Steve James, Frederick Marx and Peter Gilbert Hoop Dreams: from short subject to major league The hit documentary "Hoop Dreams" finally got its PBS airing Nov. 15, 1994, with an estimated 13 million viewers tuning in. While Chicago teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee pursued their basketball dreams, another saga developed behind the camera: an extraordinary long-haul video project even in the stop-and-start world of documentaries and public TV. Before the film reached the air, it earned the admiration of theater audiences and provoked changes in the procedures for choosing documentary Oscars. Originally published in Current, Dec. 12, 1994 By Joseph Flanagan Conjuring good fortune out of unpromising circumstances is a theme that the film Hoop Dreams and its subjects seem to have in common. The two-and-a-half-hour documentary that follows two inner city youths in their quest to escape lives that are all but devoid of hope, and the filmmakers also have worked to beat the odds. As documentaries go, Hoop Dreams has had a charmed existence. The critically acclaimed film that won an audience award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, that PBS delayed broadcasting to accommodate a tour in theaters, and that had theatrical distributors competing for rights, once had trouble getting anyone's attention. In 1986, filmmakers Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert originally approached independent producer Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films with an idea about making a half-hour film on Chicago's street basketball culture. A respected Chicago documentary production company with a reputation for addressing societal issues, Kartemquin seemed a likely place to start. In its 25-odd years of existence, it had produced a number of award-winners, frequently using the technique that James, Marx and Gilbert had in mind: filming the lives of their subjects as they happen. Kartemquin was interested and began looking for funders. WTTW in Chicago delayed consideration of the film because of its existing project load. CPB declined two appeals for funding. Quinn may not have known it in late 1989 when he approached KTCA in St. Paul for help, but Hoop Dreams had begun its six-year process of becoming what the Washington Post's Hal Hinson would call "the most powerful movie about sports ever made." KTCA has a reputation for working with independent filmmakers and had recommended an earlier Kartemquin project to a potential funder. Collectively, the resumes of James, Marx and Gilbert were what a filmmaker's wish list might look like--eclectic and impressive, citing Nova, Great Performances, industrials, educationals, thoughtful socio-political documentaries, concert films for Neil Young and Lou Reed, and scores of awards. By the time Quinn met with KTCA representatives, the producers had discovered Arthur Agee and William Gates, two promising high school basketball players in their freshman year who had dreams of playing in the NBA. The documentarians planned to follow the boys throughout their high school careers, hoping to capture a sense of the mythic status the NBA holds in the minds of young people growing up in the inner city. Catherine Allan, a senior executive producer at KTCA, saw some of the footage that had already been shot and was convinced of the film's potential. KTCA decided to support the project and act as a liaison with PBS. The station applied to CPB for a $100,000 grant. CPB agreed to $70,000, providing the producers could guarantee a finished product. James, Marx, and Gilbert claimed they could not finish the film they had planned for less than $100,000. Demonstrating KTCA's faith in what the producers could deliver, the station decided to put up $36,000 of its own money, something it had never done before. KTCA then promised CPB a finished documentary and was granted the $70,000. The station also agreed to give the filmmakers total editorial control, which, according to Allan, was perfectly appropriate to the project. KTCA also promised to make its facilities available for editing. The arrangements touched off negotiations between station and producers, prolonged and complicated as the film grew in length, ambition and hunger for cash. In a memo summarizing the collaboration between KTCA and the producers, Allan writes, "The amount of hours put in by our legal department on Hoop Dreams would be impossible to recoup." James, Marx and Gilbert continued to shoot videotape, observing the young athletes' lives off the court as well as on it, compiling a chronicle that went beyond sports to draw a striking portait of life in an American inner city. On the basis of their basketball prowess, Agee and Gates were accepted into St. Joseph's, a prestigious private school in the Chicago suburbs. As their expectations rose, so did those of friends and families, all of whom attached some measure of hope to stardom and the NBA. The film grew in scope, taking on the emotional power of events in the ballplayers' lives. Somehow the producers had come across central characters talented and sympathetic enough to sustain the documentary. Luck had something to do with it, James says, but he points out that thousands of kids play basketball in blighted cities, and many know the seductive promise of the pro basketball dream. Anyone, says James, who immersed themselves in this culture and recorded all the intimate details of how that dream influences the lives of those young men and their families would stand a good chance of coming out with compelling characters and a captivating story. KTCA continued to search for funding so that the project could go on, but was rejected by every major foundation and corporation it approached. In the meantime, a 30-minute educational film that the producers had planned from the beginning as an accompaniment to Hoop Dreams was attracting interest. "Higher Goals," which attempts to impress upon students the importance of having a practical plan in case basketball stardom does not pan out, was given $400,000 by Toyota and $40,000 by the Minnesota Timberwolves. It aired on PBS in 1992 and was nominated for an Emmy. A collaborative effort between the filmmakers, KTCA, and the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Northeastern University, developed a special outreach