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NFL Films revolutionized
sports filming. The imaginative visuals, the voice-talent of John Facenda
and the music of composer Sam Spence were melded together by Steve Sabol
in such a way that the sports documentary was changed forever.
NFL Films advances in filming
sports included everything from reverse angle replays to filming pre-game
locker room speeches to setting highlights to pop music. |
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ome games
were blacked out before 1973 and Sports Networks,Cable TV and VCRS did not
yet exist- NFL Films productions like “This Week in Pro Football” and “The
NFL. Game of the Week” these shows were eagerly anticipated by
fans and players alike, and the halftime highlights on “Monday Night
Football” these shows were eagerly anticipated by fans and
players a like. It was the only way to see your team in action from the
previous week.
NFL Films has continually
adapted to new technology while maintaining its dramatic storytelling
technique. The company began producing weekly NFL highlight shows in the
late 1960s, introduced the first sports home video in 1980, and today
remains at the forefront of the film industry.
Ed Sabol
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H
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Born: September 11, 1916 in
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Ed Sabol is founder and
president of NFL Films, Inc. Since 1964, his company has filmed every
National Football League game.
A men’s clothing salesman, Sabol created the Blair Motion Pictures company
in 1962 (named for daughter Blair) and made a successful bid to film
the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers–New York Giants
championship game that year at Yankee Stadium.
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Blair Productions got the rights to film
the next year's championship, too, but the company had to go up to $17,000
for the privilege. And right then Sabol said to himself, "Oh-oh. Here it
comes. Next year it will be $25,000, and when those hotshot outfits with
the inexhaustible bankrolls see what can be done with the film and that it
can be marketed, they'll snow us under." So Sabol went to Pete Rozelle,
The NFL Commisioner, and said: "Pete, it's time for the NFL to go into the
film business. You buy us out and then make your own championship films.
You can even do weekly regular-season stuff."
Rozelle immediately saw the merit in the
idea. He ran into difficulty with some of the NFL owners when he tried to
convince them that a subsidiary company could be rewarding financially as
well as artistically, but eventually the word went out that the league
would absorb Blair Productions and its staff.
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E
| Ed Sabol was elected to the Pro Football
Hall of Fame in 2011 |
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President, NFL Films
October 2, 1942 – September
18, 2012
"We see the game as art as
much as sport," Steve Sabol told The Associated Press before his father
was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year. "That helped us
nurture not only the game's traditions but to develop its mythology:
America's Team, The Catch, The Frozen Tundra."
As president of the most
honored filmmaker in sports, Steve Sabol drove the artistic vision behind
the studio that revolutionized the way America watches football.
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Sabol and his father, Ed, who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
on February 5, 2011, were honored in 2003 with the Lifetime Achievement
Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for
“revolutionizing the way America watches football and setting the standard
in sports filmmaking.” The Emmy was presented by the late Tim Russert,
host of Meet the Press. |
While NFL Films has won more than 100 Emmys, Sabol himself received 35 of
those Emmys for writing, cinematography, editing, directing, and
producing. No one else in all of television has earned as many Emmys in as
many different categories. |
Ste
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Steve began his career in 1964 as a cinematographer
working for his father and founder of NFL Films, Ed Sabol. As an All-Rocky
Mountain Conference running back at Colorado College majoring in Art
History, as well as an avid movie fan, Steve was, as his father put it,
"uniquely qualified to make football movies."
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A natural outgrowth of his cinematic vision, Steve
was an accomplished collage artist. As President of NFL Films, Steve spent
his entire career thinking about football and the positive values the game
represents. In the process football became for Steve a prism for looking
at American society. Using symbolic imagery from both the sports world and
popular culture, Steve created a unique visual language that hearkens to
times past and reminds us of the best in ourselves.Steve died of brain
cancer at age 69 in Moorestown, N.J. |
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NFL
Films
Growth
- In 1962, Ed Sabol, founder of Blair Motion
Pictures, bid $5,000 for the film rights to the NFL Championship Game.
- In 2001, NFL Films opened its 200,000 sq. ft.
state-of-the-art film and television production facility.
- Employees in 1964: 6
- Employees in 2011: 250
- Games filmed – 1965 Season: 102
- Games filmed – 2007 Season: 267
- Total Games Filmed Since 1962: 9,312
- 16mm film shot per season: 1000 miles, the
distance from Mt. Laurel, NJ to Orlando, FL.
- Annual Programming: 600 hours of new original
football programming plus hundreds of hours of non-football related
programming
- Over 500 Players & Coaches have worn an NFL Films
microphone during a game
- Super Bowl XLII Crew: 132 employees: including 24
cinematography & audio crews
- NFL Films has filmed almost every major event in
sports: the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Finals, the
USTA U.S. Open, the Kentucky Derby, the Breeders’ Cup, Wimbledon, PGA
Championship, the Davis Cup and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
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NFL Films Archives – The World’s
Largest Sports Film Library contains:
- Over 100 Million feet of football action stored
in over 50,000 cans
- 1894 Princeton vs. Rutgers – shot by Thomas
Edison
- 1925 Pottsville Maroons
- 1925 sync sound of the Bears’ Red Grange
- 1934 Earliest color coverage (All-Stars/Giants
game)
- 1937 Green Bay Packers – the first team highlight
film
- 1939 The NFL’s first League Season Review
highlight film
- 1972 The Immaculate Reception: Steelers Franco
Harris- AFC Playoff Game vs. Oakland
- Every Championship Game since 1933, highlights of
every game since 1949
- AFL game footage from 1960-1969
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NFL Films: The Most Honored
Filmmaker in Sports
- 107 Emmys for Cinematography, Writing, Editing,
Sound, Sports Series & Specials (40+ Emmys awarded to NFL FILMS
President Steve Sabol including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003).
The first Emmy was won in 1979 for Road To The Super Bowl.
- Founder Ed Sabol is a member of the Pro Football
Hall of Fame Class of 2011.
- Since 1995, NFL Films Presents has won more Emmy
awards than any other sports series on television.
- Since 1974, Road To The Super Bowl is the longest
running and most-honored sports special (35 years, 28 Emmys).
- NFL Films has featured a “who’s who” of Hollywood
stars as narrators, including Burt Lancaster, Charlton Heston, Mel
Blanc, Orson Wells, Vincent Price, Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne,
Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris and Donald
Sutherland.
- Feature film credits include: Invincible, Jerry
Maguire, Rudy, The Waterboy, Everybody’s All-American, Unnecessary
Roughness, When Harry Met Sally, Black Sunday, Semi-Tough, Paper Lion,
and Brian’s Song.
- Documentaries: In 2006, NFL Films launched the
America’s Game series, featuring 40, one-hour documentaries profiling
each Super Bowl-winning team. In 2007, the series was awarded an Emmy
for “Outstanding Sports Edited Series.”
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NFL Films
was the first to:
- hire a woman executive in the NFL (Inez Aimee)
- wire coaches & players for sound
- use ground-level slow motion
- use 600mm lenses in sports cinematography
- edit sports films to pop music
- use reverse angles replays
- produce “Follies” films
- score original music for sports films
- use graphics to analyze game tactics & strategy
- get unrestricted access to NFL Training Camp,
most recently featured in the Emmy Award-winning reality/documentary
series Hard Knocks
- use montage editing in sports
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http://www.nflfilms.com
http://www.profootballhof.com
http://www.nfl.com
Credit: NFL Films, Tom C.
Body, The Pro Football Hall Of Fame, The NFL
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