. You're
the director. What is the What does the colorists do?
I mean, the colorist is taking all the the the
(32:25):
information that you're giving them in the image and trying
to squeeze and manipulate everything they can to give that
image a specific look. It's everything from contrast to two
color hues too. You know how many knits there are
in the brightness of the image. I mean there's a
we get geek geek out on it for a while,
but you know, the color's job is to really squeeze
(32:46):
and manipulate everything out of very base information, UM, to
make that image. Saying so, how you mentioned the spotlights
that you saw in the two legit video? How did
you and Paul mentioned the limit tations of this format.
We're not gonna be able to see it, but can
you describe what you what your objective was and bringing
(33:07):
that look, translating it into this film and how you
executed it. Yeah, I, UM, you know, some of it
was just coincidence. Um, at the time we started talking
about this film, UM, we were shooting a lot or
I was shooting a lot on some other on another
project with anamorphic lenses. What does that mean? Uh? Anamorphis
lenses have a different aspect ratio. So when your your
(33:28):
wide screen television h D television is UM sixteen by
nine aspect ratio, it's a it's a fairly standard wide
screen image compared to you know, ten fifteen years ago
when we started working here, Um, it was an st
image that was much more of a square. It was
a four by three UM and so the aspect ratio
of an anamorphic that an anamorphic lens allows you to
(33:50):
shoot with is even wider than that. So if you
took what you see you on an HD television and
you letterbox that you put black bars at the top
and bottom of, that's the aspect ratio that you're mostly
getting UM out of that kind of lens, and so
um it was partially the aspect ratio, but it was
also those anamorphic lens as well. Wow, you to get
(34:13):
all kinds of texture at it, right. And so one
of the things that we that that kept sticking in
my and my mind was the Dirty South, Right, that
was the genre of music that that evolved from this,
and everything about Atlanta was just kind of imperfect but beautiful.
I'm perfectly imperfect, and it was it was dirty and
(34:34):
raw and had texture. And so not only did we
take lenses that already have those characteristics, but we went
and got these these really old lenses, these Kawa lenses
that were built in the nineties seventies UM and have
since kind of been rehoused, but they still have all
the basic tenants of the lenses and the original lenses,
and those are dirty. I mean they're there's there flawed.
(34:57):
They have elements to them that are that are imperfect.
And we leaned into that. We wanted those images to
have flares and streaks and and there to be bloom
around the light. So you know, so much today is
done to take that out of lenses. Um, we leaned
into the opposite, and so we wanted to kind of
embrace that as we as we were shooting the interviews,
(35:19):
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(36:50):
There's one thing we haven't talked about yet, and and
that's football. One of my favorite parts of this film
is this little football detail about the ninety one Falcons
get the ball to Prime With mr you can't touch
this on the sidelines, the Falcons started playing cheap away,
(37:10):
a strategy they called get the ball to Prime. I
rule wastilateral gets talk the touchdown if you picked the
ball off the practice you hadn't pitching it looks like
they practice after they get the interception, try to get
a return for a touchdown. Coaches like yo, picture like
(37:31):
if you didn't pitch it, he in the meeting room, like,
why aren't you pitching? And guy asked me to pitch
in the ball. We're trying to go to the end zone.
The Falcons live on the air if I have to disaster.
There was just an understanding. You get to pick if
I'm anywhere close, get the turn fall to one. When
you get twenty one, you win. If black jack are lit,
(37:52):
you want you win. That That is like a that's
like a perfect football representation of the Falcons. It's a
little bit of a clash of style and substance and
everything ultimately revolving around and leading to Dion Sanders. Did
any of you guys get the sense that any of
(38:13):
these guys regretted the fun approach that they took to
football when you're doing these interviews, did that did that
exude or did that eke out that? Obviously they had fun,
that's clear, But I mean, they didn't win a championship.
So did they look back now later in life having
their careers be over and say, man, I wish we'd
wish we'd danced a little less. One subject, Jamie Duke's
kind of went into that. He went into the criticism
(38:34):
they received and when they lost a team like Washington
coached by Joe Gibbs, they do everything straight laced. They
really went into you know how the contrasting those two teams,
and you know, the team that did things straight laced
one and the team that was dancing didn't. And there's
the Jamie was the one that really went into that
for sure. Yeah, it seems like everybody else that seemed
(38:56):
seemed to enjoy it. And uh, if you look back
fondly at that at that particular time, and um, you know,
at the at the end of the day, I mean,
a lot of the guys spoke to the fact that
the team was cheap and the team or the team
at the time didn't spend the money to keep some
of their some of their big free agents, and you know,
made some questionable personnel decisions. Um, and and a lot
(39:18):
of the guys think that that was the reason they
didn't have further success. Versus versus the style, I just
like the pitching laterally is but anytime you can distill,
it's great to talk about anamorphic lenses. It's great to
shoot things the way that they were shot in the
film is beautiful. The interviews in this film, especially when
(39:39):
you have to do interviews in a variety of different
locations with a variety of different subjects to find a
technique and to make it work the way it does
in this film is really really hard to do. But
the other thing we have to do in all of
our films is we have to make the football work.
We have to find something in the football that helps
tell the story ray of this team or this this
(40:01):
this player that signifies who they were as as people
and as football players and and distills it down to
the essence that I love that you guys found the
one football element that like sums up this team to
a t, even in their greatest moment, their playoff win,
(40:23):
that that lateral comes up in the last play of
the game. I think my only criticism of the ninety
one Falcons approach was that they changed the uniforms. And
maybe it's just nostalgia, but I really love I love
the red and blacks from being my first exposure to football.
That's what they're wearing. This is the team that that
went to all black. Uh. You know, maybe just another
(40:44):
debate that will historically be connected to this team. You
will be on the wrong side of that debate about
but you know, you know who we can ask about
the change to all blacks, Paul the man himself who
executed that change, the Man in Black. Jerry Glanville, Coach Glanville.
(41:15):
Welcome to the NFL Films Podcast. I'm Keith Cosro with
Paul Camarado. We've been producers at NFL Films for many years.
We've probably both interviewed you for some film we did
fifteen years ago. And we're with Greg Bachetty, the producer
of the great new film The Timeline Falcons, which you
(41:35):
are one of the stars of. So we would love
to talk to you about the film and about that
moment in your life for a few minutes today. Well,
you happen to pick a moment which was probably as
good as it gets. The Falcons were not normal in
any way. There's a special special group. Was that the
(41:58):
best season of your career? This was this was a
moment in Atlanta in a city that was rising. There
was a cultural element to it. There was dion and
everything else, and it was the last year in Fulton
County and you have never they never will probably get
crowds like that because we didn't sell corporate tickets. We
(42:18):
didn't sell tickets by the hundreds. All of our tickets
were sold by twos and fours. And it was an
unbelievable people that said in the end zone that waited
to see those those players come out, and what what what's?
What's you have to remind people? I got today. I
was in an under arm story because it goes, oh
(42:40):
my gosh, I was there when you had the ninety
wood felt because it happens every day. But what a
lot of people forget we started off oh and two
and that that has sort of disappeared. Uh, we were
waiting to click offensively. We're really good on defense when
we started off, uh, you know, not given very very
(43:00):
many touchdowns at all. In fact, we uh in the
bye week. In the bye week, we weren't even a
winning team. We were two and three, but the defense
was given up a touchdown a game. And we were
waiting for this offense to come together because it takes
the time, and we we had new players. We drafted
(43:21):
the uh Pritchard. I had to have Pritchard. Nobody knew
why I had had Pritchard. Why did I pass on
far to the next round? Because I had to have
another slot back and people probably forget Pritchard, let all
rookies in receiving that. You we made a trade for
Drew Hill, and of course that Michael Hayes was there,
and we made the trade for Andre Risen. Uh. And
(43:44):
and so we're two and three at the bye week,
playing good defense and nothing happening. And then when we
came back from the bye we beat the forty Niners
and at that time we went on we beat him
on the West coast too. At that time we beat
the forty Niners twice, which nobody was doing. That's that's
believed or not so long ago the forty Niners could
actually play. Then they were pretty good today. Uh, kind
(44:09):
of hard to watch today. Um So after ten games,
this this team that everybody still talks about, we're five
and five. We're five or five team and wondering what's
gonna happen. And then we take off and we win
five in a row. And and the offense becomes the
strength of the team, where the defense was the strength
(44:29):
of the team at one point the the uh, the
offense becomes just very very very powerful. Memory of this
team is incredible. Well, you don't forget teams like that.
