sports<\/a>. \u201cMixed Ability Rugby was a great reminder to me of what sport is actually about,\u201d he tells THR. \u201cI\u2019m playing football [aka soccer] this year, and we\u2019re trying to win division seven. But who actually cares?! When I\u2019m 80 years old, I\u2019m not going to remember if we won division seven, but I\u2019m going to remember the moments, I\u2019m going to remember the connections. And Mixed Ability Rugby forgets all the stuff that\u2019s not important, because winning isn\u2019t really important. We might tell ourselves that it is, but you know the old adage of it being about taking part. I always thought that was trite and clich\u00e9, but with Mixed Ability Rugby, it\u2019s very much true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tHe first came across the sport in 2022 when the World Cup took place in Cork, Ireland. \u201cThere was only a little bit of coverage, and so, our producer Claire McCabe and I started to go down to training sessions and matches down in Cork, where two of the teams in our film are based, to see if there was something there,\u201d Mist\u00e9il recalls. \u201cOnce we got down there and met some of the teams and players, it was like, \u2018Oh my god, what an incredible community!\u2019 We knew immediately that there was a documentary there, or maybe even a few documentaries.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tThe trickiest part in the early stages of the doc was narrowing the scope, because \u201cthere are so many amazing characters and people,\u201d explains the director. \u201cBeyond the sporting underdog story and the on-pitch drama, even to get to the pitch, they\u2019ve had to overcome so many challenges.\u201d <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tOis\u00edn Mist\u00e9il <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of \u2018Try!\u2019\/Ois\u00edn Mist\u00e9il<\/p>\n
\n\tTry! is full of atmosphere, and that was important to capture. \u201cIt\u2019s a great way to deal with the subject of ability and different abilities, because it\u2019s a really positive environment,\u201d highlights Mist\u00e9il. \u201cIt\u2019s a very fun and funny environment, and nobody takes themselves too seriously, which is really refreshing. And we\u2019re hoping that that comes across in the film to reflect the ethos of the sport and how they view their own ability.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTo capture various scenes and material that may come into play during the World Cup, the team behind Try! had to shoot a lot of footage. \u201cWe needed to be there at all the important twists and turns,\u201d emphasizes the filmmaker. \u201cI think before the World Cup, we shot about 32 days. We wanted to spend a certain number of days with each team and character. And then we went to the World Cup, where we had three cameras running around, because there was so much going on, and you\u2019ve got no idea who\u2019s going to make the finals. You have no idea which game is going to be incredibly dramatic, so we felt we had to cover everything as best we could at the World Cup. So, that was just chaos \u2013 brilliant chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSafeguarding was key to the process behind the doc. \u201cThe longer we shot with our main characters, the stronger our relationships and friendships became, and there was a real sense of trust there,\u201d shares the director. \u201cBut there was a huge duty of care. When you have people with mixed abilities on camera, there\u2019s an extra layer of vulnerability that you have to be aware of and be responsible for. We talked a lot about how to go about making sure that the person on camera always understood our intention and always knew what the scene was about. And that person was always in control of what they were telling us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with release forms, \u201cwe made sure to have different versions of release forms with simpler information, or we would get a guardian, and we would talk both of them through it,\u201d recalls the filmmaker. \u201cSo that was a challenge, but we were really pleased with how it went, and all of our characters were so, so giving.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSo, how did Mist\u00e9il and his team approach Try! and the genre of film they were working on? \u201cIt\u2019s a sports documentary, but it\u2019s also a Trojan horse for a film about people and their abilities and what they\u2019ve overcome,\u201d the director tells THR. \u201cGetting that balance right, similar to the sport itself, getting the balance right between competitiveness and inclusion was actually a challenge, because you want both.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the editing process, Mist\u00e9il and editor Walsh experienced an evolution. \u201cMore and more, we felt that the matches became less important, and the stuff after the game became more important,\u201d he explains. \u201cThose are the speeches and the pep talks, and the arms around the shoulders. That\u2019s where we got the real emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe creative team had the film title Try! in mind early on. \u201cActually, [producer] Claire\u2019s husband, who\u2019s a good friend of mine, will forever take credit for this,\u201d Mist\u00e9il tells THR. \u201cWe wanted something snappy, but we had a debate about whether it should have an exclamation mark or not. I wanted it to have the exclamation mark. I feel that adds to the double meaning, and it\u2019s nice to be part of the long line of exclamation mark films, such as Airplane! and Mamma Mia! That\u2019s the tradition we want to carry on in film titles. I think it gives you the right sense of what\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winning isn\u2019t everything! Giving it your all and basking in the sense of community is! That\u2019s one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,1042,60,270,207172,112,303],"class_list":["post-494081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-sheffield-docfest","tag-sports","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}