Trish Govoni

Posted by Glenn Lazzaro for his series “Adventures in Television”

“I am a blackhole supernova, colliding with a proton, genetically-engineered from a hooker, mutated into a circus clown, riding on a unicycle. What I mean is: my words make me extra powerful.”

Patrick Anderson. Poet.

In 2000 ESPN was bringing the Winter X Games to the east coast for the first time and they were looking for an entirely different way of packaging the show. The games were going to be broadcast on the ABC network for the first time and they wanted to make a big impression. I had been attending “Poetry Slams” at the Bowery Poetry Club for a while and thought that Slam Poets were similar to extreme athletes in many ways. Both groups push the limits of their chosen field, both are misunderstood by the general public and both compete as individuals.

I had been doing quite a bit of work with ESPN at the time so I presented the idea of using poetry as a way to package the show to VP of Event Production, Jamie Reynolds. The concept was to take five young poets from the streets of New York City, and ask them to write poems for the Winter X Games. The poems would celebrate both the games and the people and lifestyle associated with it. I chose Sage Francis, Patrick Anderson, Beau Sia, Laurel Barclay and Amanda Nazario- all nationally recognized Slam Poets to write poems specific to the games.

We set off to film on location at Mt. Snow Ski resort in Vermont. We were hoping to shoot on top of the ski mountain with vistas of the valley as a backdrop. Of course when we arrived in January a huge cold front swept thru the area dropping temperatures to 10 below zero with wind chills on the mountain-top at 30 below zero. Mt. Snow closed the mountain the day we arrived. We though we would have to reschedule the shoot but my Cinematographer Trish Govoni was undaunted. We scouted the area and found great snowy landscapes that could only exist in Vermont. We made an old barn with hubcaps nailed to it our home base. We also used the forest behind the motel to shoot. (On that location we were able to use hair dryers to warm up the Poets between takes)

Everyone in the action-sports world at the time was “cut crazy.” I was also “cut crazy” but felt as a Director I needed to do something different with the Poets. I really wanted showcase their intense performances. We shot the poems in their entirety without worrying about how long they would be. We did very little coverage because I did not want the poems to be “edited” after the fact. (We did have to do some cuts because the poets were freezing and had trouble doing the long poems without making some mistakes) Somehow we got it done and no one froze to death.

ESPN had expected the poems to be inter-cut with action sports so when I showed them the pieces they were entirely surprised. To their credit they realized that they had a great opportunity to do what they had wanted to do all along. That is: to do something unexpected. The poems formed the framework for the 4 days of live programming and ran unedited just as I hoped.

On February 6th, the X-games began with a haiku by Patrick Anderson.

There is a snowman

his eyes are two perfect x’s

the snowman is me

BONUS: A cut featuring all the Poets reading their haikus.

Posted by Glenn Lazzaro for his series “Adventures in Television.”

2000, Hood River Valley, Oregon.

When we arrived in the Hood River Valley in November to shoot an image spot for OLN (now Versus), we had a great DP (Trish Govoni), a great crew, a 35 mm camera package, a bag of props, and a great song idea we hoped to license.

We also had a miniscule shooting budget and almost no cast. In order to save money, we decided to source local cast members as we went.

Wendy McCoy, then VP/marketing for OLN, had asked us to develop ideas for an image campaign for OLN’s 2001 season. With Rob Battles, then creative director at Crossroads Television, I came up with a campaign celebrating the first moment a child realizes his sled or bike can transport them to new, exciting places. We planned to shoot Snowboarding, Skiing, Mountain Biking, Wakeboarding, Skateboarding, Hiking and Kayaking–all cut to Jimi Hendrix’s “Freedom.” We’d have to find all these athletes on location.

We got lucky at Mt. Hood glacier: the local Burton Snowboarding team was practicing there along with the U.S. ski team and the Junior Olympics ski team. They all graciously volunteered to be in the spot. The two boys playing in the snow at the start of the spot are kids whose moms worked in the lodge cafeteria.

When we got to the town of Hood River, it was a different story.

Since we had no budget for casting, my producer Carla Tate and our AD Ann Taylor scoured neighborhood parks looking for volunteers.

Word spread quickly around town that some “strange people” were bothering children in the town. Police showed up to arrest Carla. After we explained what we were doing and showed them our film permits, one of the cops volunteered a neighbor’s kid for the spot. (She’s the little girl hanging out the car window at :16.) We also used crew members whenever we could. Our assistant camera operator can be seen running into the water at :20.

I wanted to use Jimi Hendrix’s “Freedom” for the soundtrack from the very beginning, but when we tried to license the track the record company wanted $80,000. We only had $3,000 in our budget for music. I had met Jimi Hendrix’s father at a Woodstock reunion concert a few years before and he seemed to be a really nice guy, so I suggested that we contact him directly.

We called Jimi’s dad, James Hendrix, explaining that we wanted to use the song but couldn’t afford the high price the record company quoted. We asked if he’d consider allowing us to use it for less. Much less. He was open to the idea, but he asked to see a cut before making a decision. We sent him the cut and waited. When he called us back and said we could have the rights to the song for our paltry $3,000, we were ecstatic. He also said, “I think Jimi would have liked your commercial.”

I could not have been prouder.

Mt Hood Glacier:

Extreme Poetry In The Mountains

OLN Freedom