For the love of judo
Danny’s role as TV Director for the IJF has him working most of the time inside the TV van producing the live programme.
What he does literally, is watch judo all day long. However, there is such an adrenaline rush in cutting the pictures, selecting the playback and directing the entire broadcast team that a lot of the time he finds it hard to keep track of how the competition is progressing along.
“I regularly finish a broadcast and have no memory of who won actually the medals!” he says. It’s only at the end of the day, when they go through all the replays to find clips for the highlights that he’s able to take it all in and enjoy the matches.
As for actually doing judo, his busy work schedule means less time for that. Nevertheless he does try to get on the mat once a week. “The amount of judo that I watch on a daily basis has a big positive effect on my judo,” he says. “I see so many unusual grips and techniques in the work we are doing and I always look forward to trying them on the mat.”
Bucking the trend
Doing such high quality productions costs a lot of money. While many online martial arts video companies are churning out ever more products at lower costs, Fighting Films is bucking the trend and far from cutting corners, it is spending even more on their productions.
Danny says the investment they have poured into Superstar Judo is easily 10 times higher than anything they’ve done in the past.
“This goes back to the values of Fighting Films that my father instilled, and we have managed to carry it through and take it to the next level,” he says. “What really excites us about Superstar judo is how are now able to make the images look even more spectacular than ever before using cutting edge techniques.”
Ultimately, it’s about producing the best quality videos for the positive promotion of judo. “Fighting Films does judo and nothing else,” Danny says. “We are also Judo Crazy! We have six judo black belts working for us!”