Doin' It In the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC is an unabashed success story for first-time feature directors Bobbito García and Kevin Couliau, who filmed basketball on 180 courts across New York City's five boroughs. They shot the feature on the Godfather of DSLR cinematography, the Canon 5D Mark II, and took advantage of being a mobile production unit by biking to the majority of their locations. Following a theatrical tour the world over and a successful direct digital release using VHX, DIITP is available today on iTunes, Amazon.com, VUDU, Google Play, PlayStation, Xbox, and cable VOD everywhere. As a basketball player who's spent plenty of time on outdoor NYC courts, and as a Kickstarter backer of the project, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sit down with the filmmakers to ask them how they did it.
If you're not at all familiar with the film, here's the theatrical trailer:
Here's the first part of our interview, on the making of the film, how much footage they shot, and how they put it together (note: apologies on the audio levels, which seem a bit low. We'll correct that next time). Subscribe to the No Film School YouTube channel for more interviews, behind-the-scenes features, and tutorials! We're easing into it, but will start rolling out a lot more original content soon and we could use the subscribers!
The film casts a wider net than just everyday guys hooping in NYC parks; DIITP explores a court where all the players are deaf, it talks to players who often find themselves as the only female or white players on the court, and it journeys to Rikers Island jail to find out what basketball means to inmates:
DIITP received an assist from the post-production wizards at Goldcrest Post, who also did the post on my short film AMATEUR. But other than Goldcrest, the film was very DIY, including the aforementioned use of VHX (hat tip to Indie Game: the Movie) as well as the emerging theatrical platform Tugg. Here, I ask Bobbito and Kevin about signing up brands and how they approached the marketing of the film:
These interviews were shot by Stephen Roll and Jens Olson-Kikuchi and edited by Jordan Fuller. Special thanks to Hello World Communications for providing the space and equipment for these interviews.
Links: Doin' It In The Park on VHX, iTunes, Amazon.com, VUDU, and Google Play
