Initial Research: Jason Hehir

For my film project I will create a short film showing the story of "The Professor", a steetball player. That's why I looked at the work of Jason Hehir, who was the director of a documentary that presents the Michael Jordan's basketball career in the Chicago Bulls. Hehir grew up in Newton, which is in the Boston metropolitan area. He was interested in sports from an early age. "As a kid, he once figured out where Doug Flutie and Gerard Phelan lived on the Boston College campus and went to their dorm room, where they were kind enough to share a pizza with him"(Finn 2020). He was also involved in sports himself, playing baseball at Newton North High School and Williams College. After graduation, he worked for NBC Sport and HBO. Below is the trailer of his greatest work "The Last Dance".

The Last Dance

In the video above we see the trailer of the series "The Last Dance". To create this series, Hehir interviewed over a hundred people, but the most important figure was Michael Jordan. The biggest “get” of all, though, was Jordan himself, without whom there would be no docuseries(Carey 2020).The series showed many match shots, after which basketball players from that era gave comments. Off-the-field situations were also shown, commented on by the main character. By involving many figures from pop culture, such as famous rappers or presidents, this story is very captivating because it shows Jordan's influence on all people. The storytelling is thrillingly detailed, and performative too. The beauty of basketball lies in its interlocking details, the way players, skills, tactics and backstories elide in a snapshot, creating that dizzyingly rich athletic ballet(Barney Ronay 2020). 

In my work I will want to show how to edit shots from the basketball court.

References

Netflix (2020) The last dance | relive the phenomenon | netflix, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQk2hJs2ToA (Accessed: 29 October 2023).

Finn, C. (2020) ‘the last dance’ director Jason Hehir, a Newton native, shares what it’s like to work with Michael Jordan, Boston.com. Available at: https://www.boston.com/sports/media/2020/05/01/last-dance-director-jason-hehir-newton-native/ (Accessed: 29 October 2023).

McGovern, J. (2020) Director of ESPN’s the last dance Jason Hehir ’98 reflects on time at college, filmmaking career, The Williams Record. Available at: https://williamsrecord.com/294108/sports/director-of-espns-the-last-dance-jason-hehir-98-reflects-on-time-at-college-filmmaking-career/ (Accessed: 29 October 2023).

Carey, M. (2020) Emmys: ‘the last dance’ director Jason Hehir on “de-iconizing” Michael Jordan and that Ken Burns criticism, Deadline. Available at: https://deadline.com/2020/06/the-last-dance-director-jason-hehir-michael-jordan-ken-burns-espn-documentary-interview-1202966013/ (Accessed: 29 October 2023).

Ronay, B. (2020) The last dance is spectacular but leaves the real Michael Jordan up in the air | barney ronay, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/may/23/the-last-dance-spectacular-michael-jordan-netflix (Accessed: 29 October 2023).