When Adrian Brown was filming Outsiders, the award-winning documentary about the Western Bulldogs 2015/16 seasons he had one major restriction; because of the broadcast agreements, he couldn’t shoot the games themselves.
So what to do? He turned the camera around and pointed it at the fans, and in that, found a key part of the story, any Club’s story, that of the fans.
For players and supporters, the game can be about very different things. On field, it’s kicks, marks, handballs etc, but for the thousands sitting in the outer each week, it’s about the experience, and who you share it with.
“I'd walk around and it became this nice thing, you'd know where certain people would sit and I would turn the camera around and face the fans but to watch the game through their eyes,” Brown said on this week’s Freedom in a Cage podcast.
“That's what we all live, that's what 30,000 on a weekend feel.”
Brown spent two years documenting the Club’s journey from the day Bob Murphy took over as captain in late 2014 through to Grand Final day 2016, and while the Club’s on field story was something special, telling it through the eyes of the supporters as well as the playing group, according to Brown, added an extra element.
“It's not that moment or that kick, it's that feeling of sitting next to this person or that unbridled joy,” he said. “Finals are amazing because you don't quite know who you're going to sit next to at the MCG or whatever because you get your balloted ticket, but by the end of that game you are best mates with that person.
“If you win, you're high-fiving, and that's what it does, it brings people together, and they will always be the person you sat next to that day. And they're the best times I've had in football. So when you capture those, for me, that's what it's about.”
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