Just in time to lift your ailing playoff spirits, local filmmakers Noah Porter and Scott Uyeda have come up with a video that distills the essence of Portland Trail Blazers fandom down to 48 seconds of anticipation and joy. It's a unique take, expressing an experience that all of us have had at one time or another. Take a look.
Porter explains the inspiration behind the piece:
The idea for this video was born last year between Game 6 of the Houston series and Game 1 of the San Antonio series. It was an amazing time to love the Blazers, and fans everywhere were achieving new personal heights in an enlightened state of "Dame-did-it" inspiration. In the midst of that 4-day mania Scott and I linked up for a beer at the Nightlight on SE Clinton and had our first conversation about making a dedication piece to the moment that made us all believe.
A little under a year later, with the 2015 post-season looming in the horizon, we had another conversation in a dimly lit SE Portland bar. This time the food wasn't as good but the waitstaff was less pretentious; we were at the Jolly Roger, sitting feet away from the chair I stood on after watching "the shot" go in on 8 screens. Re-invigorated by the spirit of that holy moment, we got to work hammering out this idea of a video where we see all walks of Portlanders recreate that crystallized 0.9 seconds.
Sourcing camera gear using our best indie filmmaking figure-it-out and casting from a local talent pool of whoever we knew (and whoever they knew), we made this piece happen in four afternoons. The college-aged basketball bro is my friend from my University of Oregon catering job. The same day we shot him we ended up meeting the kid who's seen passing to himself under the covered court. He was super interested in what we were doing with all the camera stuff and it was tight that we were able to get him involved. He was hyped. The guy at the fenced-in park in the black bandana is my friend David who I met while shooting a music video here in town. David is an awesome, enthusiastic dude and a really good fisherman. The old white-haired dude is Ed, a friend of Scott's uncle. Originally we were planning on shooting with Scott's uncle but he couldn't stop smiling on camera so Ed stepped in and shut it down. The girls in the indoor gym are players for a middle school team that my little sister played on back in the mid-aughts. I hit up the coach who still owed me a favor from when I edited their season highlight reel back in '06 (the first video I ever made) and he got us gym time and the two biggest hams on the team, per our request.
The highlight of the production was the moment where she turned around and hit us with that perfect "Dame face". It was that grand filmmaking moment of seeing exactly what you had imagined play out in front of the camera, But the whole thing was really fun to shoot. Somewhere inside of both of us live the two kids who were introduced to heartbreak at the hands of Kobe and Shaq back in Y2K, and making this video celebrating the team we've stood by through it all was a small dream come true in itself.
No doubt Noah and Scott would appreciate it if you made #BLAZERSUP a household phrase.
Now excuse me while I go hit a three in my driveway while counting down the clock. And yeah, it's 1 a.m. My neighbors hate your freakin' video, guys.
--Dave blazersub@gmail.com / @DaveDeckard / @Blazersedge