You don't forget played. And this team loves to play
the attitude and practice. People don't realize Dion Sanders. You
(44:52):
see Dean Sanders play seem running back kicks, you see
him intercept the past. Let me tell you about Dan Sanders,
and nobody says is a practice. He never took a
play off, not one. In pro football, you have to
be the other team. So when you're playing the Vikings
after when the offense is working, you're you don't have
(45:15):
scout teams, not college football, So Dion Sanders has to
be the corner representing the Vikings corner. Let me tell
you about Dan Sanders if he was where he didn't
let you catch the ball when he was a scout
corner when he was his corner, and that permeated through
that football team. And and Jesse Tuggle was the undersized
(45:37):
guy that nobody wanted and they all thought he couldn't play,
and he became the best linebacker in football. So a
great fund group. And uh, we would go out and
beat the Raiders. And Robert Lows would say, if we
beat these Raiders, uh, my family's bringing ghetto gig our team.
(45:59):
We go razy. We don't eat ghetto cake on the bus,
cold in the air going to the airplane. Ghet okay
because about butter. So we had a lot of fun
coach one well, one question, I gotta know you changed
the uniforms, and I gotta say, I gotta have a
confessional here. I actually liked the red and black uniforms.
I remember him as a kid. I remember as a kid.
(46:20):
I see the throwback Sundays now. But you come in
and it's it's a moment, it's an anecdote that comes
through in the film. You went to the all blacks.
Tell us why you did that. Black is not a
color black as an attitude. And Atlanta has been playing
without any attitude. Atlanta has just been just been out there.
(46:42):
And I thought that we we had to come forward.
We didn't have any swag, we we didn't have any
any step in our giddio, but we we were just
there and we broken that. I got my my my
owner was Rankings Smiths, and he did it because you're
not allowed to change colors till you give the league
(47:06):
your notice, your plus notice, so they can sell all
the garbage, all that red, ugly stuff, get rid of it.
So every time we took the field in our black
heat reforms. We paid a fine because we had And
I gotta say this for Ranking, he never he just
paid to find it. So every time we came out
(47:26):
to tunnel, no nobody knew we were fine because we
didn't tell them in advance that we weren't going to
wear those ugly, stinking red helmets. Well, that explains it.
Black is not a color, it's an attitude. It's an attitude,
and we became the team of attitude. How much was
the how much was the fine back then? When when
(47:48):
for for for the uniform? I can't even imagine that
happening today, with the process that that teams go through
to change their uniforms. Well, thank gosh, Ranking didn't tell me.
He didn't make me pay for and I ad and
he equals, here, we gotta pay your fine for this.
I think I shocked myself. Whatever the fine is taken
off my face. I should have asked what it was.
(48:10):
But he was a good man. He thanked God. He
did not take it off my pay. And uh, we
went on and violated all the rules. Uh. And and
the defense uh and the defense played with that attitude.
They had that attitude that uh, you know Ricky Bryant
was a defensive that nobody played harder Tim Green, nobody
(48:32):
played her. We weren't the best team, we were the
hardest working, most lund team coaches. There's there's one guy
in the show that, by his own admission, was not
the hardest worker on that team, Brett Farve. You mentioned
him earlier, and he tells the stories about how he
basically wasn't a professional yet, and we all know the history.
He ends up getting traded. I'm just curious, as a
(48:54):
coach who's you're essentially a teacher. You have these students
out in the field as his career unfolded. Did he
give you satisfaction? Do you root for a guy like
that even though he wasn't he wasn't ready to be
in the NFL? Maybe um from a professional standpoint, when
you had him, when he goes on and reaches those
heights and you're seeing it from a distance, how do
you respond to that. I was as big as fan
(49:17):
even when he first went to Green Bay. Marucci was
a quarterback coach called Mabe was what did you send us?
Holy God? This guy, this guy's NU believe it. I said,
stay with him. He's got the ability. Everybody on our
team knew we had. The ability is you talk about
having fun when we went on the road. Let's say
we're at the l A. Rams, We're gonna play the
(49:39):
Rams or whoever they were. They were, uh him and
a guy named Billy Joe Tolliver. We've done we're always
practiced on the on the field that we're gonna play
on the road. They would all the whole team would
bet and they line up those two cats could could
be on our side and throw the ball into the
(50:00):
press box and they would stop off and buy footballs,
whiffle balls from target. And when we got practiced order,
everybody would go run over to the to the sideline
where the where the press box was and they would
show that ball eight yards with a whistle in it
and you could hear whistle and the team would bet
(50:22):
on you know, Billy Joel. One day, Billy Joe had
an armed just like just like Fire. So Fire did
play a lot that game. But Fire was We had
a lot of fun with Fire and we're all hoping
Fire could play. And it was kind of funny. Later
on when Fire became what he was just the best
quarterback playing his mom and dad gave me a plank
(50:45):
check and they said, everything you did to try to
help him grow up, I'm giving you this check, and
you right in the amount for helping our son. I said, wow, Now,
of course I never today i'd probably need to check,
but I didn't drink. And then that that's how we we.
We love Far And I had a chance that he
(51:06):
could go to the Jets, or you could go to
Green Bay. And if he went to the Jets at
what at at that age today nobody would know who
Far is because the New York is just like Atlanta.
It never closed. It's open all night. Dude, you can
you can party all night. Well in green Bay, the
party of the town is done at nine o'clock, the
street lights are turned off, it's over. So he became
(51:29):
a big success coach. What was so unique about the
city of Atlanta. It's another thing that comes across in
the film. Both before ninety one and the history kind
of was was going that direction, and then during that
season where it was such a community atmosphere that that
people from all walks came together. Why was that city
at that moment in time different than the other cities
(51:50):
that maybe you guys traveled to and and and played
against They've been bad for so long. And when we
were there, and when I was assistant there in the seventies,
we were good. We had it going on. But that
ninety team. I think when you're on your way from
going from last the first, it brings people together. And
I used to love to go out early because there
(52:12):
would be three black faces with three white faces, and
there was nobody. There was nobody that cared who was
black and white. They just loved their falcons. And I
think that brought that city in the city felt that
and they knew our players were that way. Uh and
and Dion knew so many people he knew, uh mc
(52:34):
hammer deons. Can mc hammered coach come on the sideline. Well,
I didn't know who mc hammer was, but I love
the guy. One time we're out the plane somewhere, we're
out in Arizona, and he said, mc hammer wants to
talk to the team before we go play. This is
really let me tell you what he said before the
(52:56):
team was right spot out. It was better than any
of the thing I would have said. It was great,
probably the toughest. One time we went on the air
that team got on the airplane and were charter in
Atlanta and the vander Holyfield the heavyweight champs getting on
the plane, and the people ran up and said, did
you invite him? I was no, who invited him? I
(53:17):
don't know, but I'm not going to ask the champ
to get off the plane. And and and the heavyweight
champ walks down an airplane with us and goes to
the game with us, and it's not He was like,
he talked to the football team. He such a great
man and humble man. He's going to talk to the
team before we play. And he talked so soft. We
(53:40):
were all leaning in. I don't think anybody heard anything
he said. And I finally said all right, and we
all streamed the got left. But he talks so soft,
He's such a humble guy, such a and he says,
I want to die in. I was like, it was
like the Godfather. Uh. We couldn't hear what he was
saying in but it didn't matter. His heart loved that
(54:02):
team in the team loved him. And that's what happened
in to this day. Uh, I go back to Atlanta,
I'm still their coach. People think I'm in their coach,
because not it was the team bringing the city together.
That's awesome. Um, other it's it's funny hearing you tell
those stories and seeing the clips and just thinking how
(54:25):
many other coaches would would just say, well, what a distraction?
