NEW YORK—A high school basketball tournament may sound like a simple and underwhelming subject for a feature documentary. However, Gunnin' For That #1 Spot takes the occasion of the 2006 Elite 24 Hoops Classic as a window into the unique lives of premier high school athletes. Pursued by sneaker companies, college recruiters, and the media, these basketball prodigies must make choices at a young age that they hope will lead them to the NBA.
Directed by Adam Yauch (known as "MCA" of the hip-hop trio Beastie Boys), Gunnin' introduces eight of the country's top high school basketball players, and follows them as they compete in an all-star game at the center of street basketball—Rucker Park in Harlem, New York.
Yauch skilfully portrays the athletes with their varied backgrounds and common experiences, and mixes in their jaw-dropping basketball highlights set to a street-wise sound track that he personally picked.
Yauch was on hand in New York on June 19, at the Regency Hotel, to meet with the press and talk about his filmmaking experience. Since he is an internationally recognized musician, one of the first questions was about him being the larger celebrity to these rising stars who are accustomed to the spotlight.
"I don't know. These kids are pretty young," explained Yauch. "Some of them probably heard of Beastie Boys, I don't know if they really listened to Beastie Boys. I remember Dante Green's coach going up to him and saying, 'Do you know who that is? I used to listen to Brass Monkey ' and then Dante looked and said, 'Oh, I should be shaking your hand!'"
The film's music selections range from raw hip-hop to jazz and break beats, and Yauch described how he determined the soundtrack: "Stuff that I liked or stuff that seemed to make sense or seem to feel right in a scene. A lot of it is New York-based hip-hop because the film is really about these guys coming together and playing together in New York."
Contrasting his travels on location to make the film with touring with the Beastie Boys, Yauch said, "When we roll into a city on a tour, we're coming in with, like, busses and a crew and staying at fancy hotels; and this was, like, me and three other guys in a minivan. We drove to Philly and Baltimore and then to Coney Island—staying in crappy hotels; yeah, it was fun [laughing], but it's definitely very different than going on tour."
When asked about if they prepped the kids to be on camera, Yauch said, "We just tried to document them the way that they are. Just shoot them and see what they do—how they handle themselves. When they were in their practices and during their warm-up before the game, we kind of mentioned to [Michael] Beasley, oh we're shooting slow mo, and he was like 'Ohhh!' and he started doing all kinds of wild dunks, and stuff like that, and you know, they kind of showboat anyways."
Naturally, making millions for playing basketball has to cross the minds of these players. Yauch felt, "I think it depends; to some of them it's more important than others. You certainly hear in the profile on Tyreke [Evans]—that everyone around him says that he has no interest in that, that he just likes playing basketball and doesn't even think about that stuff."
"I have a feeling that some of the kids, that's definitely something that they're excited about—the possibility of getting huge contracts and getting all this money. But I did get the impression from all of them that they do love playing basketball, and have fun playing the game. And it was cool, especially with this tournament, up at Rucker Park, because there aren't really sponsors involved in that way—there's a certain purity about it. It's nice. It's just really about seeing them having fun playing basketball."
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