Gabriel Fleming on National Champions and College Football Controversy

A fictional story based on real controversy, National Champions highlights the scandalous system of college football, its shocking neglect of players, and idolization of coaches and administrative big-wigs. The drama, though focused on football, doesn’t actually show any playing. But rather, takes place entirely in hotel rooms.

Directed by Angel Has Fallen‘s Ric Roman Waugh, National Champions, now available to stream on Amazon, follows star quarterback LeMarcus James (Stephan James) who starts a player boycott just hours before the biggest game of the year in order to fight for fair compensation, equality and respect for student-athletes. The strike is a threat to not only James’ own high-grossing football coach (J.K. Simmons), but is also a direct challenge to the entire NCAA hierarchy.

Gabriel Fleming, known for his work on Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, Greenland and many other action-packed features, was the editor on this college football drama and says the real foundation and truth behind National Champions had him “riled up,” even as someone who doesn’t follow sports.

We got the chance to talk with Fleming about his work on the film, editing scenes for the amazing J.K. Simmons, the electronica music used to help amp up the film’s emotions, and the shocking, heart-dropping discoveries about college football he and the team made during production.

Gabriel Fleming on National Champions and College Football Controversy

Hidden Remote: What drew you to National Champions? Were you aware, or a fan, of Adam Mervis’ play before signing into this project?

Gabriel Fleming: I was not aware of the play or even the controversy with college football and college sports at all before this. I don’t really follow sports. I had worked with the director Ric Roman Waugh on Angel Has Fallen and Greenland, which were both explosion films starring Gerard Butler. And we had this period during COVID where another film got pushed and we were wondering what could be done instead.

Well, this script came up from Adam Mervis that was very timely about the controversy surrounding college football and it all took place in hotel rooms. So it was something that could be filmed during COVID quite easily and it was a great change from these action films to go into a straight drama.

Hidden Remote: As you’ve said, your previous works–Deepwater Horizon, Battleship, Patriots Day, Angel Has Fallen–are all incredibly action-packed films. And National Champions also has a lot of big hits, but it’s coming from the dialogue. What were some of the goals you as an editor had early on in regards to how to make these intense moments stand out without any action?

Fleming: We wanted to approach National Champions like a thriller because it could be so dry otherwise. But we also wanted to approach it as if it was a football game, where we are keeping track of how many points each side of this story has scored, who is down, who is up. With a drama, as you’ve said, there are no explosions, but we still have to keep that emotional intensity up and deal with the pacing and the editing in a way that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

It actually wasn’t much of a departure from my previous works. When I first got into these big action films, I learned that what was important was not the ability to do action, but the ability to understand humans and human emotions. And then the action is almost secondary. It’s more about how people feel when all these huge, difficult things are happening around them and how we, as an audience, allow ourselves to be pulled along and puppeted with all of these subconscious emotional strings.

Hidden Remote: What are some ways you pull those emotional strings in editing?

Fleming: The editor and composer relationship is usually pretty intense because editing is like composing the visual music of the film. And then you’ve got the composer, who’s composing the emotional music, particularly on National Champions, and Jonathan Sanford did an amazing score.

We could have done a traditional orchestral score for this. We could have done a hip-hop approach, which we didn’t really want to do because it felt expected. We wanted to make the music express the voices of these young players. It ended up being this mix of electronica with this slight gospel influence. It harkens back just slightly to music from the Civil Rights era. There really is no score that exists like this score.

Hidden Remote: How much of National Champions is drawn from real controversy and how much is just speculation? 

Fleming: I don’t think you could say that any one character represents anyone in real life, but the unfair compensation is something that’s been going on for a long time. The amount of money that’s in college football has increased so much over the last 10 to 15 years, that the disparity between the profit engine and how the players are being treated has only increased. So it’s just been begging to be addressed.

There were so many big sports stars and journalists who wanted to be involved and help tell this story. Russell Wilson is an executive producer on the film, Malcolm Jenkins appears in the film, and then we have all these sportscasters like Steve Levy and Mike Greenberg.

Hidden Remote: You’ve also got acclaimed actors such as J.K. Simmons, Kristin Chenoweth and Timothy Olyphant spotlighted in National Champions. Is it nerve-wracking at all editing these clips of these incredible stars doing these intense dialogue scenes and knowing you’re sort of the last stop to make these sequences look as great as possible?

Fleming: I’ve never felt pressured toward the actor. I think it’s one of the privileges of being an editor is that you are by yourself in a room. Editors are usually introverts and we just like to be alone with the footage. With a big actor like J.K. Simmons, who’s so amazing, it’s just a pleasure. It’s not intimidating because everything he does is good.

It makes creating a good scene easy. But it does make creating a great scene challenging, because it’s about looking at all these wonderful performances and knowing what gold to pick, and what silver to drop. There’s a scene where Simmons gives a speech to the team in the film and he probably did around 12 takes. In one he’s being more admonishing towards the team, some takes were more vulnerable where he’s crying and in one of the takes, he’s yelling. Each one has its own flow and flavor and it’s my job to pick the best.

Hidden Remote: As someone who was learning about this controversy for the first time as filming was happening on set, were there times where you found yourself getting emotional as well? Especially spending so much time on these scenes as an editor, were there points that really struck a chord and got to you?

Fleming: It was such a discovery process going from the script–which just felt outrageous that this system could exist the way it does–to working with it in such detail. You start to become pretty emotionally involved with these fictional characters and the real people that they represent.

And there are also discoveries that we made. There was a scene in National Champions where they’re describing a fictional person who tried to fight the system in the past, and we discovered while we were editing the scene that it’s possible for a player to get injured while they’re playing and then lose their scholarship due to the injury that they sustained working and playing for the team. And then never get any health benefits for the injury. It was such a shock learning little details as we were going through, that we’re just like, ‘How does this system exist?’ It gets you riled up.

Hidden Remote: When it comes to films like this, that are more dialogue-centric and focused on the interactions between people rather than action scenes, especially in an entertainment generation where we’ve got a new Marvel film coming out on the regular, do you think there is still immense value in telling a story like this, that’s entirely based in hotel rooms, to push forward a message of change?

Fleming: I don’t think the sky is falling for high-quality content or drama. I just think the means of watching is changing. You can say that films are shifting in theaters to be more about spectacle. But if you look at what’s being watched at home, a lot of it is drama. There’s always going to be a place for serious drama.

And if you look at how much there is now, compared to how much there was 20 years ago, there’s so much more well-written, high-quality drama now than there was then. And hopefully we can use that to make some changes in the world and do some good.

Have you seen National Champions, yet? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!