What does this boxer doing here? What is what does
mc hammer? What's Travis Tritt doing here? Like? Get him
off our field? You know, we gotta we gotta practice
goal line, get him out of here. But but obviously, uh,
you had a different outlook on the whole thing. And
one day in practice, James Brown, the godfeathers soul shows up.
(54:47):
I mean, this is why you're talking about. What why
did this city gravitate towards this team? Why there is
this team that have been forgotten? We're in practice and
James Brown wants to be a tailback and runner sweep. Well,
he's only you know, he's he's a he's only like
five ft tall. We put him in the tail back
in the eye, taws him. He runs around the corner.
(55:08):
But I don't hit him, not don't hit him. And
there was James James Brown only ran a tass sweeper.
This lay by the way, he ran ran ran a
tass sweep in Atlanta, can practice. I mean that that's
a kind of fun we had and then we'd go
back to work. Hey, coach, thank you so much for
taking a few minutes. Terrific. We love talking to you.
(55:32):
You know that, we love hearing from you. We love
when you're part of our films. Um, and uh, we'll
talk to you again pretty soon, we hope. Thank you
all right, take care well, Paul. Nice conversation with the coach.
(55:56):
It's great guys like Jerry Glamor. We can't tell football
stories without people Jerry Glanville because of the duration of
his career, the players he's had, where he's been, the
games he's coached, in the footage that he's given us.
If everybody knows, everybody knows the bite, not for long,
not for long, keep making those calls. So yeah, it's
great talking to him and reflecting it. I couldn't when
(56:18):
he was talking about that, when he was talking about
running into people who remember that team. Um, it's awesome
to hear that and to know that this film that
Greg and Anthony and Rob put together is gonna help
people who don't know anything about that team learn learn
a lot about them because it's certainly one that not
everybody remembers. People who are young don't know at all,
but it's a team that's definitely worth looking back on. Yeah,
(56:39):
it's a fun hour and uh hopfully everybody enjoys it.
Thanks for joining us today on the NFL Films podcast
Sank our friends Greg Pachetti, Anthony Smith in l A,
Rob Garing, coach Jerry Glanville. Thanks to our engineer Steve Moseley,
(57:05):
our producer Rich Owens. Find us at NFL Films on Twitter,
on Facebook, Instagram YouTube. We're out there making football movies
for you every day of the week. Until next time.
(57:28):
I'm Keith, I'm Paul. Later
If you're an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or even
if you have a side gig, let me introduce you
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(00:21):
responsive and efficient with Grasshopper. Get your business phone number today.
Go to grasshopper dot com slash films to get twenty
dollars off your first month. Today on the NFL Films Podcast,
we'll take a dive into The Timeline Falcons, a new
documentary that covers perhaps the most fun team in NFL history,
(00:45):
with the producers of the film, Greg mcketty, Anthony Smith,
the director, Rob Garring, and the head coach from that team,
Jerry Glanville. Paul, Good morning, Keith. I have a question.
How can I help you? What is the Timeline? The
(01:06):
Timeline is a documentary series on the NFL Network. It
is in its third season this year. For the documentary
fans of the NFL Network who know Football Life, which
has been running seven or eight years now, seventh seasons
going on its hundredth episode this season this fall, the
Timeline came around kind of as a spinoff, we would
(01:28):
call it right in the TV parlance in a sense.
In a sense, there were some some episodes of the
of the Football Life series which started to take on um,
I guess a conceptual tech for lack of a better term.
There was there was the Immaculate Reception. There were the Browns,
the Oilers, shows that were the life, the football life
(01:52):
of a team, or a topic almost or a moment.
There was a time where NFL Network where the executives
in pro Rammers at the network said, we think we
should focus Football Life strictly on biographies and we could
create a new series based on topics and teams and moments.
(02:13):
And that's where the Timeline came from. The Timeline really
was derivative of that last word. Keith used moments, the
moments that made history. We find ourselves even on a conversation,
I think when we were brainstorming, we'd we'd be saying,
almost as fans, remember the moment when when Barry Sanders
did this on Thanksgiving, Remember the moment when you know
Montana threw the tailor and that phrase the moment. In
(02:34):
delivering the moment is something that we try and do
in all of our stories. However, long form the duration
is so we said, well, let's take the place where
all the moments live, the timeline of NFL history, and
and let's use that as our universe for this new series.
And that's how we got here. So with us today
(02:55):
we have NFL Films producer Greg Backetty goodmar and Greg.
How are you, Keith, Paul Good, thanks for being here.
And we have um, We're in Mount Laurel at NFL Films,
and we have with us from Los Angeles, Anthony Smith,
the film's other producer. Hello, Anthony, how's it going guys.
(03:15):
It's great to have you with us, Anthony, who has
Anthony has collaborated. Now NFL Films and NFL Network, just
to um go a little deeper, are two separate entities.
U NFL Network is part of part of the big
NFL media colossus that exists in Los Angeles as a
(03:38):
physical entity that includes NFL dot Com, all of the
NFL digital properties, and then of course NFL Network. NFL
Films is on the East Coast outside of Philadelphia and
Mount Laurel, New Jersey and UH is a separate entity,
but we are UH in a lot of ways, um
(03:59):
right hand left hand sibling entities, and we collaborate on
pretty much everything, but not always in a situation like this. So,
Greg and Anthony, you two are partnered together on a
project like this, and maybe you can tell us a
little bit about what this project is. Yeah, sure, I
(04:20):
mean so, so the project it's, uh, it's the Falcons,
the ninety one Falcons team, which everybody you know remembers,
you know, for having some of the biggest characters and
in NFL history and um, you know, Dion Sanders and
Andre Risen and Brett Farbe and Clanville and a lot
of these characters, a lot of the biggest characters in
(04:40):
NFL history on one team. But the thing that's interesting
about this team also that's the fact that Glanville created
this atmosphere where there are all these celebrities around as well.
So you have guys like Travis Tritt and and Vander
Howley Field and James Brown and mc hammer that are
hanging out on the s eide line as this team
(05:01):
is having the greatest season in team history. Um, so
it's you know, as Greg has said, you know and
add it like this is almost a murderous row of
just characters. Uh that you know that we were able
to put it into the film, uh, which is a
gift in a curse in some ways. And you know,
Gregg and got to go into that. But it's you know,
you have all these great characters who were given great,
(05:22):
great interviews and great sound and you're trying to fit
them all into into one film, which is which is
a challenge, but it's a good challenge to have. Yeah.
So I mean when we sit down and have great
bites from Brett Farve, Dion Sanders, I mean, just the
murderers right like we said Jerry Glanville, it was you
know sometimes they're just having a conversation with themselves on
the ab and you can just put these bites together
(05:43):
with Dion talking about taking Brett shopping and Brett also
talking about it, and it just it worked so well.
And there's just so many great sections that worked. Um
with those guys. Let's listen to to Dion and Brett
Farve going shopping and then we'll we'll dive a little
deeper into into this moment in time and why it's
worthy of a film. The Falcons had a fresh look,
(06:06):
but their rookie quarterback appeared out of place. Brett and
I had played against each other in college. Dion was
so awesome, took me under his wing when others would
just shun me. I remember taking Britt shop and look,
I can't let you come to work like that every day.
You you gotta stop there. So I remember taking him
downtown to the end the city and I did all
the shop. What's what's that? Man? Get that you need?
(06:28):
That you need? That got the whole new oar drole
took me and bought me clothes which I never wore.
It was way too good and stylish for me. Brett
used to roll around stop and thought bullet for the
yards on a dime and was like, whoa. It's one
thing to have a film that stars Brett Farve and
(06:48):
Dion Sanders and Jerry Glanville and a litany of hip
hop and country music stars, But a film also has
to have a narrative that makes it worthy of sitting
down and spending an hour. What what is it about
this moment in history and Falcon's history and NFL history
that makes it worthy of a documentary? The interesting thing,
(07:10):
the thing that that excited me most about just kind
of going back and looking at this team, um, you know,
because I remember, I mean I was ten nine, ten
eleven years old when when when this was kind of happening.