effort to help achieve the short film's instructional objective. With assistance from Toyota, a video contest was sponsored involving inner-city high schools in 20 NBA markets. Students were encouraged to produce a video with a message similar to a central lesson of Hoop Dreams: the importance of staying in school and the risks involved in investing all of one's hopes in stardom. Winning high schools were visited by members of their local professional basketball team who spoke to the student body. During breaks from filming Hoop Dreams, James wrote and directed "Grassroots Chicago," a documentary about how community groups in the city work for social change. James had secured a grant from the MacArthur Foundation for that film, and he recalls a stirring interest in Hoop Dreams. Aware of the documentary-in-progress, people at the foundation would ask, "How are the kids?" In 1991, MacArthur contributed $250,000, the grant that Gilbert says "really pushed the film through." The documentary had grown to 90 minutes by that time. In the fall of 1993, James, Marx, and Gilbert were out of money again. PBS threw in $50,000, the final grant of the film. Throughout the making of the film, KTCA served as the primary contact with PBS, which agreed to delay its broadcast several times. When the film was finally finished, it was shown to directors Barbara Kopple, who had worked with Peter Gilbert on the 1990 Oscar-winning American Dream, and Michael Apted, who had worked with him on A Long Way Home. Kopple and Apted were impressed by what they saw and suggested the producers show it on the festival circuit. Again, PBS was accommodating, and at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, Hoop Dreams won the audience award for best documentary. After Sundance, PBS agreed to delay broadcast to fall 1995--it originally was scheduled for 1992--so that it could be released in theaters. Theatrical distributors were anxious for the rights, which finally went to Fine Line Features. The filmmakers and KTCA were given an advance of approximately $500,000 by Fine Line, and Hoop Dreams, originally shot in Beta, was blown up to 35mm and re-mixed in Dolby Stereo and Surround Sound. From the project's beginning to its appearance at the Sundance Film Festival, according to Gilbert, the cost came in at about $400,000, half of the original $800,000 the filmmakers wanted for its budget at the start. The cost of its preparation for theatrical distribution, which included the 35mm blow-up, re-mixing the sound, buying rights to music, and legal fees, was roughly an additional $150,000. Part of these costs were borne by Fine Line, the rest by the producers. "We took a solid $60-70,000 hit," says Gilbert. Fine Line was willing to take the film to a certain point in its preparation for the big screen, and the producers, Gilbert says, "wanted to take it over the top." Describing what this process demanded, Gilbert adds, "We're this tiny little production company, three schmoes, and suddenly we have to deliver this film just like Castle Rock would." None of the figures accounts for the labors of the filmmakers, all of whom are described as being in "pretty intense personal debt." Hoop Dream's theatrical tour is scheduled to last until March 1995 and was expected to make $1.5 million by the first week of December 1994. Taking into account foreign use and video sales, the filmmakers could still see some compensation for their time. The collaboration between KTCA and the filmmakers may serve in the future as a case study of collaborations between stations and independent producers, according to Catherine Allan. She's interested in developing it for possible presentation at conferences. Gilbert says that for him and his colleagues, working with KTCA was "uncharted ground." Accustomed to relative independence, he and his colleagues found it difficult at first dealing with the bureaucracy of public television. However, he makes sure to point out that KTCA rescued the project when it was in dire need. The station had no obligation to agree to the numerous delays and changes the film underwent, which meant it had to appeal repeatedly to PBS. "We kept having to go back to [KTCA]," he says, "telling them 'You've got to believe in this now. It's happening now.' " If the opportunity arose, says Gilbert, he would work with KTCA again. Though Hoop Dreams and its subjects may have shared modest beginnings and high aspirations, it remains to be seen whether both will share the same good fortune. The idea for a half-hour basketball film that took shape on the rough courts of the Cabrini-Green housing projects has blossomed into something that far exceeded the hopes of the filmmakers. But making it in the NBA is hard, and the relatively small physical size of athletes Gates and Agee does not work in their favor. James describes them as "solid Division One ballplayers," but adds with some resignation, "It's a long shot." Joseph Flanagan is a writer who lives in northern Virginia.

Gilbert, Marx and James (left to right) started out to make a half-hour doc for public TV. Their project became the hit documentary of the year in theaters. (Photo: M.B. Cregler, Fine Line Features.)

Update: "Hoop Dreams" was named best documentary of 1994 by the national, New York and Los Angeles film critics groups and the Directors Guild of America. And some critics, including Siskel & Ebert, called it the year's best film of any category. But it received no Oscars and was nominated only in the editing category.

"Those of us who have been in this business a long time have watched the documentary committee make these bizarre omissions year after year," objected Liz Manne, a v.p for Fine Line Features, the film's theatrical distributor.

A major outcry about the oversight has led to changes in Academy Award nominating procedures. Effective for the 1996 documentary Oscars, a volunteer screening panel in New York has been added to split the workload with the Los Angeles panel. And for 1997, the academy will further cut back the judge's workload by requiring a week's theatrical exhibition before a film is eligible.

 

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Outside link: "Hoop Dreams' web site operated by FineLine Features, the film's theatrical distributor.

 

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