It's been in development for a few weeks now, but my new documentary, Between the Sticks is finally beginning to take some kind of shape. I had greatly under estimated the amount of research involved in creating a non-fiction project, but I am now noticing the benefits!

A major factor in helping the film succeed will be finding the contributors to interview. My initial plans were to contact a number of current and former professional goalkeepers and football coaches. I have always been fairly confident in selling myself and my ideas through emails and phone calls, therefore I felt that as long as I persisted and not give up I would be able to arrange the interviews with the individuals I wanted. Fortunately, after some time, I received some positive and enthusiastic feedback.

Richard Lee, a former Premier League goalkeeper currently playing for Brentford FC responded. I had performed some background research on him and discovered he had written a book, Graduation: Life Lessons of a Professional Footballer (definitely worth a read).

Image from Daily Mail article.

The book included some honest thoughts and comments on mistakes he had made in his career. I felt the content of the book reflected some of the messages I wanted to emulate in my own film and subsequently I requested a short interview with him. It turned out that Richard was currently studying a part time degree at the University and was told me he would be available to sit down and chat between his seminars and meetings. We arranged the interview for the Wednesday 19th March. I immediately booked out a room at the University, sourced my crew and equipment and set up on the day in order to be ready for Richard.

I was of course, very nervous, I have not interviewed many people before, let alone a professional sportsman with an impressive career. I did everything I could to ensure I would be as prepared as possible leading up to the interview date, e.g. rehearsing questions and testing filming locations, I was as prepared as I could ever be (nerves aside).

I went out to meet Richard, who seemed a lot more relaxed than I did, and led him to the interview room. I sat him down, introduced the rest of the crew and briefly talked through the questions (which I had emailed him a few days before) I planned to ask him. Time was against me so I started the interview quickly and rifled through the questions, allowing Richard time to develop and add to his answers. The answers themselves were incredibly detailed and offered some valuable information that I can use in the final film.

At the end of the interview Richard asked about possibly attaining a copy of the final film for his website, which I gladly agreed to. However, I did stress to him that the film won't be completed until the end of April/start of May. For the record, Richard Lee is a very nice guy!

It's good to finally get my film officially started, and editing of the interview will begin shortly.

Coming up: Interviews a Wolves FC with goalkeeping coach Pat Mountain and youth goalkeepers (TBC). 

Thanks for reading!