So I remember MC Hammer was the biggest, was the
biggest deal ever. And it's funny. Dominique Wilkins says that people,
young people don't really understand how big Emsey Hammer was
(07:32):
at the time. So you know, he's he's this guy,
he's like, you know, EMC Hammer was probably bigger than
any hip hop star has ever been, you know ever,
you know, this guy at commercials and cartoons and Pepsie
Dells and toys and all of this. So I remember
MC Hammer. That's the thing I remember most about the team.
You know, I remember EMC Hammer and I remember Dion Sanders,
but I also remember just kind of growing up in
(07:52):
the South around this time, as Atlanta being this place
where African Americans were going to drive and achieve and
and go after the American dream. It was becoming at
this time, you know, it was being called the Black Meca.
It was almost like a Harlem uh from the nineteen
twenties that was happening in the nineties. So you had
the city of Atlanta that I remember just kind of
growing up in Alabama as being the place that everybody
(08:13):
wanted to get. So you had this team, uh that
that was coming of age at the same time. In
many ways, the city was coming of age. I mean,
the Braves were doing their thing, um going starting their
streak of i think fourteen fifteen division championships in a row.
The city had just had just been awarded the Olympics,
So all of this was going on at the same time.
(08:34):
As you dig a little deeper, you also had Atlanta
hip hop that was starting to come to you know,
prominence around the same time late late So it's this
conversion of all these elements that was that was kind
of happening at the same time. Um, you know, this
American city looking to looking to get respect and looking
to become an international city, with this football team that
(08:59):
that had not had success that was also looking to
get respect and looking to get prominence. Uh So it
was a very interesting convergence of a lot of different
things going on at the same time. There's a kind
of a micro genre here, um, I mean not just here,
but that we've done over the years, these city shows
we call them, uh, and I think all of us
(09:19):
at this table, I know Anthony has Um, We've all
worked on shows that that, sometimes explicitly and other times
implicitly sort of allow for a city, a location to
almost become a character. Even within the Timeline series. Anthony
has worked on was a co producer of the Tale
of Two Cities film in the premier season of the
Timeline documentary series, which was a story of San Francisco
(09:41):
and Dallas in their unique relationship in history. And Greg
last year worked on a film called Knight of the
Living Steelers, which was about filmmaker George Romero, the godfather
of the zombie genre, and his relationship to the Steelers
in the seventies. But as all seventies Steelers films are,
it was a had a strong thread of the time
in the town and the team kind of all interwoven.
(10:02):
I wonder if you, guys and Greg, I'll throw it
to you first, could talk about putting together a city show.
How do you go into the field and capture the
place and then how do you bring it to life
on screen? And kind of what, uh, what what asset
does that give you as a filmmaker to have kind
of a vibrant place at your disposal when you're when
you're putting a piece together. Oh, Sureed Lennon is very scenic.
(10:25):
And when we went down there, we knew whither we
were bringing this social angle to it. So we shot
all the historically black colleges down there. We shot the
Martin Luther King sites and everything, and and visually they
just look stunning um in the film and and just
I know Anthony went down there and shot those with
Rob who will talk to you later. But putting them together,
as you know, editing here, it was just I mean,
(10:46):
it's one of the most scenic cities that we have
in America and it was just great to shoot. And
you know, doing Pittsburgh last year is the same thing.
It's it's one of those cities that it's just the
skylines and everything. Put them together editorially is great. One
of the most fun things is when you interview you
and famous people, players, people who have been in a
city and have had their own passions ignited by a
(11:08):
place make It brings these stories to life in a
way that's really exciting as a storyteller, and you can
hear it right away in this film. UM. Here here
some of the many luminaries who appear in the film
talking about Atlanta. UM. Starting with Dion Sanders. Um. You'll
hear from Dion, Jermaine Duprie, t I, and Big Boy
(11:32):
in this clip. I went to Atlanta, and when I
got there, I was amazed, the reason being I saw
black folks in prominent places. I had never seen black
doctors and lawyers, political figures, and it blew my mind.
And driving nice cars and one getting pulled over for nonsense.
(11:53):
So I had in my mind from way back when
this is where I want to be. Atlanta was a
place where African Americans could express themselves, Unlike anywhere else
in America. There was no more expressive art form than
hip hop, which was just beginning to emerge on a
(12:13):
national level but already had deep roots in the Dirty South.
You could go all around the city and see talent arrested.
Development was putting themselves together, boised. The men here in
Atlanta put out Criss Cross. At that same time I
had TLC. All of this happened in that wave set
the stage for the next wave, which was Outcast Goody Mob.
(12:36):
When we started it wasn't cool to be from Atlantino.
So I think we had a strong sense of Southern
pride when you think about the rise of the South
in terms of hip hop, but in terms of pop culture,
Atlanta is the heartbeat, the benchmark, the bellweather, the burgeoning
hip hop scene in Atlanta, tremendous star appeal. All of
that coming together was a real burst of excitement. That
(13:00):
was sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson talking about Atlanta's hunger
for respect and guys just curious, did you go in
knowing that you wanted to tell this story about Atlanta
in this moment or is that something that rose up
through the process. Definitely throughout the process. Um. Like I said,
(13:21):
Anthony brought in this angle that we hadn't really you know,
gone into before with the Black Mecca. And it's something
I learned a couple of years agohen I was doing
a documentary on Jerome Bettis with Jerome, you know, obviously
has a lot of Pittsburgh ties, being with the Steelers
and from Detroit, but I was surprised how many interviews
were in Atlanta, how many ex players lived down there.
Jerome lives down there. Cordell Stewart. I believe Hines Ward.
(13:44):
We kept having to go back to Atlanta, So you
really do see that these that's where these ex athletes
want to live. They want to be a part of
what's going on down there. Yeah, and I mean I
think that, you know, the Gregg's point, um, like, I
didn't know that it would be to the extent that
it was. Um in terms of Atlanta. You know, I
(14:06):
knew Atlanta and again as a kid, I knew Atlanta
was was a cool place and it was a place
to be and it was a place that was kind
of emerging. But I didn't know to the extent that
these guys were looking for respect. And they were looking
for respect on a on a national stage and the
international stage and in many ways, you know with the Olympics, um,
and they wanted to be thought of as an international city.
And that was something that kept coming up, um, you know,
(14:28):
not just from the hip hop artist, but from the
from the athletes, from the you know, from Mayy Andrew
Young America seem Read also said that was you know,
Atlanta was looking for a respect. I mean, there's a
there's a whole angle that didn't get put into the film.
Uh that, you know, guys, I mean didn't matter if
it was a rapper or athlete or whoever. I think
(14:50):
that I did five interviews in a row where everybody
was talking about the fact that there's more production film
production in Atlanta than anywhere else in the world, you know,
like more than Hollywood, more than India, and everybod he
kept saying that, and but in some ways they were
still kind of beating that drama, you know, almost like
we made it now, like we are we have accomplished
what when we set out the accomplish in the lay
(15:10):
Ladies in early nineties. But that was something that everybody
made sure that me and Rob and the crew knew
that there was more more business happening in Atlanta than
anywhere in the world. When we talk about the rise
of the profile of the city of Atlanta, as this
film does, and we talked about the goal of the
timeline to talk about significant moments in history for me,
(15:31):
and I think it's pretty clear in the film. The moment,
uh that reflects that rise in our story here in
this in this one hour doc is the arrival of
Dion Sanders. He had the high profile, the sort of
the look before he even made it. He was he
was splashy before he got to the NFL and had
the NFL stage to stand on. And one of the
things I love in the show is um obviously the
(15:53):
role of Dion as it comes out on the screen.
