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Were talking about practice specifically, a basketball practice in episode four of HBOsWinning Time.
Historically, there are a couple of approaches for producing hoop fiction.
TherestheJuwanna Mannmodel: cast a good actor with questionable handles and keep the lens tight.
In almost every case, compromises are made, disbelief suspended.
Marcano studied none of it.
Recreating the speed and skill of professional basketball onscreen is a difficult proposition.
Im like,Hmmm, now heres a way basketball wasnt captured way back then.
In addition to running the usual five cameras that help giveWinning Timeits neo-retro feel (three 35-mm.
So that has to tell you the labor that he had to put down there.
My entire process has always been about creating lots of confusion and disguising the purpose of what youre doing.
Then, eventually, when you end up having to do the task, it feels much simpler.
(Idan killed it, Fox says.)
Initially, Ravins role was specifically in training the players.
He started out working with Isaiah to get the specifics of Johnsons unmistakable movements down.
Then he was assigned to DeVaughn Nixon, who plays his father, Norm Nixon.
After that came turning Delante Desouza into Michael Cooper and Solomon Hughes into Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Before long, he was training the whole team.
The responsibilities continued to grow, Ravin says.
Its the smallest things, says Ravin.
Like, Delante, you have to use the fork right-handed.
You have to pick up the water bottle with your right hand.
So there were three phases of development: better athlete, better basketball, better silhouette.
Ravins fingerprints arent strictly on the shows basketball gameplay.
Theres ya pick, he says, using a glass bottle of sugar to block a defending pepper shaker.
The sleight-of-hand was Ravins idea.
Hes just brilliant when it comes to anything moving, Marcano says.
Whether its inanimate objects or human beings, the guy just has an insane knack for it.
All that expertise came to the fore in episode fours practice scene.
We rehearsed everything every step, every breath, every cut.
It was just so precise.
It was an image running with you.
That attention to detail elevates a show that relies on movement to push the narrative along.
You almost build a character of the practice sessions, Marcano says.
When I saw it, I just thought,Man, we got that right.
