Behind the Scenes | ‘Chasing Greatness: Wrestling Life’
The Daily Iowan Documentary Workshop's "Chasing Greatness: Wrestling Life" premieres March 4 on Big Ten Network.
February 28, 2023
The Daily Iowan Documentary Workshop’s first-released documentary gives a behind-the-scenes look into the blood, sweat, and tears of the Iowa wrestling program.
“Chasing Greatness: Wrestling Life” is directed by documentary photographer and filmmaker Danny Wilcox Frazier, who also serves as the DI’s photo and film coach and as the workshop’s director. The film features alumni Ryan Adams, Jenna Galligan, and UI student Ayrton Breckenridge as assistant directors. The DI publisher and alum Jason Brummond is the executive producer. The workshop functions as a training ground where students and early-career documentary filmmakers and photographers work alongside seasoned professionals.
Students are trained as directors throughout the entire process, Wilcox Frazier said, which is the workshop’s goal. This film will be the first of many slated for production.
The documentary will premiere on March 4 at 9 p.m. Central Standard Time on Big Ten Network.
“It says a lot that our first film has the potential to be shown in front of hundreds of thousands of people. That’s a big deal and something we’re really proud of,” Wilcox Frazier said.
The film brings viewers behind the curtain as student-athletes — wrestlers from one of the greatest collegiate programs in history — grapple with athletics and their personal lives.
The idea of the Daily Iowan Documentary Workshop came to fruition in fall 2019 when Brummond and Wilcox Frazier discussed the future of visual storytelling at the DI. The Workshop, which acts as a separate entity from the DI newsroom, is an educational partnership between students, alumni, and professionals that gives current and aspiring storytellers opportunities to execute skills they’re actively learning.
“I want [the audience] to feel that they walked away watching something more than just a sports documentary,” Breckenridge said. “They’re going to see that these wrestlers are more than just athletes, that they have outside challenges that really impact who they are. I think, even if you have no interest in wrestling or sports whatsoever, I would highly recommend that you watch this because there’s themes that apply to everyone.”
When Brummond first proposed the wrestling documentary ahead of the 2021-2022 season, it was solely focused on Iowa’s three-time 125-pound national champion Spencer Lee. But after conversations with Iowa coaches Tom and Terry Brands, the DI chose to make the film more team-oriented.
To get full access to the program, however, Tom Brands had one condition: the DI crew had to record everything involving the wrestling squad during the entire season.
So, the DI team got to work gathering cases of film equipment and showed up at Iowa’s first practice of the season on Oct. 11, 2021. From then on, at least the director or one of the assistant directors attended and filmed every Hawkeye team gathering, practice, dual meet, and tournament — whether in Iowa City or as far away as Tennessee, Texas, and Florida.
As the DI crew secured unprecedented access to arguably the most storied wrestling program in the nation, Big Ten Network agreed to partner with the DI.
This will mark the first time that BTN partnered with a student media organization on a documentary.
“It’s great any time we can partner with any of our 14 member institutions,” said Bill Friedman, senior coordinating producer for Big Ten Network Originals. “Just because this was being made [in part] by students, we didn’t view this as any different than another programming opportunity with any of our schools.”
What makes this film unique from other sports documentaries is that it was shot in cinéma vérité style — French for “truthful cinema.” This means that every scene in the film, from Iowa’s grueling practices to team meals and bus rides, is completely raw and unscripted.
This unintrusive filming technique made each workday unpredictable because it allowed scenes to unfold in front of the camera and create the story as it happened.
The strategy challenged the crew to adapt as they filmed and taught them to focus less on technical perfection and more on the tension and emotion of every moment.
“Being a relatively new filmmaker working in a pretty unconventional context, I think it was just pretty exciting to get into a rhythm with our team and figure out our most efficient workflow and who’s good at what and really take advantage of that,” Galligan said.
Because of unforeseen circumstances, Wilcox Frazier said the provided editing timeline for the film went from 14 months to 14 weeks. While the new deadline was daunting, Brummond and Wilcox Frazier took on the challenge because they felt they couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell these athletes’ adversity-filled stories that could relate to and impact many viewers.
The directors, the DI Documentary Workshop’s Editing Coach John Richard, and film editor and UI student Daniel McGregor-Huyer, spent sleepless nights narrowing down months of work into a 53-minute film.
“To see young professionals and students willing to commit the amount of time [Adams, Galligan, Breckenridge, and McGregor-Huyer] have committed, I have all the respect in the world for them,” Wilcox Frazier said. “This is something most creatives work into … but these creatives were thrown into it at the very beginning of their careers. Most people wouldn’t handle it, and not only did they handle it, they excelled.”
The opportunity to premiere the documentary on Big Ten Network, which reaches up to 73 million homes nationwide, is a monumental moment in the DI crew’s longform storytelling careers.
But Adams said what’s most important to the DI crew is telling the authentic stories of those who sport the Black and Gold singlets in hopes to inspire people across the nation.
“One of the most exciting parts of working on storytelling is that publishing it isn’t the end of something,” Galligan said. “It’s the beginning of a conversation you get to have with people.”
