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Origins with James Andrew Miller

C2: ESPN / Ep 5: 30 for 30: Dreams…Nightmares…Dreams. PART 2

Origins with James Andrew Miller

Audacy Podcasts

Performing Arts, Tv & Film, Arts

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2018

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The continuation of 30for30: Dreams...Nightmares...Dreams. In today’s crowded content universe, how does a new idea break out to become a celebrated brand? What do filmmakers covet most? (Hint: It’s not money). Discover the story behind all the stories care of Barry Levinson, John Skipper, Bill Simmons, and many more. Welcome to the 30for30 on 30for30. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

In Part 1 of 30 for 30, we heard about the formation of key ideas, the assembly of a small

0:07.4

documentary production group inside ESPN, and prestigious filmmakers moving forward with

0:11.8

a slate of eclectic ideas. But the highly

0:14.4

competitive and political nature of ESPN reared its head and it wasn't pretty. In fact,

0:19.0

a claim, awards, or whatever, that wing of the company was intent on preventing

0:23.7

30 from continuing.

0:25.6

I had always been scared as we were making the series that

0:29.9

some of these are going to bomb.

0:31.7

And I better have more than 30 in production as just a safety net, right?

0:38.0

Just like, hey, nobody bats a thousand so if this project goes totally sideways or we have to kill it or

0:43.8

something happens like we better have this two three four more ready to go because

0:48.0

this will probably happen a lot and so we had some really interesting films that we

0:52.4

were still making and I don't think anyone

0:55.0

thought it wasn't working and thought, okay, you need to walk away from this.

0:59.0

We just started to say, okay, these documentaries are going to be called ESPN Films Presents, the Fab Five, and that was the first one we did after the series had ended.

1:10.0

And look, what happened was exactly what you would have expected happened had you not been literally sitting inside the place

1:18.6

Obsessing over this all of our fans just called them 30 for 30s.

1:22.5

And it took us a little while, maybe a little longer

1:26.1

than we should have to kind of go back to the brand.

1:29.1

We put together an argument for why we should

1:32.4

create a second slate of 30 films and call it

1:35.0

30 for 30 volume 2.

...

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