IT CHRONICLES WHAT HAPPENED IN 1972 — But September 5 Is About Our Social Media Present.
When the full extent of the resources needed to shoot that 160-page script became clear, Fehlbaum, Binder and the producers slipped into a funk. Who would give them the money for a project that big? And there was no plausible way to make it smaller. It all seemed like the end, games over, medal unclaimed.
But they hadn’t counted on the man known as Mase.
Geoffrey Mason, as he is more formally known, was not the kind of person who was going to make Swiss auteur dreams come true. Heck, he wasn’t even the kind of person who knew any Swiss auteurs. Mason, now 83, spends his days working as a sports producer from his home in Naples, Florida. He had been a young television producer that 1972 day, just past his 30th birthday, manning the ABC Sports control room for what was supposed to be a competition-lite 24 hours. He liked yachting and finding the right angle for diving competitions. Global terrorism? That was less his world.
Then the attack happened. Mason found himself thrust to the center of the news stage; the world was literally watching every choice he made. In 22 hours, he and his ABC Sports boss Roone Arledge changed the way Americans thought about sports coverage, terrorism and a half-dozen other realms. “I didn’t know anything about Hollywood when Tim and Philipp called a few years ago,” Mason says. “But they seemed like smart guys, so I told them what happened.”
As he talked about the on-the-spot improvisations and charged decisions — this essentially was livestreaming long before cable news and YouTube — the filmmakers realized they had their golden ticket. “It was such a rush,” says Binder. “They were inventing this as they went along, with all this adrenaline, and we all felt the same listening to Geoff.”
Adds Fehlbaum: “There was something very compelling about a decision made on the spot about what they would show.” A new, reined-in approach seemed apt.
Read the whole thing; the film is a must-see, and is currently streaming for free for those who subscribe to Paramount+.