Many in the poker industry have been buzzing over the recently released trailer to “BOOM” which is being produced by the same group that produced the “From Busto to Robusto” series. As many of you know, I was the first person to be featured in the trailer and appeared alongside legends of the game, discussing our thoughts and personal stories with the industry. While the project might have started as a nice short documentary on the poker boom, it’s now shaping up to be the most important piece of media ever produced for the poker industry. Being extremely fortunate in having a small part of the film, I’d like to take you behind the scenes as well as discuss this film’s greater importance to an industry that just took the grossest possible bad beat.
I first heard about this film being put together while reading some well trafficked poker forums and PM’d some of the people I happened to know that were involved, specifically Jay Rosencrantz. While I’ve never met Jay in person, I’ve done work with some of the properties he’s been a part of and he’s been fantastic to share a quote or give a very candid response whenever I’ve needed one for an article. Given his history, alongside director Ryan Firpo, I knew a definitive story about the poker boom was in great hands. Anything I could do to help tell that story was time well spent for the greater good of the poker community. I didn’t ask for any compensation or specific role, simply that if the team needed any help or insights into my unique perspective, I’d be happy to lend a hand. You can imagine my honor when they asked if I could join them for a filming session on-camera.
Filming for this documentary has been shot on multiple locations and as many of you know I worked in front of the camera here at Poker News Daily for over a year. Interviewing the biggest names in the industry was a real thrill for a guy that loves the game so much. However, seeing the insider’s perspective and actually hanging out with these stars of the felt away from the camera was a much more insightful and enriching experience. More than anything, I learned these guys are pretty genuinely who they really are when they get in front of a camera. But I digress … filming was being done at the Commerce Casino at the LAPC event and as fate would have it they were filming interviews for BOOM the same day I was filming interviews.
The bad news for me was that I was pretty low on the totem pole of interviewees so when we filmed my segment, it was really late in the day. I hadn’t gotten much rest and my eyes were a bit bloodshot and there was no make-up artist there (yes guys that DOES matter when 3 cameras and lots of lights are on you), so I was a little nervous about how it was going to come out. The caliber of poker icons being interviewed was pretty impressive as I watched from a distance so I frankly thought me actually getting a word in at all during the final cut of the movie wasn’t very good. So, briefly fast-forwarding today, you can imagine my shock when I heard my voice leading off the trailer.
When we did get me behind the camera, while the bad news was that I was extremely worn down and tired, the good news was that I had a ton of info fresh in my mind and had already “warmed up” since I had just finished shooting 14 interviews. The interview process was really interesting and we shot a few of my answers a couple of times as I would get pretty inspired by some of the questions. Ryan had an amazing sense of what would make a compelling answer and as someone that really respects the ability to ask good and interesting questions to their subjects I appreciated his technique. I expected to be behind the camera for about ten minutes top but I could feel myself get on a roll and bring up some perspectives I know weren’t shared by others (specifically players) and suddenly 10 minutes turned into fifty. Being the subject of an interview instead of driving one (let’s face it 90% of poker players are extremely awkward people) was a fun experience and I continue to be very grateful to Ryan for letting me be a part of it all.
Commenting on the trailer itself, it absolutely blew away my expectations. When Black Friday hit, one of the things that crossed my mind was that it potentially killed this project. Then I thought it would, with the right slant, become much more engrossing and important to the industry if they captured the true rise and fall of this amazing industry. Cue the brilliance of the creative team of this project as they absolutely nailed it right down to the core. Unlike every other poker movie ever made, even the documentaries, we’re seeing a real battle between cause and effect on a multitude of levels, while humanizing those benefitting and victimized by this story. BOOM really has the potential to finally tell the story of online poker from all of our perspectives – the hall of famers, the internet generation, the old timers, the bracelet winners, the weekend micro-stakes fanboys and yes, of course, the poker playing media too.
If you haven’t checked out the trailer yet on YouTube, just do a search for “BOOM poker movie” and it’ll be the top search result. Again, I’m really proud to have made the cut even to just the trailer and really can’t wait to watch this thing when it comes out next year. It’s shaping up to be a movie that might actually be worth of some awards in various documentary film festivals and will finally be the movie all of us can point to and say “this represents who I am” when it comes to poker.