And Anthony, you conducted that interview, and I wanted you
to kind of describe approach to it because I think
the challenge for me for with a guy like Dian
would be how do I capture the natural energy and
enthusiasm that this guy has and how he tells stories,
but also cajole him to be introspective and reflective, which
(16:13):
you clearly did because he he goes into not just
the fun storytelling anecdotes, but he's he's also reflecting on
on the the experience he had kind of emotionally with
his teammates and with his this place. Yeah, I mean
I think that uh, just our approach kind of going
in is I wanted Dion too to fully buy in
(16:36):
in regards to what we're doing and fully buy into
the story that we were telling. UM, because I mean,
as as all of us know, like Dion, Dean is
not gonna do every project, So it has to be
a project that Dion is you know, is you know,
invested in is something that you know that he believes
is a story worth telling. So I think the biggest
part on on on my end was just getting him
(16:58):
excited and make sure that he knew the story that
we were trying to tell going in and once you know,
once we were able to convey that to him and
let him know the different different angles we were taking
with the story, and and letting him know some of
the people, you know, outside of outside of the football
team that we're looking to make a part of this. Um,
he had complete buying. So once he got into the seat,
(17:20):
I mean, Dion was, Dion was money. I mean, Dion
was great. It was more work on the on the
front end than actually in the interview. Uh. I kind
of let him know the questions that that we're gonna
be coming his way in the topics that we're gonna
be talking about, and uh, and he's a pro. He was,
he was ready to go. Was there anything you learned
that you weren't expecting? Um, you know what I mean,
(17:41):
I I was. I was surprised the way I mean
specifically was rising because I had heard him talk about
bred Fard before a couple of years ago, we did
a cleated a thing where we sat Bred and Dion
down and they talked for an hour and just kind
of talked about you know, being in Atlanta and college
and just being friends for for all these years. Um
So that was something that that wasn't a surprising to
(18:03):
me that maybe the some other some some of our viewers,
but him talking about Rising and their friendship and brotherhood
and and the way that the way that I don't
want to say it ended, because I mean there's still
you know, they're still on speaking terms, but it's obvious
that things aren't the way that they were, and both
of them were open and honest about that. Um So
(18:25):
I was I was pleasantly surprised that he went there.
Um in terms of his relationship with with Rising, I sell.
The thing I learned about Dion in this film, Guys,
is that there's a continuing and there's an ongoing debate
about the Jerry Curl. And that's the funny thing about
it is we we a lot of these interviews and
the questions we had to get together at once, so
(18:47):
we sent down a whole batch down and it's funny
how we didn't have questions about the Jerry Curl in there.
Yet everyone started talking about it and what they thought
about it, and yeah, I learned it was dry. Who knew? Well?
I think there's debate. Yeah says it's dry, but Dominique
will it. Wilkins, among many others, claims otherwise, let's let's
(19:07):
let's listen to the debate about the Jerry Curl. Prime
time came out. He had the Mr t Starter kid,
all the jewelry on. I don't know how he walked
with all those chains on. I don't believe they were real.
They just had to be changed painted gold. I don't
know if I've ever seen his Jerry Curl out of place.
Curl was fresh, just came from the salon. So when
I turned, I think just turning with it. You know
(19:29):
what I'm saying. The wet is Jared Curl. I was
seeing the most moisture wise curl in history ever. You know,
the curl looked wet, but it was dry. It was wet,
real wet. The debate will continue. Yeah, what do you think,
I mean, is there any evidence that that proves it
one way or the other, that you found their extensive
(19:49):
research guys, I think I think it was wet. I
think he had activator in that thing like coming to America.
But but he says otherwise. So who are we to
argue with Dion? This film is, as you guys said,
it's an embarrassment of riches and characters. We're going to
talk to to one of them, the coach of this circus,
(20:11):
Jerry Glanville, a little bit later. But the other character
who emerges in this story and is almost running parallel
with his own story is Brett Farve, the unlikeliest character
in the story. And you know the backstory is Brett
Farve gets drafted by the Falcons. You know, this is
(20:34):
this little known fact in history that Brett Farve's career
starts this season and in Atlanta. And it's an odd story,
is an odd fit from the very start. Let's we'll
have a conversation about this. Let's let's hear a little
bit about how it Brett saw things when he arrived.
(20:54):
I was pretty confident, also was extremely naive. Twenty one
years old. You think you got it all figured out,
just never say snow. At Long South, Mississippi, there is
a never ending debate over who wanted to trade Brett
farve away from Atlanta and who wanted to select him
in the first place. I wanted to draft him, Jerry,
(21:16):
what do you think you know? I I don't really
like him. I like this brining and eagle guy. Jeez,
I'm brought ready to choke. I read the story. I
never wanted to draft him. All that, that's all fictitious.
What my gut tells me is that Ken Harrock wanted
to draft me and Jerry did not. The first time
(21:37):
I set foot on the Falcons facility, Glanville looks at
me and he says, Mississippi. What school are you from?
I said Southern miss and he says, we drafted the
wrong guy. We wanted a guy from Mississippi State. He
didn't know. I joked with all the players that way.
There was a lot of that that went on, and
you know, overcoming that was probably harder than overcoming the
game itself. Mississippi, you're not gonna play, then, I'll tell
(22:02):
you what we gotta have to playing Rex and four
cornerbacks go down and you're in. I was like, you know,
I don't know how, I don't know where, I don't
know when, but I will prove this guy wrong. So
that was Jerry Glanville, of course, and Brett Farve and
the former general manager of the Falcons, Ken Harrock, And
that's a dispute that has been litigated over many years
(22:25):
between her Rock and Glanville. They each other side of
the story. And how did you guys attack both that
story and fitting Brett into the larger narrative um of
Atlanta and the Falcons and Dion and everything else. That
was our trouble with this film is we have so
many leading men, so many main stars, and weaving those
(22:47):
storylines together was the main problem of this film And
I think the way that we did it is the
quarterback storyline becomes very important earlier in the season when
their starter Chris Miller is kind of throwing interceptions and
Brett far It is still on the bench, So you
kind of know that this legend is sitting on the
bench on a team that really needs a quarterback. So
(23:07):
putting those together and kind of weaving far throughout was
it was challenging. Yeah, I mean I think that that
you have a character like bread far on a team
like this, you have to find a way to fit
him in. So so it's a problem. It's a challenge.
But again, it's a good problem to have. So it's
just put it our collective heads together, you know, with
each other, with with the showrunners, and just trying to
(23:30):
figure out the best way to not only bread Far,
but to get all the threads in. But I mean,
I think that we figured out a way two in
many ways, introduced him early, you know, kind of come
back to him, you know, and then the middle blocks
and then obviously tie up everything at the end with him,
you know, ending up getting traded from Atlanta and having success.
You know that we all know that he had in
(23:51):
Green Bay. Um. And one thing I do want to add, uh,
Like in many of these clips that you guys have played,
you've heard the voice of Ken Harrock. Who is I
mean again, he's not a name that has known to
some of the other guys in the film, but this
guy's another character. And do himself who Again, we just
had guys that gave great interviews, and he gave one
of the best interviews that we had. UM and he
(24:12):
was great on Far and having Glanville talk on Far
to the extent that he did, but also having Far
in many ways open up in ways that I hadn't
really seen him open up about this particular year, because
I've seen Brett far talk about everything else, but I
didn't really seen him talk about this year in Atlanta
to the extent that he did, which was which was
(24:32):
great to have as well. Sure, and with Ken Herrock
and Jerry Glennville, you got the impression that they've been
asked this question. Like you said, this is a debate
is going on for years. They have their stories so
ready and exactly. To finally be able to intercut between
them talking about it and you know, Ken Harrock giving
his story about how it happened, Jerry giving his, and
all the details that they had, it was very interesting.
(24:55):
I think it's one of the fun things about doing
these deep dives is we talk about Brett Farve as
the legend that's sitting on the bench, but when you
dive into the story, you realize he wasn't a legend yet.
In fact, Brett is very candid about how his approach
was probably less than professional at that at that moment.
We get back to this idea of a moment. When
you explore a moment, you see Brett Farve obviously wasn't
(25:17):
what he would become and maybe only by being traded
did he sort of blossom into the star of the
legend that that would You know, some guys are sort
of a perfect fit from jump and other guys need
to have that that course correction. You see how close
to Brett really came to washing out and and and
really what a mess he was. He was not ready
(25:37):
to play. In the NFL. Brett Farve was drafted as
the backup to starter Chris Miller, but then Atlanta traded
for veteran Billy Joe Tolliver and Farv slipped to third string.
