Football vs. Philosophy: A Critical Reflection
Viewable at: http://footballvsphilosophy.wordpress.com
‘Football vs. Philosophy’ sees five former
footballers take on five football-themed philosophical questions, with only one
minute to answer each one. A philosophy expert then allocates each answer
either zero points, one point or three points.
The concept is a very simple one but I feel
that it is very effective. By giving the footballers less than one minute to
rationalise a response it gives them less time to think, pushing them into
saying what is on their minds. The score system is also very effective - it is
based on the points system already used in football so it reminds people that
the source material is still football-related. The league table is inspired by
Channel 4 show ‘Come Dine With Me’, with clips of the players playing in a box
and the scores tallying up below them.
During the production of ‘Football vs.
Philosophy’ ‘five’ was the magic number with there being five footballers and
five questions. This was a conscious decision as it meant that the length of
the show was kept as short as possible, but not too short, and the league table
did not look too full or too empty. At one point I had a sixth footballer but I
chose to drop him from the show as he was very obscure and he did not fit in as
well as I had hoped. However, he was a good backup option to draft in if I
needed to.
I chose philosophy as the subject as there
are no correct answers and the questions are open and up for debate. Replacing
it with science would not have had the same impact as the answers would be
scientifically provable, leaving no room for the all-important entertainment
factor: the footballers’ opinions. As an entertainment show, ‘Football vs.
Philosophy’ needed to generate laughs so choosing such a subjective and open
subject was bound to provide the audience with some.
Of course, the major contributing factor to
the entertainment value was the players themselves; without any recognisable
names the show would have crashed and burned, but the players involved were former
Premier League stars who came with audience pulling power.
One of my biggest worries before starting
the project was that I would not be able to get five players who would be
willing to take part, but through a mixture of networking with contacts and
Twitter I managed to pull together a show. I also travelled to Manchester to
meet one former Premier League player but he backed out at the last minute due
to over commitments.
The biggest name involved was Southampton
legend Matt Le Tissier who is currently a pundit for Sky Sports. He is regarded
as one of the best players to grace the Premier League and he has a following
of over 300,000 people on Twitter. Francis Benali, Gordon Watson and Neil
Maddison made up the rest of the former Southampton contingent involved with
the show. Nigel Spackman was part of one of the greatest Liverpool sides of all
time and won the Division One title with them in 1988.
It could be argued that the variety of
players in the show is not diverse enough, but the reality of the situation is
that, on a student budget, it was much easier to contact and arrange to meet
players who are local to my area. I tried to contact a number of football clubs
but they were unhelpful, telling me that they could only help if a production
company had commissioned me.
By filming with four cameras I allowed myself
enough angles and shots to keep the show looking dynamic. It also improved the
pace of the show as there were no lingering camera angles.
Moving on to my choice of philosophical
questions, I settled on the final five based on how easily they could be linked
to football and how easy they were to demonstrate without breaking the bank.
The first question is arguably the hardest
and was thrown in at the start to create a sense of insecurity for the
footballer. The concept that anything that can happen has already happened an
infinite number of times with an infinite number of outcomes is enough to blow
many minds, but a football reference brought the idea closer to home and made
it a little bit easier to understand. This was probably the hardest one to demonstrate
on screen but I settled on using penalties because they are one of the most
unpredictable factors in football.
The second question questioned the players’
perception of the concept of infinity – can you keep cutting a penalty spot
forever? I tried to throw a curve ball in the mix by suggesting that, if you
can’t keep cutting it in half forever, the point where you stop cutting is the
actual penalty spot. I feel that my demonstration of this was very effective. I
used a short graphic I created of a penalty spot being cut in half until I “got
bored of cutting.”
Question three was deliberately designed to
trip the players up and get them to contradict their previous answer. Zeno’s
paradox suggests that a shot will never cross the goal line as there is always
a halfway point in the way, no matter how small the fraction was. Those who
said you could keep cutting the penalty spot in half forever because fractions
are infinite would either have to backtrack and alter their response for this
answer, or say that the ball does cross the line, contradicting their previous
response in the process. This was an easy question to demonstrate in football
terms as I took a penalty and freeze-framed the ball at every halfway point
between the ball and the goal line.
