In this interview Tim Fahlbaum & John Magaro discuss the making of September 5 and why it needed to be a planned chaos in order to work.
In this interview, Director Tim Fahlbaum and actor John Magaro ( who plays Geoffrey Mason) dive deep into the meticulous planning behind the chaotic world of September 5. They discuss the challenges of capturing the frenetic energy while maintaining a sense of controlled chaos on set.
September 5 Works Because It Is A Planned Chaos
Tessa Smith: This film is chaotic in the best way. It really keeps the audience engaged from start to finish. Can you talk about filming such a chaotic film?
Tim Fahlbaum: Well, first of all, I’m glad that it feels that way, because that’s also how we learned how it happened, right? There were so many things going on parallelly. And even today, like John and I, spent a lot of time in preparation, going to research, to go into the control rooms of today’s sports broadcasts, and to see that world. And it struck us how many things are going on parallel. It’s only because it’s organized so well that actually the whole apparatus works. But ironically, to shoot that chaos, it needs a lot of lot of careful preparation. It’s like the opposite of a chaotic shoot. To shoot chaos, you have to exactly know what happens at which point. So that was not easy to plan that. We try everything as much as possible in real life, also, on our set. That’s coming in through these devices, but to set it up, it was complicated.
John Magaro: I think just by setting that up and giving us all those resources, having the real Jim McKay, having the real footage, knowing how to call a show, and then the situation of it, it is chaotic by nature. So it wasn’t necessarily for us having to play the chaos of it, because it was just inherently that way.
Tim Fahlbaum: I want to add that of course editing also helps. So sometimes you have the advantage that you can make things a little bit tighter. So instead, maybe they were happening a little bit or a longer time, and then in editing, you can tighten it up nicely.
Tessa Smith: Did you feel that you learned more about this event through researching for the film? Or did you already know a lot about it?
Tim Fahlbaum: Actually, that’s maybe one of the biggest lessons that I take from this project, is perspective, how important perspective is in the movie, because we have a very distinctive perspective, and that allowed us to go really deep into research in that very specific field. So I learned a lot, and especially about the making of television of that time, and also my respect of people doing that are has highly grown.
John Magaro: I echo exactly what Tim was saying. I think that’s what so many of us on the production learned. But yeah, it was really an education.
Tessa Smith: I love that you use the actual footage. Was that always the plan?
Tim Fahlbaum: It was the plan. It was our desire. I mean, we have recreated some of the footage. For example, we didn’t, out of respect, we didn’t want to show anyone who lost their life on that day. So we recreated some of the scenes in the Olympic Village, or scenes that we recreated with our cast, with Leonie. But what we early on knew, what we absolutely have to have is the original footage of Tim McKay, the host of ABC Sports. How he walked the audience through that day with his hosting into the cameras. To recreate that with an actor would have been really difficult, I think.
Be sure to check out the full interview with Tim Fahlbaum and John Magaro about the making of September 5 for more behind the scenes information. This brilliant film opens wide in theaters on January 17.
NEXT: September 5 Review: Completely Captivating, But Haunting
About September 5
During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes.
September 5 is in select theaters now, before expanding on January 17, 2025.