Just a small presentation o

1. A PRESENTATION LOOKING AT
DIFFERENT SPORT FILM
DIRECTORS, OR PARTICULARLY
GOOD DIRECTING ON A SPECIFIC
FILM.

2.  John G. Avildsen directed films like Rocky and Karate
Kid, which are iconic films not only in the sport film
industry, but in the film industry in general. Everyone
has heard of at least one of those series of
film, meaning that the films are bound to have some
kind of worth to them. The films themselves are, in
my professional opinion, extremely good as a whole.
The directing therefore must be good, as it takes a
great director to make a great film. For this reason, I
think it’s essential to study his films for inspiration, as
he is obviously going to be influential, after directing
influential films. Also what is to be noted about
Avildsen, is that he was awarded ‘Best Director’ and
many of his films have Oscar nominations and even
awards, with films like Rocky. However, he started
out directing a film called ‘Joe’ which was extremely
low-budget, yet still received great appraisal, showing
us that even those that start off small can go on to
achieve great things, providing not only a directing
style to follow, but also quite inspirational.
Although, inspirational does not add much to creating
a film, Avildsen’s films are definitely something to
follow and take inspiration from.

3.  Ron Shelton is another key sport director, yet
directing some slightly more unheard of
films, such as Bull Durham (1988) and Tin Cup
(1996). Shelton is regarded as being one of the
most sport related directors there are. What
perhaps makes him such a great director, is that
in his early years, he was a decent minor league
baseball player for about 4 years in Baltimore. It
can be argued that a director who is directly
involved in that which he directs films
in, means that they have a great degree of
background knowledge and so they can make
better films, as they know the finer details. This
is what I personally believe makes Ron Shelton
such a great director. His knowledge and
understanding of sport really rubs off onto his
films and overall makes him a person to really
look up to and admire. To create films as he
does would be brilliant. Even though his films
aren’t ‘big’ they have a certain degree of
professionalism to them, which can only be
obtained through great directing and for this
reason, I hold his films as highly as more
famous films.

4.  Thomas Carter is best known for his work on the
film ‘Coach Carter’, which was a film about
basketball and under-privileged youths. The film
itself was nominated for many awards, showing
how it was held as a great film and as we’ve
previously explored, to have a great film, you
need a great director. Although, Carter also
directed the television series ‘The White
Shadow’, which is also about basketball. The
recurring theme with this director is sport
films, as he also does films about dancing, which
although sport related, does tend to focus on
more ‘romance’ rather than the actual sport.
But, it’s sport nonetheless! Carter is a good
director to follow, as he does films about
Basketball and Youths, which is the area I want to
go down, so ‘copying’ or ‘mimicking’ his
directing style may be beneficial to my own
directing!

5.  There’s a lot to take from the little bit of research into key
directors, as I can see lots of different styles of directing and
it gives us some insight into directors and their ways. This
helps me, as I get to see some different ways people have
done films, the only problem is that these are all
American, so their films are made ‘Hollywood Style’ which
isn’t really how I want my film to be made. As I want mine
to be ‘British’ and ‘Edgy’ a director like Shane Meadows
would be good to look at it, but for the sake of this, it’s still
been insightful to look at sport directors, as that touch of
sport in a more American way, may help to reach out to a
mainstream audience, as many English audiences tend to
associate with American films, especially mainstream
audiences. So, this research has benefited me greatly and it
will help with my film, as I now have a lot of inspiration and
new ideas!