sport its due justice — how cool it is to be down on the ground, player-level, inside the action or even on the sidelines,” he said. “But how do you keep up with how fast these guys run? These prep school kids are like tight ends with a stick in their hand. They’re 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, they run like gazelles, and they’re playing against these Native American attack guys who are like water bugs trying to run around them with incredible stick skills. But we also needed to pop out and tell the story of geography— the passing, the catching, the movement, the off-ball movement, how it developed, where they were on the field. We had to watch the beauty of the game unfold.” Ellis and his crew created golf cart-like rigs to get up and down the field. They brought in NFL Films camera crews to follow the ball with extra-long lenses. “Another challenge: When you make movies, it’s about emotion. We want the audience to pull for these guys. Those masks are tough to see those faces. You want to be in there with their eyes,” Ellis said. “The audience wants to feel what’s going on inside their head. Are they going to give up? Are they going to persevere? Are they scared? Are they determined?” Ellis used natural breaks in the action — faceoffs, team huddles, calling out plays — to capture these emotions. Paying attention to the finer details allowed Ellis to spruce up the hits and goals.
“I get paid to sell and spill popcorn. I already know who’s going to win or lose. I already know the outcome. I’ve paid the refs. I’ve already fixed the game. Now I’ve got to make the action look hot and real,” Ellis said. “I can tell the lacrosse community appreciates the really great shot where the ball just sneaks into one of the corners, low on the ground or up underneath the crossbar, or bouncing off one of the posts.” But cameras can only do so much to make the lacrosse look real. So
Koesterer spent four weeks designing and choreographing 50 authentic plays. And instead of finding actors and teaching them to play lacrosse, the filmmakers decided to find lacrosse players and teach them to act. Real-life current and past Iroquois lacrosse players comprise the Crooked Arrows, including Albany’s Ty, Miles and Lyle Thompson, Syracuse recruit Cree Cathers and former Hobart attackman Ty Hill, the most visible player in the movie.
A New Trend?
Many people in lacrosse believe “Crooked Arrows” could do for their sport what Disney’s “Mighty Ducks” did for hockey. Koesterer helped recruit a who’s who of lacrosse to appear in the film or offer it support and credibility. Among those who make cameo appearances: Professional lacrosse stars Rabil, Brodie Merrill and Zack Greer, MLL commissioner David Gross, college coaches John Desko, Gary Gait, Dom Starsia, Chris Wojcik, Lars
up and kiss the quarterback. But when we saw Hollywood saying, ‘No, we want it to be a lacrosse player,’ we said, ‘Wow. They get it.’ The fastest-growing sport is here to stay.”
And the lacrosse community has its popcorn ready. LM
Tiffany and Mike Daly and Hall of Fame high school coach Mike Messere. “The timing is right for this movie,” said
Tiffany, who grew up in LaFayette, N.Y., and learned the game from Native American friends. “This isn’t another ‘American Pie.’ This will have a longer impact [in lacrosse] and more staying power.” Ellis has noticed the sport trending in Hollywood circles. “We used to get telephone calls saying, ‘Can you guys send us over a couple lacrosse jerseys?’ It used to be after practice and games, in all these TV shows and movies, that the cheerleader would go
A Publication of US Lacrosse
May 2012 >> LACROSSE MAGAZINE 43
©BRYCE VICKMARK; © CROOKED ARROWS
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