Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.
Interpretation
Football is like a theatrical performance, blending strategy and artistry.
In this quote, Steve Sabol likens football to a theatrical spectacle, emphasizing the blend of strategy, artistry, and narrative that defines the game. He highlights how the presentation of football through film, narration, and music transforms the sport into an emotionally resonant performance that captivates audiences, much like a film or live theatre does.
In practice
During a sports documentary screening, one might quote Steve Sabol to emphasize the artistry of sports.
I have loved football as an almost mythic game since I was in the fourth grade. To me, the game wasn't even grounded in reality. The uniform turned you into a warrior. Being on a team, the mythology of physical combat, the struggle against the elements, the narrative of the game.
Hip-hop was created out of necessity. We needed to create some digitized things to help us understand what we were feeling.
American poetry is this country's greatest patrimony. It takes a stranger to see some things clearly. This is one of them, and I am that stranger.
It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.
The rules I sort of live by for my theater career, which I hope to live for my film career, is that if there's something that intrigues me or fascinates me, or I don't know how to do it, then I should do it.
All great films are a resolution of a conflict between darkness and light. There is no single right way to express yourself. There are infinite possibilities for the use of light with shadows and colors. The decisions you make about composition, movement and the countless combinations of these and other variables is what makes it an art.
Producing a series is like being Lewis and Clark: You know where you're going, you just don't know how you're going to get there. When people say, 'You should create a bible for your show,' I say, 'You don't want a bible. It'll prevent you from making discoveries along the way.' And that's what happened on 'The X-Files.'
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