Garnet Pride Director Ian Colalucci: “By July 1, It Will Be Out on YouTube”

Just over one week after Ian Colalucci released Garnet Pride, a documentary-style film following the Rye Varsity Football Team throughout their 2023 season, the director has an update as to when the film will become public.

Head Football Coach Dino Garr had only positive things to say about the film and his team’s season in an interview last week. This week, MyRye.com interviewed Colalucci, who filmed and produced the documentary.

MyRye.com: “How much fun did you have filming and following this team, especially as they kept winning?”

Colalucci: “I should preface that I just graduated from school, and I started my first job. And one of the things, even while I still had this job full time, that I still wanted to do was this, because of how much fun it was. I always have enjoyed high school and college sports, and I’ve always enjoyed filming and videography.

“At the beginning of the season, I was approached by some of the parents who I used to work with, filming their kids, high school videos, recruitment tapes, stuff like that. And they were interested in having a documentary made about this season, because a lot of them were heading off to college. There was a big senior group, and they wanted to have a kind of story told about their season. And little did I know that it would turn into something a little bigger than that when they won a state championship.

“And as I saw them winning, and I saw the possibility of them winning the title and the story to come about it. I thought this was something that I really needed to take a lot of time and effort in and really create something special out of it.”

MyRye.com: “Was there a point in the year where you realized that all this film you’ve collected so far was going to become something really special, or did you know right from the start?”

Colalucci: “Actually, when I started, it was in the first week of the season, doing training camp. I thought this could be kind of fun. I thought there was something kind of cool about having raw footage of a high school football team, where you kind of get to hear an unabridged version of the conversation about plays and how they’re feeling going into the season, and actually getting a chance to interview them and talk to them. I thought it was kind of a cool novelty.

“And then once we got towards the season and they went two and two in their first four games. So at that point, actually, I was like, okay, so this could be a fun story. I didn’t really, at that point think that this team might be made for a state championship. But as they started to turn around and then won the Section Championship against Pleasantville after losing to them earlier in the season, I thought this would be an awesome redemption story. And if they continue to win, this has the makings of something really cool.”

MyRye.com: “Would you mind sharing one of your favorite or your most memorable side tangent away from game action?”

Colalucci: “I’m happy to do that. The story kind of evolved over time. But one key element that I thought was interesting, that really added to the story and added to the resiliency and community element of the of the of the documentary itself was this story about one of their players, Archer Fenton. “He’s a senior now, but he was a junior last year, and he he was a key member of the group. Unfortunately, one of his family members got diagnosed with cancer, one of his younger brothers during the season, and his house also flooded during the wide floods last fall. It was just a really difficult time for them and their family. And when the season was going on, this was this was happening alongside it. When I was interviewing a lot of the players, they mentioned this element of it: one of their teammates was down, and this team really is like a family, and as family, we need to help our brother out.

“And that story was so powerful to me. I thought it was so unique that there was a football team of high school students who were willing to take the extra step to help their teammate, whether it was shaving their heads in solidarity with with Archer’s younger brother, or whether it was going to his house and cleaning up all the belongings after the house had flooded. I mean, that was really powerful. Wow, this isn’t just a football team. There really is a familial element to it. There’s a real, true story that can be expressed, told, really embraced by anyone who watch it, because there’s a universal element to it: of coming together in the force of difficult opposition, and also having this background sports to it.”

MyRye.com: “What are your plans for publicizing and sharing the documentary? How will that whole process work and when will the common audience be able to watch it?”

Colalucci: “After the premiere of the screening that we had for all the football players, we got some pretty good feedback. And the plan was, at that point, to fix a couple things, because when we actually premiered it in screening, we had some issues with audio. we want to release this while everyone was still in town, before everyone goes off to school. So we’re hoping by July 1, it will be out on YouTube for everybody to see. Luckily, the trailer has been a good medium so far. I think we’re up to 1000 views now on the on the trailer, which is great. Even for a small town like Rye, I think that’s a good place to start. And we’re hoping when it comes out we’ll be able to make sure all the edits go through and it sounds clean. We have a sound designer working on it as well, so we’ll be able to put all the pieces together so that it looks as pristine and clean as possible before July 1.

“This was a really long process. That’s something I actually want to emphasize. I mean, this was something that originally I thought would be a quick story of a football team. It’s funny: I say to all the players, when they when they ask me when’s it coming out and how is this going to be produced, every time they asked, I actually had something different to say, because there was something new that popped up, or there were different storytelling elements that I wanted to include.

“Originally, I thought we were going to do it in episode format, like a hard knocks of sorts, where the year is broken up – preseason one – the regular season ones, stuff like that. But at the end of the season, we kind of realized that this is a really overarching story, so at the end of the day, it needs to be told in a movie kind of format. It’s 99 minutes long. It’s a longer story that needed to be told.

“Originally I thought, ‘Oh, this will be done by January.’ And then it was like, wait, we have to include this. We got to ‘It’ll be done by April.’ And then, luckily, we were done before everybody graduated in early June. So now the real release comes, hopefully on July 1. So that’ll be exciting.”

Thank you Ian!