Whenever NFL Training Camp comes around, most people look forward to seeing which team is on HBO’s Hard Knocks, which players will be followed as they try to make the team, and what the storylines are going to end up being.
The show’s director, Shannon Furman, was a guest on the Green Light with Chris Long podcast earlier this week. He provided some of those answers.
In order to determine which players the show ends up featuring, they do tend to look at a player’s social media to see how interesting they are, but that isn’t all that factors into deciding who gets how much airtime.
“We have the big meeting before we come to camp. We research everyone on the team. We stalk Instagrams. We figure out kind of what everyone is interested in off-the-field, their background on-the-field. We have guys who we’re targeting, but then a lot ends up being based on what happens in games. We do go into it with a good idea of who we want to feature and the games end up narrowing that down for us.”
It is not easy for the Hard Knocks production team to figure out how to condense all of the footage they get into one-hour episodes each week. In fact, it was tougher for them this year because there was a lot of time between training camp beginning and the Dallas Cowboys first preseason game, according to Furman.
“We usually say we shoot about 400 hours for every hour that is on TV,” Furman says. “Liev [Schreiber] narrates it at 9 AM EST, the day that the show airs. We usually say our deadline is Saturday night at 10 PM ET, unless it is national news, then we have to get it in. You are just in constant communication with the people at home, letting them know what is happening.”
Contrary to what some might think, there aren’t cameras and microphones in every room at training camp. Furman mentioned that they do have to decide which rooms to have cameras and mics in.
When it comes to cut day, Furman says even if it is good television, that doesn’t mean the Hard Knocks crew looks forward to it.
“A moment like that, we like to work with the players and the team on stuff like that. We hate it just as much as they do. We become friends with everyone on this show.”
This year, the Dallas Cowboys are the featured team on Hard Knocks for the third time. You can catch new episodes every Tuesday night at 10 PM ET on HBO.
