Episode 129

full
Published on:

1st May 2020

Making the Sports Documentary with Gotham Chopra

Sports documentaries have really come into their own as a documentary genre. The truth is that the built-in drama and sometimes off-the-field shenanigans make for some really compelling stories. Entities like ESPN's 30 For 30 series, HBO Sports, Netflix and Hulu's ventures into sports docuseries, all have been making these films and really elevating the stature of the sports documentary.

And so has filmmaker, Gotham Chopra. With his business venture, Religion of Sports, Gotham has been embracing the sports documentary in a way that has really been separating himself from the pack.

And we were fortunate enough to be able to sit down with Gotham and have a one-on-one chat about why sports docs are so popular and best practices for the doc filmmaker to be making them!

 

Topics Discussed

  • how Gotham Chopra came to documentary via early journalism assignments
  • How ESPN’s 30 for 30 series legitimized sports as documentary subject
  • Why sports makes for such compelling stories
  • How to gain access to higher profile sports personalities
  • The importance of separating your project from all of the types of content that are already out there

 

Additional Resources

Watch the Religion of Sports' The Great Brady Heist in its entirety!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I29ZMIOZwX0

 

 

Sponsors & Thank Yous

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Music Vine

Thank you to music licensing platform, Music Vine for contributing the wonderful music that we’ve used in this week’s episode.

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Their music catalogue is truly fresh, diverse, full of character, their search engine is as straight forward and user friendly and their licensing fees? Unlike anywhere else we have come across.

If you need any music for your doc project, we can honestly recommend Music Vine.

And make sure to use our promo code to get an additional 15 percent off of any subscription!!

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° Free Music ArchiveSpecial Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artists’ music by going to Free Music Archive today!

 

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About the Podcast

The Documentary Life
Documentary filmmaker & host, Chris G. Parkhurst, inspires & informs you on how to best live and lead your own doc life.
Have a passion for making documentary films? Want to learn how to best lead a documentary life? Join award-winning commercial and documentary filmmaker, Chris G. Parkhurst, and special industry guests as they candidly share their filmmaking stories, insights, and experiences, for all to learn how to best lead and live their own documentary dream lives.

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Christopher Parkhurst