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All the scoops on day 2 and a better explanation of how we are releasing the project.
Our friends at www.highspots.com sent the following:
I had good response from my first blog and got a lot of great questions for Ric Flair from the readers, so I thought I would update everybody on how Week 2 went with the shoot interview with Flair.
Before I go into that, I wanted to let everybody know that after week #1, Ric took my girlfriend and I out to dinner and drinks at his favorite hangout. I'm not going to go into specifics, but Ric Flair is still THE MAN and all the stories you heard about him being the star of every party are absolutely true. I've done nearly 100 interviews with wrestlers that know Ric Flair and they all say "what you see on TV is how Ric Flair is in real life", and I now completely understand what they mean by this.
Yesterday, like last week, we started at 9am sharp and went until 5pm. The first week covered his career up through Starrcade 84. We covered the next 10 years yesterday and went up through Starrcade 1994. Every important match from the great Crockett era, the entire run with the 4 Horsemen, his first stint in WWF (Hogan, Piper, Michaels, Bret Hart, Savage, Perfect, and more), and then the initial return to WCW was discussed. We knew this was the part of his career that most of his fans grew up on and there was nothing left out.
I wanted to address a couple of the things I have read through emails and message boards about this release.
The craziest thing I saw was people wondering how I could interview him for 3 straight weeks for 8 hours/session. Although we did break 1 hour for lunch and we break about 5 minutes between tape changes, we do film about 6.5 hours each week of actual footage. This means we're going to have about 20 hours of raw footage to work from before we do any editing. For those of you that think that is too much time and couldn't possibly "drag it out over 3 weeks", I covered 10 years during the first week, 10 years yesterday, and I have one more week to cover the last 15 years of his career that includes the entire Nitro era and WWE return. Now tell me if you think I have too much time!
The second thing I'm getting is "why don't you release the entire thing unedited". Well, we thought about it. However, to do that it would of been a 6 disc set and we couldn't logistically sell that for under $30. If we were able to sell 10,000 DVDS, this would be a very viable option. However, the internet world is much smaller than that and we need to be realistic about how many we'll actually sell. We wanted to make this DVD affordable and make sure you get your money's worth out of it. I know there are some of you that would pay $100 for this interview unedited, but I don't think there are enough of you to warrant risking the project given the piracy concerns that we face on every release. This project cost us an enormous amount of money, so I hope everybody respect our decision on this one. We think there will be probably 4-6 hours of footage that goes unreleased, we'll probably save that to air in the future at highspots.tv or maybe put out a story or two on a future documentary thats in development. Most of the footage that we cut will either be 1) questions that didn't elicit an answer of any real interest or he had no clear memory of 2) stories that were told exactly as he told them in his book or 3) subject matter that is so outside the scope of wrestling that we feel it wouldn't take away anything from a shoot interview about his wrestling career.
For those interested, we just added the DVDS for preorder to the site. We have a 3 disc set version and a 4 disc version. The 4 disc version will be exclusive to Highspots.com. It will have the same exact 3 discs that the shorter version has and will have an additional fourth disc that features footage that wasn't quite good enough to make it on the first 3 disc set but really good regardless.
Anyway, that is enough for now, I appreciate all the questions the readers have sent so far. Feel free to continue sending them between now and next week to highspots@aol.com and if its a good question, it will be asked to him.
We thank you very much for supporting HIghspots and making this project possible.
DAY THREE
Day three of the Ric Flair interview wrapped up on Wednesday. Once again, we filmed from 9-5pm straight with only a one hour lunch break. We basically covered the last 15 years of his career including the entire Nitro era and his last 7 years with WWE. There were some truly shocking stories that came out during this last week and things got really emotional on two different occassions. Over the three weeks, we filmed somewhere between 19 and 20 hours of actual interview. It was an absolute privilege of mine to put together this project.
On a personal note, Ric Flair single handedly made me a fan of wrestling. Without a shadow of a doubt, Highspots would not exist if it wasnt for Ric Flair. I do not envy the job Jake (our video editor on this project) will have on the post production. Not only is he being pressed hard on getting this done quickly, its going to be very tough to find the best footage to go on the 3 disc set and leave out 9 hours of material. Forget the three disc, its going to be tough for him to cut out 5.5 hours to fit on the 4 disc set. Because of this problem, were probably going to cut the stories that he told in his book (and just retold for us on video) more deeply than we would have otherwise wanted. I think everybody should make the Ric Flair book required reading because there are some great stories in there that were going to have to cut from this interview to make room for the untold ones.
Remember, his book basically cut off after the night in Greenville v HHH, so there is 5 years worth of stories/memories that happened after the book and its going to be hard to justify leaving those off the finished product in favor of a story that somebody may have already read in his book. One other area that well probably spend too little time on in the opinion of some is the 4 Horsemen era. I think he did a great job covering it in his book and WWE released a fantastic DVD set entitled Ric Flair and the 4 horsemen that is another must see. Because we figured most people will have read his book and probably also seen this DVD, we want to make this interview a complement to specifically those two things. In return, we will release alot of the dropped footage for free at our Highspots.tv site.
I was aided by hundreds of questions that came from fans, Dave Chappell from the Mid Atlantic Gateway, Tyshion Williams who works here at Highspots, Mike Johnson from PWInsider, and Brad Stutts who is our go-to wrestling historian on multiple projects (I put that in quotes because he's too young to be taken as a legitimate historian) . However, that help aside, I poured a month of my energy into making sure this would be the best researched interview of all time. I walked into those interviews with 20 pages worth of questions and I can honestly say we covered it all, but did it in a laid back style where its like two friends remembering the past. I dare somebody to try and top this interview!!!
I think you'll also see the comfort level that Ric and I had grows over the three weeks as we got the opportunity to spend time socially in addition to the last 3 Wednesdays. He knows the respect and love we have for him here at Highspots, he has started training in the ring with all our students here getting ready for his reality show, and his honesty and candor in this interview is 100% pure Nature Boy. I know his personality will shine through and will be enjoyed whether you buy the 3 disc set or the 4 disc set that is exclusive to our website. Now, the question everybody is asking... when will this DVD start shipping?
Unfortunately, I cannot give you a positive answer right now. We have the packaging being created on one side, we have to wait for Jake to finish editing it on our end, then we have to get these DVDS replicated and packaged. I can tell you that its our intention to release this in the first half of November sometime between November 10-12th. The DVD will have some special packaging so all those that have asked for autographed copies will not be disappointed as it will not be on a single piece of paper inserted in a jewel case or even directly on the jewel case like we have done in the past with other projects. Thank you to everybody that has preordered this project to date. This interview and his 6 appearances were part of a package deal that honestly cost us a small fortune. It will be worth every penny in the end, but we appreciate those that have already stepped up and ordered this interview and given us some legs to stand on financially. You will not be disappointed!
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