Stanley Cup Moments in memories, photos

Those who donate $25 to the Kings Care Foundation will receive a Blu-Ray / DVD combination of the popular 2012 Stanley Cup Moments series. Produced, directed and engineered by KingsVision and presented by McDonalds and FOX Sports West, Stanley Cup Moments has drawn immense praise in its intricate depiction of the path to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup last spring.

The Stanley Cup Moments package is available at LAKings.com/moments.

I spoke last week with Kings Director of Video Production Aaron Brenner. His direction and engineering of the year-long project was backed by the storytelling insight of KingsVision Producer Rob McPherson, who was instrumental in stitching together the sequence of interviews and properly conveying the emotions of the hockey operations staff, broadcasters, players and journalists who spoke candidly about their experiences.

In all, 21 Stanley Cup Moment videos were created – with the final video being a spoof of the players’ recollections of how Bailey was the key component that helped put the team over the top in capturing the title.

As a team archivist, Brenner realized that although the editing and post-production never got underway until January, 2013, this was a group endeavor that began the summer before the 2011-12 season.

KingsVision operates under the premise that each highlight, each press conference, each trade, player introduction, call-up and post-game interview serves doubly as a means of daily coverage for Kings fans and as archival footage of potentially pivotal moments in the team’s history.

“We were always sort of working towards, hey, eventually, one day, they will win it, and we need to be able to tell the story,” he said. “Even if they win it three years from now, Mike Richards being acquired is part of that story line.”

The project continued well into the 2012-13 regular season, with the Bailey spoof airing in April during a time that a potential “2013 Stanley Cup Moments” highlight package conceivably had already begun. When Slava Voynov scored an overtime game-winner to end Game 5 in St. Louis, texts were exchanged amongst the KingsVision crew that they had already identified their first Stanley Cup Moment of the 2013 postseason, should they be so fortunate to concoct a sequel.

Each video took roughly two weeks to finalize in post-production, an undertaking that came well after the interviews were conducted.

The interviews were held over a span of roughly 15 days last summer, and by design no more than three people were ever in the interview room at any time to provide a close, intimate exchange between the interviewer and the subject.

“We joke about it, but we didn’t want to have an intern behind the curtain cutting onions to get these guys to cry, but we did gear the interviews in a way that really made them feel reflective.”

There were occasional tears, even without the onions. Raw emotion was captured in the Stanley Cup Moments, and at times the interview subject had to leave the room after being overwhelmed.

Bob Miller surmised that the three and a half hours he spent alone in the room with Brenner was the longest single interview he had ever been a part of in his entire career. The broadcasters were all complementary of the work that KingsVision did – as were the players.

“It’s really funny, because we all as a group try not to bug them or ask them everything, but every once in a while we’d get guys that would go out of their way to say, ‘Hey, man, those things are awesome,’ One of the guys is Willie Mitchell, who hasn’t played this year, and I asked him. He kept coming up to look at ‘em because he was working out every day, so he’d come up and take a peek,” Brenner said. “He and another guy that were injured that both went out of their way to say ‘Yep, you know I’m injured, so what else do I have to do? So I’m watching a lot of these.”

While the acknowledgement from the players was greatly appreciated, there was one particularly influential voice who was impressed with the level of artistry.

“Jerry Bruckheimer went out of his way to stop one of us in a hall, because he saw us carrying a bunch of cameras around, and he said, ‘Hey, are you guys the guys that did Stanley Cup Moments? Because those are awesome,” Brenner said. “For us, he’s a guy that knows his craft pretty well, so for him to look at it and go, ‘Wow, that’s great,’…to hear that from him, especially, that was a cool one.”

If you missed the link above, you can order a copy of Stanley Cup Moments here. After production costs are covered, net proceeds will go to the Kings Care Foundation.

Follow KingsVision on Twitter:
@Hey_Aaron – Aaron Brenner
@Fired_Up_Rob – Rob McPherson

The KingsVision crew at the Stanley Cup Final

\

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.