The Thrill of Returning to Notre Dame

I'll always remember my first trip to Notre Dame. It was the fall of 1993, and I was producing a feature on basketball star Monty Williams (now the coach of the NBA New Orleans Pelicans) for The George Michael Sports Machine. I was looking forward to reuniting with Monty, who briefly interned for me at NBC in Washington, DC. What I remember most about the trip was the first time I looked up and saw the golden dome. You could almost hear the echoes of Knute Rockne. Fast-forward 20 years later, and I have the privilege of returning to South Bend with 3 Penny Films. I'm a Boston College grad, a rival of the Fighting Irish, and Dan Skendzel, the Director of Fighting Irish Digital Media jokingly said he'd welcome me back anyway. I did remind Dan that Notre Dame could thank Boston College for Frank Leahy. It's an honor to announce this partnership:


***PRESS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release October 24, 2013

3 PENNY FILMS ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH DIGITAL MEDIA

Production company to provide in-depth television and web programming
for Notre Dame Athletics

SOUTH BEND, IN – 3 Penny Films, a collegiate sports television and web programming production company, announced today its partnership with University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish Digital Media (FIDM). 3 Penny Films and FIDM have engaged in multiple projects since spring 2012 and are currently partnering on a four-month project to chronicle the 2013 Notre Dame football season as well as select stories related to Notre Dame’s inaugural seasons in other sports in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

3 Penny Films produces both television and web programming for FIDM. To date, 3 Penny Films has produced three behind-the-scenes shows chronicling the Irish football program that have aired on NBC Sports Network, with the next network program scheduled to air November 25 at 6:30 p.m. Additionally, 3 Penny Films has produced five shows that premiered on NBC Sports Network featuring Notre Dame men’s and women’s basketball, hockey, women’s soccer and men’s lacrosse.

“3 Penny Films has brought a cinematic level of production to our programming,” said Dan Skendzel, senior associate athletics director for Fighting Irish Digital Media. “What makes them so valuable to us, in addition to their outstanding storytelling ability, is that they understand and respect our culture and see themselves as educators at heart.”

“We are excited and honored for the opportunity to partner with FIDM and look forward to sharing the incredible story of Notre Dame through athletics,” said Jess Atkinson, co-founder of 3 Penny Films. “Our goal is to assist Notre Dame in telling authentic stories aligned with the university’s core values of excellence, education, faith, tradition and community through the video and web content we produce.”

3 Penny Films’ roster of clients includes the University of Maryland, University of Miami, Marquette University and the Wounded Warrior Project. Previous 3 Penny Films projects include “Auburn Football Every Day” produced for Auburn University Athletics, "Raising Canes" online series for University of Miami Athletics, and the Arkansas State documentary on the coaching era of Gus Malzahn.

ABOUT 3 PENNY FILMS
3 Penny Films was founded by Jess Atkinson, Bill Kraus and Joe Schreiber. The genre of reality/documentary style programming for collegiate sports was originally pioneered by former NFL kicker and television broadcaster Jess Atkinson in 2003 at the University of Maryland. The unique partnership of 3 Penny Films was formed in 2009. Kraus had previously formed the marketing machine behind the explosive growth of Under Armour. Emmy Award winning producer Joe Schreiber helped launch and produce NBC’s The George Michael Sports Machine, a show that ran for 23 years, one of the longest running national sports shows in television history. For sample of 3 Penny Films productions, please visit www.3pennyfilms.com.



CONTACT:
Kristen Seabolt Dan Skendzel
Maroon PR Fighting Irish Digital Media
443-864-4246 574-631-2454
Kristen@maroonpr.com skendzel.1@nd.edu

All-Access Video is a Commodity, Storytelling is Treasure

When you surf the web and click on a collegiate sports website “All-Access” page, what do you get? Sometimes it is exclusive content behind a pay wall. Most of the time, it is some kind of “behind the scenes” video shot at closed practices, in the lockeroom, where perhaps you can watch a coach addressing his team. In the days before the Internet, this kind of video was considered gold. During my tenure as the Senior Producer for NBC’s syndicated George Michael Sports Machine, we’d give anything for it. But today, it has become a commodity. It begs the question, how can “all-access” content become more valuable and give a university a chance to have its story resonate with recruits and a passionate fan base. Providing “all-access” video to engage an audience is not enough to satisfy an audience on the web that is voracious for premium content or prospective recruits who need to be persuaded to choose one university over another. What’s needed is a sustained approach to document the meaningful moments in collegiate sports programs, put them in context, and incorporates them into a compelling ongoing narrative that engages an audience. The filmmakers at 3 Penny Films are experienced storytellers who embed within a program to capture the moments that can make a great story come to life on the web, television or the silver screen. We’ve learned that just showing a coach’s pre-game speech or teaching moment in practice is no longer enough. In fact, any collegiate sports information director can hand a camera to an intern and tell that person to shoot those moments. The real challenge becomes identifying the context for those moments, knowing what to look for, what you have, and how it relates to a compelling story and the longer narrative of the team. Quite frankly, I learned this the hard way. Once we had the privilege of being hired by universities to document their programs, we captured plenty of authentic unscripted moments, but context was needed. That’s when I realized that all of the experience learned from 23 years of telling stories on the Sports Machine can really pay off as well as the partnership with my colleagues at 3 Penny Films. As a member of the media at NBC I was on the outside looking in as teams prepared for games. But 3 Penny Films co-founder and friend Jess Atkinson, a former NFL player (and fellow broadcaster) had been part of many teams, including the 1987 Super Bowl Champion Washington Redskins. Jess’ perspective is our gift, a keen sense and understanding of what the players and coaches are experiencing, and what those moments mean to a story. How do those stories fit in with the overall brand the university is trying to communicate? That’s when we get to lean on 3 Penny Films co-founder, Bill Kraus, the marketing executive who helped fuel the explosive growth of Under Armor. Bill understands how to build a brand, and that experience has proven valuable to our university partners. Above all, we are students of filmmaking and storytelling. Robert McKee’s book Story is like a bible to us. The works of great filmmakers inspires us. When when we are at work documenting a football season for a team like Notre Dame, Miami and the University of Maryland we share the vision of director Andrew Stanton who wrote all of the works of the Toy Story franchise: “Stories affirm who we are. We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning. And nothing does a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories. It can cross the barriers of time, past, present and future, and allow us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined.”