How NFL Insider Rand Getlin Found Creative Freedom in Filmmaking

There’s nothing harder than doing work that conflicts with what you truly believe. So, instead of changing your mindset to adapt to your work, why not adapt your work to your mindset? That’s what Rand Getlin did. As a prominent sports reporter with the NFL Network, he enjoyed the job. Nonetheless, when he realized he was unhappy with the constraints of traditional journalism, he left to start his own production company. According to him, it’s the same type of work, just tweaked to reflect his own philosophies on truth and objectivity.

With stories from Zion Williamson, Jalen Ramsey, Jarvis Landry, and others, it’s safe to say his philosophy is paying off. Park Stories, his production company, is behind some of the most heartfelt, authentic sports documentaries we’ve ever seen—and a big part of that seems to be due to Getlin’s views on storytelling.

We talked with him about how he used a unique background to develop trust with athletes and how he’s finding creative fulfillment in ways he never thought possible.

Musicbed: Why are you drawn to football players’ stories in particular?

Rand Getlin:?

We want to work with all athletes—and were lucky enough to tell an awesome story about a basketball player named Zion Williamson earlier this year—but football players are unique because they play behind face masks. Because of that, they’re not always seen as human beings by the average fan. For instance, I remember reading an article where they were referred to as “rock ‘em sock ‘em robots.” That reality always bothered me.

At Park Stories, we know there’s a human behind every face mask and they’ve got a compelling story to tell. They have people that love them and people they love. So our philosophy ended up being a really harmonious fit for this world, along with everything we’d done prior to this point.

How so?

After I got done with law school, a buddy and I started a sports consultancy to help players transition from college to the pros. But, once we realized schools weren’t interested in paying to help athletes prepare for the business of sports, I ended up stumbling into a job as a reporter, writing about law and sport, and that eventually led to me doing on-air insider work for the NFL Network.

Why did you decide to leave journalism behind?

I’m fully aware that a lot of people, especially those who’ve been doing this for years, are scratching their heads, wondering how we pulled this together. But the answer is really straightforward. We had no choice but to make it work if we wanted to turn our dream into a reality.

We understood that stories told well on screen can impact people’s lives in more profound ways than stories told through any other medium, and that’s what we ultimately want to do with our lives.

You didn’t feel you were getting that through reporting?

From an athlete’s perspective, in many cases, they see the media as exploitative and often feel like they’re operating without empathy. As a result, many of them see media as something to be avoided. And that’s a real issue.

The primary motivation behind my work has always been driven by a determination to help players succeed. If I had to make a choice between reporting the same news in a way that would bolster the case of a team owner who is worth billions of dollars, or bolster the case for a player like NFL receiver Jarvis Landry, who overcame the longest of odds to lead the Cleveland Browns to a resurgence, then the tie goes to the player in my book.

Is this work that different from traditional journalism?

What we’re really trying to do is make sure everything we put out is 100% truth. That’s the core of journalism—deep fact-finding, asking the questions that need to be asked in order for the truth to be unlocked, and figuring out a way to deliver those truths in ways that people can consume and understand.

At the end of the day, for me, it’s really simple. Tell the truth. And be thoughtful about the way you tell that truth. That’s it. As long as you’re being objective in that regard, and you’re sharing information that people are interested in, then you’re fulfilling one of the core tenets of what I understand journalism to be.

Are you finding a new fulfillment with Park Stories?

Oh yeah. This is the most fulfilled I’ve ever been in my professional life. By far. We wake up every day and tell the stories we want to tell, the way we think they should be told. I’d never experienced creative freedom for real until I got into this space.

I was given the opportunity to be creative before, but as a reporter, there were absolute parameters. Which was fine during that period of my life, but as our careers advanced, we wanted to exert maximum creative control over the things we were dedicating our lives to.

At 35 years old—from both a business and personal standpoint—I truly feel that I’ve found my life’s calling. This is something I know I can be passionate about until my time on this planet is done, and that feels pretty damn good—to know that you genuinely love what you do.

Learn more about Rand Getlin—his pro-player mindset, how he builds trust for his stories, and more—on the Musicbed Blog: https://mscbd.fm/FyPF50MPQYE