Interview: Filmmaker Kristen Lappas, on the docuseries Dream On

Burn It All Down

Sports

4.5 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Amira Rose Davis talks with Kristen Lappas, an Emmy award-winning director and producer about her latest film, Dream On, a three-part documentary from ESPN's 30 for 30 about the 1996 USA women's basketball team journey to Olympic gold. They discuss what it like to interview all members of the team, including legends like Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley and Rebecca Lobo. They also dive into how memory and remember play a role in the narrative and the ways this team are the "Hidden Figures" of basketball. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. For show notes, transcripts, and more info about BIAD, check out our website: www.burnitalldownpod.com To help support the Burn It All Down podcast, please consider becoming a patron: www.patreon.com/burnitalldown For BIAD merchandise: https://www.bonfire.com/store/burn-it-all-down/ Find us on Twitter: twitter.com/BurnItDownPod; Facebook: www.facebook.com/BurnItAllDownPod/; and Instagram: www.instagram.com/burnitalldownpod/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to burn it all down, and I am thrilled, and I'm playing with your babies to the screaming shout, oh, yeah.
0:09.7	Welcome to Burn It All Down, the sports podcast you need.
0:14.5	It's Amir here, and I am thrilled to be joined by Kristen Lafis, who I actually went to high school with, but more importantly,
0:22.4	is the director of Dream on the latest documentary about the 1996 Dream Team, Women's
0:29.6	Basketball team that took on the world and many other things available now on ESPN, ESPN,
0:35.7	all those entities.
0:38.2	Kristen is the director and producer at Words and Pictures, a twice time, a two-time Emmy Award-winning producer for sports documentaries like DreamOn, which we are here to talk about today because it was so amazing.
0:52.9	Kristen, thank you so much for joining Burnall Down.
0:55.4	You are very sweet for having me, and it's a pleasure. And I'm so, at any time I can
0:59.6	connect with old high school friends, it's always a fun, a fun thing. So thank you for having me.
1:04.9	Absolutely. So first and foremost, what was it like to make this documentary with all of these amazing women?
1:12.9	Like, you just start seeing all of the personalities involved on that team and in this film, in this documentary.
1:20.8	Like, was this like a dream come true to make this?
1:23.5	It 1,000% is.
1:25.4	I keep telling people, like, I'm never going to be able to top making a film about my childhood idols. And you're supposed to stay, you know, unbiased in these roles as directors and journalists. But I, and I said this to Brian Lockhart, who's the VP of Original Programming at ESPN. When he asked me how some of the shoots went, I was like,
1:49.3	I had to ask Cheryl for for a picture after we did the interview. Like I just had to do it. I'm sorry.
1:55.2	I know I'm not supposed to, but like these are my idols. Lisa Leslie and Don Staley, who grew up in Philly, like right where I grew up. It was just like, it was surreal. It was amazing. And it was
2:00.8	honestly the most fun thing that I've ever done. Like people talk about, you know, what's the most rewarding project? And there are so many things that I've done that I'm very connected to the subject matter and the subjects. But this one was just fun. Like these women are awesome. They're all so, um, such big personalities and getting to
2:20.2	sit down with each of them for, you know, two, three hours and just talk about that year was
2:26.0	an incredible experience. That seems amazing. I know, um, it's so hard when you like have to be
2:31.6	professional and also your fan girling. I just saw Lisa, of course, at the SB's.
2:37.2	And I was like, hi.
	...

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