You're draft in the second round, That in itself tells you,
you know, you're kind of the error apparent. And then
they trade for a guy and put him by in
(25:58):
front of you never give you an explanation, which they
you know, as I look back, I didn't deserve one.
And I'm in a situation here where I've got to
wait my turn, and I really don't mind. I'd like
to play, but you know, I understand my role right now.
I'm only years old, and hopefully I've got a bright
future here. Every week, Mr here like, I need to
talk to you, Okay, what do you need? We do
want Brett I'm better than these guys, and I ain't
(26:20):
getting the opportunity to get a chance. Brett, when you
get your opportunity to get your chance, show him what
you can do well. He wasn't showing him. He's going
to practice. Uh. Sometimes I've drunk, not knowing the plays. Overweight,
I did pretty good. I could probably put on about
twenty five pounds that year. I was two hundred and
fifty five pounds. I think I went from a thirty
(26:42):
six to forty pound. That was back in my beer
drinking days. I knew we had a problem because he
couldn't come in and stay awake in a meeting. Probably
lost my patience with him when we took a team
picture and he didn't show up for the team picture.
So if you look at the team picture from that year,
you think, I think for spooling our leg. He never
played for the Falcons. So to think that I had
(27:03):
a wonderful career after the start is pretty remarkable. The
great what If of the Falcons farms like the hero
with a hundred origin stories. Every step of his story
from the from the home movies with Bigger on the floor,
through through the ups and ups and downs at Southern
midst to the ninety one Falcon season, to the too
(27:25):
many rocket balls in Green Bay. I mean he he
is to Minnesota. I mean it just doesn't end. So
all these characters, as we've been talking about, are are
the blessing and the curse. How do you capture him?
How do you harness what is already there in the
archival footage, and how do you put it all together
and give the film a look and a feel that
helps that fund sizzle but helps the story deliver. We're
(27:48):
gonna bring in at this point Rob Garring, who was
the director of the film and helped to solve that problem,
along with Anthony and Greg. Hi, Rob Hi, Keith. How's
it going? Man? Good? Welcome to Paul and Greg and Anthony. Hello, guys,
(28:09):
welcome to the NFL Films Podcast. Uh So, the Falcons.
We've been talking about the story of the film, but
we'd like to turn the conversation a little bit more
to the look and the style of the film and
just a little background a little more as something we
talked about at the top of the show with how
this sort of dream team, this Vultron was put together
(28:29):
for the production of this show. We had the bicoastal
producers Anthony out in l A and Greg here in
Mount Laurel. Who and we say producers, it's sort of
a general term, but they're involved in the pre production,
the direction, in the field, the editing and the post process.
But on this show, Rob Garring was involved in the direction. Uh,
And I don't want to limit it, Rob, and I'll
(28:50):
let you kind of get into the details, but more
on the front end of of the production process, the
pre production, the design of the look of the show,
the caps her in the field, and then handing off
the footage to these guys to edit it. It's a
it's it's not it's not unprecedented, but it's unusual in
our in our process. So we wanted to kind of
explain it because it will help shed some light on
(29:11):
what Rob's role was in terms of the whole collaboration.
So did I did I just? Did I describe that accurately?
Would you say? Right? Yeah? Absolutely? I mean I think
that's and I think it was a great process for
this particular film. I'm really glad that it worked out
the way that it did. Um. I think you know,
when we went into this, the very first thing that
we did once this Gut Greenland was I went back
(29:33):
and watched the Toolgit to Quit video and I just
wanted to get a feel for what that looked like,
what that that environment looked like. Um. And it was
a lot of uh, spotlights on a black stage, blacked
out stage, and it was you know, it was just
very like bright lights, um shining kind of on that
(29:54):
moment and that that and that informed everything after that
in terms of how we tried to capture inter use,
how we try to capture content. Um. Yeah, that was
that was kind of the first thing we do. It's
a great description is it is a a failing of
this audio format that you won't be able to see
that until you watch the film, but it is a
it has a distinct look. I would say that was
a success what your goal was in terms of achieving it.
(30:16):
I want you to go a little further again, when
we talk about these teams, you almost have your own
team when you put something like this together. And in
addition to working with Greg and Anthony, but when it
comes to the director interacting with the director of photography
and the colorists, the guys who do the color grading
on the footage, Uh, that's a process that unfolds throughout
(30:36):
from beginning to end. But you guys do a lot
of work even before cameras roll, and I want you
to talk about that part of it before you ever
go in the field. How do you collaborate with those
more visual artists in terms of the process and and
how do you guys converse and put put your plan together. Yeah,
I mean absolutely we um, there's a lot of conversations
that happened with the director of photography specifically. Um. There's
(30:58):
a lot of little things that you can do that
sometimes are very subtle, Uh, to give give it that
unique look. The colors is critically important when you have
a look like this, because we netted out at wanting
to have everything be focused on the subject so that
you weren't distracted by background. You weren't distracted by anything.
You were just hearing this story and it was under
the same kind of spotlight that they were under at
(31:21):
the time. UM. And so you know, that's not an
easy thing to achieve. You think, you know, a little
black box set up, so to speak, where all you
see is the subject is a really easy thing to light.
It's actually a very difficult thing to light um and
to be able to repeat and we knew and working
with Anthony and Greg beforehand, we knew we wanted to
talk to a lot of people, UM, probably more people
(31:42):
than we might normally for a film like this, UM,
because the the the ripples of this were so far reaching,
especially afterwards in the Atlantic community, and so we wanted
that that set up to be repeatable, and so talking
to the to the colorists about how we could do
that and give them enough but if there were errors
in that, they could save it, so to speak, or
(32:04):
they could kind of unify it more importantly. UM, that
was a huge part of it, and feeling kind of
comfortable where we were in that spectrum. What is the
colorist For people who don't know, I mean just thirty seconds, well,
I mean we know what a director of photography is.
He's in charge of the sort of the shooting. You're
the director. What is the What does the colorists do?
I mean, the colorist is taking all the the the
(32:25):
information that you're giving them in the image and trying
to squeeze and manipulate everything they can to give that
image a specific look. It's everything from contrast to two
color hues too. You know how many knits there are
in the brightness of the image. I mean there's a
we get geek geek out on it for a while,
but you know, the color's job is to really squeeze
(32:46):
and manipulate everything out of very base information, UM, to
make that image. Saying so, how you mentioned the spotlights
that you saw in the two legit video? How did
you and Paul mentioned the limit tations of this format.
We're not gonna be able to see it, but can
you describe what you what your objective was and bringing
(33:07):
that look, translating it into this film and how you
executed it. Yeah, I, UM, you know, some of it
was just coincidence. Um, at the time we started talking
about this film, UM, we were shooting a lot or
I was shooting a lot on some other on another
project with anamorphic lenses. What does that mean? Uh? Anamorphis
lenses have a different aspect ratio. So when your your
(33:28):
wide screen television h D television is UM sixteen by
nine aspect ratio, it's a it's a fairly standard wide
screen image compared to you know, ten fifteen years ago
when we started working here, Um, it was an st
image that was much more of a square. It was
a four by three UM and so the aspect ratio
of an anamorphic that an anamorphic lens allows you to
(33:50):
shoot with is even wider than that. So if you
took what you see you on an HD television and
you letterbox that you put black bars at the top
and bottom of, that's the aspect ratio that you're mostly
getting UM out of that kind of lens, and so
um it was partially the aspect ratio, but it was
also those anamorphic lens as well. Wow, you to get
(34:13):
all kinds of texture at it, right. And so one
of the things that we that that kept sticking in
my and my mind was the Dirty South, Right, that
was the genre of music that that evolved from this,
and everything about Atlanta was just kind of imperfect but beautiful.
I'm perfectly imperfect, and it was it was dirty and
(34:34):
raw and had texture. And so not only did we
take lenses that already have those characteristics, but we went
and got these these really old lenses, these Kawa lenses
that were built in the nineties seventies UM and have
since kind of been rehoused, but they still have all
the basic tenants of the lenses and the original lenses,
and those are dirty. I mean they're there's there flawed.
(34:57):
They have elements to them that are that are imperfect.
