The Maclin Project

Above is the trailer for The Maclin Project.
Click here for the published version (takes a second to load)
and here to watch the videos on YouTube.

The Maclin Project was my first independent, large-scale multimedia project. I was able to leverage experience in video editing, color correction, writing, voiceover, and still and motion graphics to craft a project that is still getting thousands of views on YouTube on a monthy basis.

The final product was a 27-minute, mini-documentary of Jeremy Maclin, the record-setting wide receiver for the University of Missouri. At the time, he was Missouri’s first, first-round draft pick in eight years and one of few with the blazing speed and raw ability to be an NFL star.

The goal of the project was to capture Maclin’s life before the NFL draft. The videos required trips around the Missouri and dozens of visits to the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex to catch each phase of his routine.

Each each and every shot — almost 200 within the training video alone — was color graded within Apple’s Color. I took special care to light and color grade interviews and make adjustments so the video would pop against the grayscale background of the Flash project, which was inspired by the New York Times’ One in 8 Million project.

I tried several different techniques to up the production value of the piece, including:

  • Heavy audio, video and story foreshadowing to open each piece and tease viewers to keep watching
  • Interviewing Maclin only once near the end of the project’s shooting phase, which gave me an opportunity to know have him respond directly to the transcripts of other sources in the story.
  • Experimenting with more cinematic and off-tripod shots

The series was popular on the Missourian Web site, and the videos generated 5,000 hits in the days after loaded onto Youtube. Views are now in the hundreds of thousands and I am still getting messages, comments and subscriptions to the videos from users around the country and from Philadelphia, where Maclin was drafted.

One of the major sources in the story, coach Antwan Floyd, works closely with ESPN and the NFL Network when they cover Missouri football team, and he said this about The Maclin Project in an e-mail a week after the NFL draft:

“We (the Missouri Strength and Conditioning Department) saw the finished product (of) your Jeremy Maclin documentary online and wanted to say we are ecstatic. This is by far the most impressive “&” comprehensive piece of media that we have ever seen.”