NON-LINEAR

Today I am discussing the film, BRAGGING RITES: The Carolina-Clemson Rivalry (2003) with film criticism students at Wade Hampton High School. And tonight, I will attend a screening of the film at a fundraiser for US Representative Bob Inglis.

It’s got me thinking back to the summer of 2002 when Jeff Sumerel and I made the first (and only) feature-length documentary about the USC/Clemson football rivalry.

I learned a lot about producing films in the two years that followed, but learned far more from Jeff as he found a cohesive narrative in those hundreds of hours of interview and archival footage.

I went into the project with a lot of very traditional documentary ideas. Jeff helped me see that a non-linear structure worked best for this story: emphasizing fans over football gods (players and coaches)...that the rivalry was about our need for community, not competition.