And we leaned into that. We wanted those images to
have flares and streaks and and there to be bloom
around the light. So you know, so much today is
done to take that out of lenses. Um, we leaned
into the opposite, and so we wanted to kind of
embrace that as we as we were shooting the interviews,
(35:19):
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(36:50):
There's one thing we haven't talked about yet, and and
that's football. One of my favorite parts of this film
is this little football detail about the ninety one Falcons
get the ball to Prime With mr you can't touch
this on the sidelines, the Falcons started playing cheap away,
(37:10):
a strategy they called get the ball to Prime. I
rule wastilateral gets talk the touchdown if you picked the
ball off the practice you hadn't pitching it looks like
they practice after they get the interception, try to get
a return for a touchdown. Coaches like yo, picture like
(37:31):
if you didn't pitch it, he in the meeting room, like,
why aren't you pitching? And guy asked me to pitch
in the ball. We're trying to go to the end zone.
The Falcons live on the air if I have to disaster.
There was just an understanding. You get to pick if
I'm anywhere close, get the turn fall to one. When
you get twenty one, you win. If black jack are lit,
(37:52):
you want you win. That That is like a that's
like a perfect football representation of the Falcons. It's a
little bit of a clash of style and substance and
everything ultimately revolving around and leading to Dion Sanders. Did
any of you guys get the sense that any of
(38:13):
these guys regretted the fun approach that they took to
football when you're doing these interviews, did that did that
exude or did that eke out that? Obviously they had fun,
that's clear, But I mean, they didn't win a championship.
So did they look back now later in life having
their careers be over and say, man, I wish we'd
wish we'd danced a little less. One subject, Jamie Duke's
kind of went into that. He went into the criticism
(38:34):
they received and when they lost a team like Washington
coached by Joe Gibbs, they do everything straight laced. They
really went into you know how the contrasting those two teams,
and you know, the team that did things straight laced
one and the team that was dancing didn't. And there's
the Jamie was the one that really went into that
for sure. Yeah, it seems like everybody else that seemed
(38:56):
seemed to enjoy it. And uh, if you look back
fondly at that at that particular time, and um, you know,
at the at the end of the day, I mean,
a lot of the guys spoke to the fact that
the team was cheap and the team or the team
at the time didn't spend the money to keep some
of their some of their big free agents, and you know,
made some questionable personnel decisions. Um, and and a lot
(39:18):
of the guys think that that was the reason they
didn't have further success. Versus versus the style, I just
like the pitching laterally is but anytime you can distill,
it's great to talk about anamorphic lenses. It's great to
shoot things the way that they were shot in the
film is beautiful. The interviews in this film, especially when
(39:39):
you have to do interviews in a variety of different
locations with a variety of different subjects to find a
technique and to make it work the way it does
in this film is really really hard to do. But
the other thing we have to do in all of
our films is we have to make the football work.
We have to find something in the football that helps
tell the story ray of this team or this this
(40:01):
this player that signifies who they were as as people
and as football players and and distills it down to
the essence that I love that you guys found the
one football element that like sums up this team to
a t, even in their greatest moment, their playoff win,
(40:23):
that that lateral comes up in the last play of
the game. I think my only criticism of the ninety
one Falcons approach was that they changed the uniforms. And
maybe it's just nostalgia, but I really love I love
the red and blacks from being my first exposure to football.
That's what they're wearing. This is the team that that
went to all black. Uh. You know, maybe just another
(40:44):
debate that will historically be connected to this team. You
will be on the wrong side of that debate about
but you know, you know who we can ask about
the change to all blacks, Paul the man himself who
executed that change, the Man in Black. Jerry Glanville, Coach Glanville.
(41:15):
Welcome to the NFL Films Podcast. I'm Keith Cosro with
Paul Camarado. We've been producers at NFL Films for many years.
We've probably both interviewed you for some film we did
fifteen years ago. And we're with Greg Bachetty, the producer
of the great new film The Timeline Falcons, which you
(41:35):
are one of the stars of. So we would love
to talk to you about the film and about that
moment in your life for a few minutes today. Well,
you happen to pick a moment which was probably as
good as it gets. The Falcons were not normal in
any way. There's a special special group. Was that the
(41:58):
best season of your career? This was this was a
moment in Atlanta in a city that was rising. There
was a cultural element to it. There was dion and
everything else, and it was the last year in Fulton
County and you have never they never will probably get
crowds like that because we didn't sell corporate tickets. We
(42:18):
didn't sell tickets by the hundreds. All of our tickets
were sold by twos and fours. And it was an
unbelievable people that said in the end zone that waited
to see those those players come out, and what what what's?
What's you have to remind people? I got today. I
was in an under arm story because it goes, oh
(42:40):
my gosh, I was there when you had the ninety
wood felt because it happens every day. But what a
lot of people forget we started off oh and two
and that that has sort of disappeared. Uh, we were
waiting to click offensively. We're really good on defense when
we started off, uh, you know, not given very very
(43:00):
many touchdowns at all. In fact, we uh in the
bye week. In the bye week, we weren't even a
winning team. We were two and three, but the defense
was given up a touchdown a game. And we were
waiting for this offense to come together because it takes
the time, and we we had new players. We drafted
(43:21):
the uh Pritchard. I had to have Pritchard. Nobody knew
why I had had Pritchard. Why did I pass on
far to the next round? Because I had to have
another slot back and people probably forget Pritchard, let all
rookies in receiving that. You we made a trade for
Drew Hill, and of course that Michael Hayes was there,
and we made the trade for Andre Risen. Uh. And
(43:44):
and so we're two and three at the bye week,
playing good defense and nothing happening. And then when we
came back from the bye we beat the forty Niners
and at that time we went on we beat him
on the West coast too. At that time we beat
the forty Niners twice, which nobody was doing. That's that's
believed or not so long ago the forty Niners could
actually play. Then they were pretty good today. Uh, kind
(44:09):
of hard to watch today. Um So after ten games,
this this team that everybody still talks about, we're five
and five. We're five or five team and wondering what's
gonna happen. And then we take off and we win
five in a row. And and the offense becomes the
strength of the team, where the defense was the strength
(44:29):
of the team at one point the the uh, the
offense becomes just very very very powerful. Memory of this
team is incredible. Well, you don't forget teams like that.
You don't forget played. And this team loves to play
the attitude and practice. People don't realize Dion Sanders. You
(44:52):
see Dean Sanders play seem running back kicks, you see
him intercept the past. Let me tell you about Dan Sanders,
and nobody says is a practice. He never took a
play off, not one. In pro football, you have to
be the other team. So when you're playing the Vikings
after when the offense is working, you're you don't have
(45:15):
scout teams, not college football, So Dion Sanders has to
be the corner representing the Vikings corner. Let me tell
you about Dan Sanders if he was where he didn't
let you catch the ball when he was a scout
corner when he was his corner, and that permeated through
that football team. And and Jesse Tuggle was the undersized
(45:37):
guy that nobody wanted and they all thought he couldn't play,
and he became the best linebacker in football. So a
great fund group. And uh, we would go out and
beat the Raiders. And Robert Lows would say, if we
beat these Raiders, uh, my family's bringing ghetto gig our team.
(45:59):
We go razy. We don't eat ghetto cake on the bus,
cold in the air going to the airplane. Ghet okay
because about butter. So we had a lot of fun
coach one well, one question, I gotta know you changed
the uniforms, and I gotta say, I gotta have a
confessional here. I actually liked the red and black uniforms.
I remember him as a kid. I remember as a kid.
(46:20):
I see the throwback Sundays now. But you come in
and it's it's a moment, it's an anecdote that comes
through in the film. You went to the all blacks.
Tell us why you did that. Black is not a
color black as an attitude. And Atlanta has been playing
without any attitude. Atlanta has just been just been out there.
(46:42):
And I thought that we we had to come forward.
We didn't have any swag, we we didn't have any
any step in our giddio, but we we were just
there and we broken that. I got my my my
owner was Rankings Smiths, and he did it because you're
not allowed to change colors till you give the league
(47:06):
your notice, your plus notice, so they can sell all
the garbage, all that red, ugly stuff, get rid of it.
