WRESTLING WITH IOWA: Behind The Film
THE PROJECT
What began as a photography book examining the relationship between the sport of wrestling and the State of Iowa became a full-blown film documentary project during my final year as a graduate student at the School of Film at Ohio University. Two high school juniors, one in Creston, IA and the other in Denver, IA, were on the verge of claiming their third championships in the Spring of 2012 with the opportunity to join Iowa’s elite wrestlers if they succeeded. The timing was right and I was encouraged to pack up the car and head to Iowa for the 2012-2013 Wrestling Season. The production included six months of shooting and 18,000 miles of crisscrossing Iowa to cover practices & matches, filming the everyday lives of two dynamic teenagers and conducting interviews with family, coaches and fans. The production also traveled to NYC, Chicago, Minneapolis and Phoenix to talk to some of the previous champions to get the unique stories of their wrestling experiences.
POST-PRODUCTION
After the State Championships, the post-production phase of the project took up residence in a basement office at the School of Film in Athens, Ohio. Working with over 65 hours and 17,000 video clips lead to many late nights in the editing room. First came the infamous seven hour cut of the film (seen only by the director in one session), followed by numerous other cuts and edits to trim the film down to the 81 minute film.
Original music from blues guitarist Tony Furtado was recorded and added in August. The band The Last Ride contributed two tracks soon after to round out the soundtrack.
SAVE OLYMPIC WRESTLING
The story broke on Tuesday, right before the start of the 2013 Iowa State Wrestling Tournament. We were off to cover the Mr. Wrestler award presentation and knew that this was going to be something big. Walking in the door at the Iowa Hall of Pride museum, we ran into Dan Gable. Had been on the phone for the last twelve hours finding out what had happened and more importantly, rallying the troops to kick off the campaign to save the sport.
Three days later, in the middle of the State Tournament, I came across the Jay Mohr piece on his personal experiences with wrestling. I had all of this footage and I knew it would be important to the current wrestlers at the high school tournament, as they would be the first ones without an Olympic opportunity if the sport failed to get back into the 2020 Olympic Games. I looked through the footage I had and produced the following piece.
I posted it up on my site in early May, thinking that it might reach a couple hundred views. Within a couple of hours, the Cedar Rapids Gazette had reposted it on their website and caught the attention of wrestling fans around the state, then around the country. Within a couple of days, it had hit viral status. By best estimates, it had over 350,000 views in the first week, rising to 600k views total, and over 6.2 million impressions on Facebook.
By the end of May, the world-wide campaign to keep wrestling in the Olympics was in full swing. Sweeping changes had been made by FILA, the governing body of wrestling. Actor & former collegiate wrestler Billy Baldwin was involved and two big international wrestling events had been scheduled for NYC and Los Angels. Baldwin appeared on Jay Mohr's radio show to promote the LA event and the discussion turned to the video.
In September of 2013, the General Assembly of the International Olympic Committee gathered in Rio to vote on the inclusion of either wrestling, squash or baseball/softball. Presentations were made by all three sports to the General Assembly. The video presentation by wrestling included a clip from the Save Olympic Wrestling video (the shot of Dan Gable and the blue "Let's Keep Wrestling" shirt from the Iowa State Tournament.) The vote was in overwhelmingly in favor of wrestling and the dream had been restored for today's high school and youth wrestlers.
THE PRESS
Links to media reports and reviews on the film.
Creston IA - Scott Vicker