A Conversation with Director Brian Schodorf – HuffPost 1.20.12

Mike Ragogna: Brian, thank you so much for being with us today.

Brian Schodorf: Thanks so much for having me, Mike.

MR: Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with The Wayman Tisdale Story?

BS: Sure. Well, for those folks that maybe aren’t very knowledgeable about the life of Wayman Tisdale, he was one of the best college basketball players to play the game. He was a three-time All American at the University of Oklahoma and went on to have a great NBA career – he even won a gold medal. Just about the time that you would think the gig was up, like you do with some athletes at the end of their careers, he started a new act as a jazz musicians. Then he became one of the best contemporary jazz musicians in the genre. The story turned terribly dark when he broke his leg and, as a result, found out that he had osteosarcoma, which is a form of bone cancer, followed by amputations. I came along towards the end of all of this and heard about Wayman’s story and was amazed at how happy he was. He had just had his leg amputated and he was still happy cheerful and in a good mood – he was encouraging other people and his spirits were high. I thought that this was a story that needed to be told, and documentaries are what I do for a living. So, I called, emailed, and wrote some letters and finally they told me that they were in. We’ve spent the last two years putting it together and it was just released a couple of weeks ago.

MR: Were you also a fan of his during his basketball career?

BS: Yeah, absolutely. I’m originally from Kansas, then I moved to Chicago, and they would play the University of Oklahoma. He was definitely something special. If you mention Wayman Tisdale to anyone from that area, it goes quite a long way. I was also a fan of his music. I mean, he played with some of the all-time greatest jazz musicians. He even collaborated with some great people in country music like Toby Keith and created some really great stuff.

MR: There was the tribute song, “Cryin’ For Me (Wayman’s Song)” written and performed by Toby Keith, which also won a Grammy.

BS: Yeah. It won Best Male Country Music Song in 2007. It was written for Wayman after he passed away from cancer.

MR: There are a couple of tracks on this album that Wayman did with George Duke including “Tell It Like It ‘Tis,” and “Let’s Ride.” Can you tell us about their relationship?

BS: Well, Wayman made nine records and this was actually a posthumous album called,The Funk Record. It came out about 10 month after Wayman passed away. He always wanted to do a funk record – he’s from Tulsa and anyone from Tulsa knows that The Gap Band with Charlie Wilson came out of that area. That was one of his inspirations. This album is a little bit different than his usual smooth contemporary jazz – it kind of surprised a lot of people. Wayman even sings on a lot of the tracks. It’s a great record – it’s really colorful, and it really shows Wayman’s true personality.

MR: It’s great that he wanted to not only explore his jazz side musically, but also his funk side.

BS: It’s funkadelic. (laughs) That’s what he would say. It’s kind of his alter-ego.

MR: There’s also an unreleased track on the album called Slam Dunk. I wonder what inspired the title, huh?

BS: It’s fitting, right. It’s a great song produced with Jeff Lorber. It was one of those tracks that Wayman had done but never actually got around to releasing. And if you’ll notice, a lot of Wayman’s music is basketball themed. His first album was called Power Forward, there was also, “Hang Time” and “Way Up.” They were all these kind of neat basketball themes, which is fitting because this was a guy who was one heck of a ball player.

MR: Right. How passionate was Wayman about basketball after his retirement from the sport?

BS: Actually, his wasn’t too interested. Wayman knew what he wanted to do after the end of his basketball career because he started out as a musician playing for his father’s choir. His father was a preacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That’s how he started out – he didn’t play basketball. I think somewhere along the line, maybe when he was nine or ten in gym class, the coach must have said, “No music class for you today. You’re coming to play some basketball.” So, basketball kind of took over for a while. Towards the end of his career, he definitely started to transition away from basketball and into his new life as a musician.

MR: Well, let’s talk a little bit about his life outside of basketball. Around the time that he was diagnosed with cancer, he started an organization called The Wayman Tisdale Foundation. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

BS: Wayman had a disease called osteosarcoma, which, in most cases, is found in children but does often ultimately lead to amputation of a limb in an attempt to stop the spread of the cancer. With today’s technological advances, most people can get a prosthetic limb that is somewhat like a real limb. There are some with computer chips in them that could, for instance, make your knee bend when you walk. The problem is that these can cost up to $75,000. Wayman knew that he could personally afford to buy something like that, but he also realized that there were so many people who couldn’t afford that kind of money or have the right type of insurance to get those. So, he and his wife Regina started a foundation that assist people in getting what they need to go on with their lives.

MR: Can you tell us a little on what you discovered about Wayman Tisdale, the man?

BS: When I went into this project, I obviously knew who Wayman Tisdale was – a heck of a ball player. But once you start watching the documentary and you actually get into it a little bit, you really start caring about him and you feel like you know him. He was one of the most genuinely caring, kind-hearted, and charismatic persons you’ll ever meet. Guys like Michael Jordan and Toby Keith are in it sharing their thoughts and memories about Wayman. I talked to probably about 1,000 people about Wayman over the course of filming this, and the most surprising thing to me was that every single one of those people said that he was the most upstanding and kind person they’d known – everyone spoke so highly of him. You don’t meet a whole lot of people that everybody liked. Not just a couple of them, every one. Another thing I found fascinating was the fact that he was such an amazing musician. A lot of people will watch this movie and learn new things about him as a ball player and musician and really be inspired by his story.