So every time we took the field in our black
heat reforms. We paid a fine because we had And
I gotta say this for Ranking, he never he just
paid to find it. So every time we came out
(47:26):
to tunnel, no nobody knew we were fine because we
didn't tell them in advance that we weren't going to
wear those ugly, stinking red helmets. Well, that explains it.
Black is not a color, it's an attitude. It's an attitude,
and we became the team of attitude. How much was
the how much was the fine back then? When when
(47:48):
for for for the uniform? I can't even imagine that
happening today, with the process that that teams go through
to change their uniforms. Well, thank gosh, Ranking didn't tell me.
He didn't make me pay for and I ad and
he equals, here, we gotta pay your fine for this.
I think I shocked myself. Whatever the fine is taken
off my face. I should have asked what it was.
(48:10):
But he was a good man. He thanked God. He
did not take it off my pay. And uh, we
went on and violated all the rules. Uh. And and
the defense uh and the defense played with that attitude.
They had that attitude that uh, you know Ricky Bryant
was a defensive that nobody played harder Tim Green, nobody
(48:32):
played her. We weren't the best team, we were the
hardest working, most lund team coaches. There's there's one guy
in the show that, by his own admission, was not
the hardest worker on that team, Brett Farve. You mentioned
him earlier, and he tells the stories about how he
basically wasn't a professional yet, and we all know the history.
He ends up getting traded. I'm just curious, as a
(48:54):
coach who's you're essentially a teacher. You have these students
out in the field as his career unfolded. Did he
give you satisfaction? Do you root for a guy like
that even though he wasn't he wasn't ready to be
in the NFL? Maybe um from a professional standpoint, when
you had him, when he goes on and reaches those
heights and you're seeing it from a distance, how do
you respond to that. I was as big as fan
(49:17):
even when he first went to Green Bay. Marucci was
a quarterback coach called Mabe was what did you send us?
Holy God? This guy, this guy's NU believe it. I said,
stay with him. He's got the ability. Everybody on our
team knew we had. The ability is you talk about
having fun when we went on the road. Let's say
we're at the l A. Rams, We're gonna play the
(49:39):
Rams or whoever they were. They were, uh him and
a guy named Billy Joe Tolliver. We've done we're always
practiced on the on the field that we're gonna play
on the road. They would all the whole team would
bet and they line up those two cats could could
be on our side and throw the ball into the
(50:00):
press box and they would stop off and buy footballs,
whiffle balls from target. And when we got practiced order,
everybody would go run over to the to the sideline
where the where the press box was and they would
show that ball eight yards with a whistle in it
and you could hear whistle and the team would bet
(50:22):
on you know, Billy Joel. One day, Billy Joe had
an armed just like just like Fire. So Fire did
play a lot that game. But Fire was We had
a lot of fun with Fire and we're all hoping
Fire could play. And it was kind of funny. Later
on when Fire became what he was just the best
quarterback playing his mom and dad gave me a plank
(50:45):
check and they said, everything you did to try to
help him grow up, I'm giving you this check, and
you right in the amount for helping our son. I said, wow, Now,
of course I never today i'd probably need to check,
but I didn't drink. And then that that's how we we.
We love Far And I had a chance that he
(51:06):
could go to the Jets, or you could go to
Green Bay. And if he went to the Jets at
what at at that age today nobody would know who
Far is because the New York is just like Atlanta.
It never closed. It's open all night. Dude, you can
you can party all night. Well in green Bay, the
party of the town is done at nine o'clock, the
street lights are turned off, it's over. So he became
(51:29):
a big success coach. What was so unique about the
city of Atlanta. It's another thing that comes across in
the film. Both before ninety one and the history kind
of was was going that direction, and then during that
season where it was such a community atmosphere that that
people from all walks came together. Why was that city
at that moment in time different than the other cities
(51:50):
that maybe you guys traveled to and and and played
against They've been bad for so long. And when we
were there, and when I was assistant there in the seventies,
we were good. We had it going on. But that
ninety team. I think when you're on your way from
going from last the first, it brings people together. And
I used to love to go out early because there
(52:12):
would be three black faces with three white faces, and
there was nobody. There was nobody that cared who was
black and white. They just loved their falcons. And I
think that brought that city in the city felt that
and they knew our players were that way. Uh and
and Dion knew so many people he knew, uh mc
(52:34):
hammer deons. Can mc hammered coach come on the sideline. Well,
I didn't know who mc hammer was, but I love
the guy. One time we're out the plane somewhere, we're
out in Arizona, and he said, mc hammer wants to
talk to the team before we go play. This is
really let me tell you what he said before the
(52:56):
team was right spot out. It was better than any
of the thing I would have said. It was great,
probably the toughest. One time we went on the air
that team got on the airplane and were charter in
Atlanta and the vander Holyfield the heavyweight champs getting on
the plane, and the people ran up and said, did
you invite him? I was no, who invited him? I
(53:17):
don't know, but I'm not going to ask the champ
to get off the plane. And and and the heavyweight
champ walks down an airplane with us and goes to
the game with us, and it's not He was like,
he talked to the football team. He such a great
man and humble man. He's going to talk to the
team before we play. And he talked so soft. We
(53:40):
were all leaning in. I don't think anybody heard anything
he said. And I finally said all right, and we
all streamed the got left. But he talks so soft,
He's such a humble guy, such a and he says,
I want to die in. I was like, it was
like the Godfather. Uh. We couldn't hear what he was
saying in but it didn't matter. His heart loved that
(54:02):
team in the team loved him. And that's what happened
in to this day. Uh, I go back to Atlanta,
I'm still their coach. People think I'm in their coach,
because not it was the team bringing the city together.
That's awesome. Um, other it's it's funny hearing you tell
those stories and seeing the clips and just thinking how
(54:25):
many other coaches would would just say, well, what a distraction?
What does this boxer doing here? What is what does
mc hammer? What's Travis Tritt doing here? Like? Get him
off our field? You know, we gotta we gotta practice
goal line, get him out of here. But but obviously, uh,
you had a different outlook on the whole thing. And
one day in practice, James Brown, the godfeathers soul shows up.
(54:47):
I mean, this is why you're talking about. What why
did this city gravitate towards this team? Why there is
this team that have been forgotten? We're in practice and
James Brown wants to be a tailback and runner sweep. Well,
he's only you know, he's he's a he's only like
five ft tall. We put him in the tail back
in the eye, taws him. He runs around the corner.
(55:08):
But I don't hit him, not don't hit him. And
there was James James Brown only ran a tass sweeper.
This lay by the way, he ran ran ran a
tass sweep in Atlanta, can practice. I mean that that's
a kind of fun we had and then we'd go
back to work. Hey, coach, thank you so much for
taking a few minutes. Terrific. We love talking to you.
(55:32):
You know that, we love hearing from you. We love
when you're part of our films. Um, and uh, we'll
talk to you again pretty soon, we hope. Thank you
all right, take care well, Paul. Nice conversation with the coach.
(55:56):
It's great guys like Jerry Glamor. We can't tell football
stories without people Jerry Glanville because of the duration of
his career, the players he's had, where he's been, the
games he's coached, in the footage that he's given us.
If everybody knows, everybody knows the bite, not for long,
not for long, keep making those calls. So yeah, it's
great talking to him and reflecting it. I couldn't when
(56:18):
he was talking about that, when he was talking about
running into people who remember that team. Um, it's awesome
to hear that and to know that this film that
Greg and Anthony and Rob put together is gonna help
people who don't know anything about that team learn learn
a lot about them because it's certainly one that not
everybody remembers. People who are young don't know at all,
but it's a team that's definitely worth looking back on. Yeah,
(56:39):
it's a fun hour and uh hopfully everybody enjoys it.
Thanks for joining us today on the NFL Films podcast
Sank our friends Greg Pachetti, Anthony Smith in l A,
Rob Garing, coach Jerry Glanville. Thanks to our engineer Steve Moseley,
(57:05):
our producer Rich Owens. Find us at NFL Films on Twitter,
on Facebook, Instagram YouTube. We're out there making football movies
for you every day of the week. Until next time.
(57:28):
I'm Keith, I'm Paul. Later
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