"Inside the Stacks: Exploring important documents in Chiefs history" is a series of columns based on never-before-seen documents and correspondence from the Lamar Hunt archives, including many from the founding and early days of the American Football League, the merger with the National Football League, and other historic moments up until the time of Hunt's death.
When news recently broke that the Kansas City Chiefs had launched a new enterprise committed to creating scripted and non-scripted programming entitled Foolish Club Studios, it brought to mind team founder Lamar Hunt's interest and role in the creative process as it applied to film.
Hunt took a prominent creative role early on in what his franchise turned out in its annual highlight film that debuted at the end of every season.
While highlight films for all teams still exist, they were at one time a primary vehicle to draw interest up through the 1990s when digital devices began to appear and film was replaced by tape.
Hunt's interest in film and what it could do for his new enterprise was evident as early as 1960. This continued as the American Football League (AFL) fought to stay in business and, outside of his team's weekly television highlight show, he personally viewed all the sideline and end zone footage and offered opinions on what he wanted and didn't want to see.
Hunt was in search of what he called "impact" shots, and he asked to "consider use of press box level and end zone cameras for one or two games" for the purpose of giving the viewing public "different angled pictures."
He knew that "the public sees a great deal of standard football game action" in televised games, so he pushed for isolated camera shots on one player throughout a single play ("Jim Tyrer pass blocking, Bobby Bell blitzing, Len Dawson passing…", as he put it).
He wanted more "cross field-level shots of the Chiefs bench," sought field level images of extra points "shooting out of the east end zone of [Municipal Stadium] on a day we have people in the west end zone."
To his mind, shooting more from the sideline, the camera "could catch the intentness on the faces of the players getting signals from the Q.B."
He pushed for images from the "back side of a huddle," he wrote to team GM Jack Steadman.
As late as the 1990s, he was still asking that a Chiefs' camera be set up behind the huddle during an open scrimmage, and to have the footage played on the scoreboard, so fans present that day could see how difficult it is for the quarterback to make decisions with all the chaos going around in front of him.
There was to be no wasted footage of "players wandering around aimlessly" for "there is no animation or enthusiasm in these shots."
No less important was the scripting of highlight films. Hunt's edits line the margins of scripts that still exist today in the team's archives.
"I don't like the nickname Lenny [Dawson] the Cool, can you see something better?" he wrote in the margin of the 1964 Chiefs highlight script. In the same text, he went so far as to build the following scene for the film's director: "transition of offense working, then move to head shots of offensive line…move from heads to two or three offensive shots out to show protection."
Years later, at the time of the franchise's Silver Anniversary, Hunt looked back at his team's 1962 highlight film and identified what he wanted to see in remembering those early days, including the bad with the good including "empty seats…zany promotional gimmicks…the common with the uncommon." He wanted what appears to be real — to be accurate of its time.
His level of attention to detail proliferates throughout these productions, and while later in life he moved away from any direct editing, he still kept a close eye on how the annual highlight film told the team's story that year.
SOURCES: "Public Relations Hi-Lite Film," Cabinet 16, Drawer D. Lamar Hunt to Jack Steadman, December 22, 1965, Lamar Hunt to Jack Steadman, Roger Valdiserri, "Suggestions for 1965 Halite Film, March 12, 1965, "AFL-Television, AFL Films, Cabinet 16, Drawer E. "General - Silver Anniversary," Cabinet 17, Drawer A, Lamar Hunt to Bob Springer, September 5, 1984.
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