MR: I believe Dave Koz was one of the people you interviewed, right?

BS: I believe you’re referring to Grammy-nominated Dave Koz. (laughs) He so talented and open. He’s the man, and he did a great job in the movie. My mom said to me, “Gosh, he’s well-spoken and handsome.” I had to tell her to stop gushing over Dave.

MR: (laughs)I interviewed him a few times, he’s great. Can you tell me who some of Wayman’s musical influences were?

BS: Wayman grew up in a household that loved music. Some of his influences were James Brown and Michael Jackson, some of the great music of the time. But his main influence was his father. His father was a prominent preacher in Tulsa and he would go and speak for and pray on behalf of any prominent politicians or important public figures that came through the city. Wayman looked up to him, which is a lot different from the way a lot of kids view their parents. He was really grounded and his father developed that in them from a very young age.

MR: Can you tell us a little bit about your background as a director?

BS: Sure. I went to Columbia College in Chicago. While I was there, I told myself that I wanted to leave there with something and I realized that what I really wanted to do was put together documentaries. When I was younger, I had a lot of interest in doing the news and that was just too slow. I wanted to tell some bigger stories and actually get involved in the process. When I was in college, I worked on a documentary called Poverty In Chicago, which chronicled the homelessness and drug addiction in downtown Chicago. I worked on that throughout my years in college and before I graduated, it was airing nationally on PBS and The Documentary Channel. Then I followed that up in grad school with project calledGreensburg, which chronicled a town in Kansas that was wiped off the map by the largest recorded tornado in history. We talked with those people and followed a lot of their stories. That project was nominated for an Emmy. After that, we started this project, and this definitely took it to the next level. This project took me two and a half years, and anybody who knows documentaries and independent productions knows that it’s a tough job. We definitely had to put everything we had into it because we were doing it during a recession, which meant we had to try to get funding in very tight times. But we knew we had a great story to tell and that people needed to see it.

MR: And people did see it. The Wayman Tisdale Story has received numerous acknowledgments such as Best Documentary from the Park City Film Festival and The International Christian Film Festival, plus Best Sports Documentary from the Los Angeles Sports and Film Festival and The People’s Choice Award Runner-Up at the Pan African Film Festival and the 2010 Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Award.

BS: People do seem to really like it. It’s a sports movie as well as a Christian film. It’s about overcoming cancer or just struggling through life, and it’s a sports film. You can catch it on TV or you can catch it as a rerun on NBA TV or ESPN. Or you can just go online and order the CD and DVD set on Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix.

MR: Brian, who are your influences as a director?

BS: Mine? That’s a good question. (laughs) Well, my uncle is Bill Curtis, a legendary broadcaster out of Chicago that went on to do A&E Television shows like Cold Case Filesand American Justice. He really put documentaries on the map in mainstream television back in the early ’90s and today. He’s a fantastic journalist, known partially for that great deep voice, but he’s also a fantastic producer. Watching him really helped me mold my craft, borrowing a few things from him and a few things from other places and really making your own craft. Everyone takes a little bit from someone else. That’s what I tried to do and then made all of those pieces my own. Watching the documentary, you’ll notice that this was something that we put a lot of time and vision into. I think this is a great example of the work I do because it’s about storytelling and about finding those engaging characters that help portray whatever story it is that you’re trying to tell.

MR: Do you have any advice that you’d like to pass along to new artists?

BS: Well, through this project, I basically got a crash course in the music business everyone knows that it’s a really tough business. Between digital downloads , piracy, and people not buying music as much, it’s really important to figure out what your niche is. For example, for this project, I thought that if we could team the movie with a record, we would have more success because people don’t want to buy just a record now, they want something extra. It’s also important to put events together, not just shows, but outreach opportunities with your tour. This album went to #1 on the Billboard jazz charts, and I think that’s because we teamed this with some outreach and the TV broadcast. So, I think it’s possible to succeed now, but you have to put that extra effort in. It’s also important to find lots of different revenue streams because record sales are way down, so you have to go the extra mile to figure out how you’re going to make money. If you want to do this for a living, you’ve got to figure out ways to get paid and keep the lights on. It’s definitely possible, people do it every day. If you’re a musician, you just have to keep striving for your craft and your passion.

MR: Do you have any new productions on the horizon right now?

BS: After working on such a fantastic film like this, you have to step it up on your next project, which is hard. But this is such a great story and it has people like Wayman and Michael Jordan in it, so it’s tough to follow something like that. But I do have a documentary that I am trying to pitch on a man called Shaquille O’Neal. He’s a pretty famous basketball player and coach. You may have heard of him. (laughs) I would love to do that story. I’m also throwing around a couple of ideas for musicians like Jonathan Butler and some others. It definitely has to be worthwhile, though, to follow up Wayman because he has one of those stories that’s kind of hard to match.

MR: That’s true. Well, thank you so much Brian for spending some time with us, discussing your film about this great athlete and musician. Best of luck to you on your next projects.

BS: Thanks so much for having me. It was my pleasure.

Transcribed by Evan Martin