The fourth question was designed to open
the players’ eyes and challenge how they view ‘perfection’. Each one of them
has played with a number of different footballs, all of which were described as
‘near-perfect’ at the time, yet footballs are still being designed that are
better than the last. By bringing Plato’s theory that perfect objects do exist,
but only in another dimension, into play it challenges the players to consider
whether or not perfection will be achieved. The demonstration was simple, yet
it worked well. I spoke to the camera holding my football, which is old and far
from perfect, and stated that, in the eyes of Plato, there would be a perfect
version of it in another dimension.
The final question was based on a classic
paradox: “If a tree goes down in the forest and no one is there to observe it,
does it still make a sound?” My version is slightly different and it throws in
the idea of Manchester United midfielder, Ashley Young, looking for a penalty.
Young has been accused of being a serial diver and his role in this question is
to distract the players from the philosophical point and draw them into
commenting on Young. This demonstration was a bit more tricky, so I had to rely
on scripting to suggest that Young and fallen down but was neither seen nor
heard.
The introduction to the show was one of the
most important sections as it needed to: A) grip the viewer and hold their
attention, and B) explain the concept of the show in as few words as possible.
I feel that it does its job well through the use of on-screen presentation,
graphics and clips of both the players and the philosophy expert. The Brazil t-shirt
I am wearing in the sequence says ‘Socrates’ on the back, which is the name of
one of their greatest ever players, and also the name of a famous philosopher.
I toyed around with the idea of creating my own version of Monty Python’s
‘Philosophy Football’ sketch but I decided against it.
I used a number of locations whilst filming
but in truth I filmed wherever I could get for a reasonable fee. The location
for the introduction was Winchester Sports Stadium although I did try to get
access to a number of non-league football grounds, but with no success.
Four out of the five episodes start with a
sting. Most ongoing entertainment shows start with a flashback of the previous
episode or a look ahead to what is coming up next, so this is something that I
felt I needed to implement to keep up the illusion that this is a TV show.
Looking back at the show, I am unsure
whether or not I chose the correct graphics and colour scheme. The players’
names would be much easier to read if they were one block colour rather than a
mixture of three, but I wanted to keep them in line with the logo that I had
designed. The image of St. Mary’s Stadium that I have used on the league table
graphic is clear of copyright as it belongs to me. I had made 3D text for the
points system but my laptop struggled to render it in Final Cut Pro X so I
reverted back to standard text.
Another option I had, but chose not to use,
was an onscreen timer, counting how long each footballer took to answer the
question. I decided not to use this because I did not want to clutter the
screen up, especially with the stopwatch shots. I could have used the stopwatch
as a separate shot in the bottom corner but not every shot was successful so it
would have been inconsistent.
The music and sound effects were both late
additions to the edit but I feel that they improve the show dramatically. The
original theme music was rocky and upbeat but changing it to a cinematic/epic
sound changes the feel of the show for the better. It makes it more
professional. I chose to use comedic music under the players as they do not
know what they are talking about, although it is a little bit unfair it is
something that adds to the entertainment value. The ambience under the
philosophy expert adds to the intrigue. All of the music is clear of copyright
as I agreed on a license to use it.
I did encounter a few problems during the
production of Football vs. Philosophy, the most obvious of which would be the
shots of Francis Benali being too dark due to him being shot in front of a
window. However, I feel that the payoff with the stadium in the background was
worth the risk. I did not want another bland wall as the backdrop.
An issue with the format is that the
marking was very subjective, but that comes with the philosophical territory.
Some viewers have accused the philosophy expert of giving the marks out
inconsistently, with similar answers scoring different points, but that is a
result of the subjective marking. However, this does have a positive side – it creates
debate within the audience and allows them to judge if they would have given
the same score or not.
Another issue I had was purely technical,
with certain cameras corrupting during the interview with Gordon Watson.
Although this lost his close up shot I am pleased that it did not happen to the
two-shot.
The general response to Football vs.
Philosophy has been very good and this is showcased in the fact that the
website gained over 1,500 hits in less than 24 hours. Matt Le Tissier also
tweeted the link to his 300,000 Twitter followers and the majority of hits were
generated by the popular website Reddit.
To conclude, I think that Football vs.
Philosophy has been an overwhelming success. I am delighted with the final
outcome and I thoroughly believe that it could be commissioned as a TV pilot.
The project has got plenty of legs because of the simple idea and how
accessible it is made by the introduction of footballers.
