Miracle at Medinah

Co-producers Leanne McClernon and Emma Self discuss the making of Miracle at Medinah.

Co-producers Leanne MccLernon and Emma Self give us the full story behind the making of Miracle at Medinah

First shown on Christmas Day 2012, Miracle At Medinah re-tells the story of Europe's incredible come-from-behind Ryder Cup victory last September. The response to the film has been excellent and rightly so. Had roles been reversed, you suspect US TV might have presented us with a film dripping with syrupy voice-overs, shots of weepy family members at every turn, lots of over-the-top cringeworthy life messages and Bruce Hornsby (And The Range) tinkling away on his piano for the whole 93 minutes. The documentary made by the Sky Sports golf team has a classy, timeless feel with a subtlety of touch which allows the captain and players, the stars of it all, to tell their story without being drowned out by heavy production values. To get the full story behind the making of Miracle at Medinah, we talked to the film's co-producers Leanne MccLernon and Emma Self. How much of a challenge was it to get the film ready for a Christmas Day viewing? Leanne: It was a massive challenge as we have live golf on the European Tour and PGA Tour every week so in the end we had around three weeks to shoot the player interviews, links and voice over with presenter David Livingstone and prep and edit the programme. There was a small team. Emma and I co-produced and Pete MacLeod cut the music pieces. We worked with editor Robbie Easterbrook over our deadline right up to the Saturday before Christmas to give the extra touches that make the programme so special . Emma: It was a big undertaking to have the programme ready, mainly because we had a clear idea from the start how we wanted it to work and we wanted to do the interviews and story justice. There wasn't much time off and there were some very long days for us as producers as well as the editors who helped finesse the programme and the other two members of our team who were helping with prep and cutting the lovely opening and closing montages. It was a massive sigh of relief and sense of achievement when it was finally on tape and ready to go. When and where did the filming of the players take place and how long did each interview take? Leanne: After lots of chat with the each player's agents we managed to pencil in 10 minutes with everyone in Dubai over three days while they were playing at November's DP World Tour Championship. Although getting them at the time was not easy due to their schedules. Emma: It was great to have all the players in one place but it was quite a challenge logistically to fit all 12 in to two days of filming. As world number one Rory McIlroy obviously had a lot of demands on his time, we filmed his interview at his hotel. Then the other 11 were done in a little room by the tennis centre at the Earth Course. We had to make sure the look of all the interviews matched up even though we were shooting in more than one location, so with all the lighting, the backdrop, cameras etc we were a bit of a travelling circus. Tying down the rest of the players in between various press calls, practice and pro-ams took a lot of juggling. But they were all still really keen to talk about the Ryder Cup and are a really nice group of guys, so didn't mind waiting for a while if a fellow team-mate over-ran their timeslot a little bit. We'd asked for 10 minutes with each player, but in the end unless they had somewhere else they needed to be urgently most of them went well over this - great stuff but even harder to choose the best bits when it came down to making the programme! Was it easy to get all 12 of the European players to speak and would you have felt disappointed if one or more hadn't been able to contribute? Leanne: We talked to the players and made them aware of what a special programme we were making and then they really wanted to be part of it. It was very important to speak to everyone because you never know who is going to come out with the best story. Emma: They were all still really enthusiastic about the Ryder Cup of course, but also still enthusiastic to talk about it - even though it was two months after the event and they had all done lots of previous interviews. We were really keen to get all 12 of them because we wanted to tell the whole team's story. We were slightly worried Peter Hanson wouldn't want to talk about it as much as he didn't quite get a point on the board through the whole event. But his partnership with Paul Lawrie and the way he just wouldn't give up in the singles were things we wanted to include, so we were thrilled he wanted to speak to us. At one point Rory McIlroy says: "I'm sitting here with goosebumps just talking about it." Was there a real sense that the players were excited to be recalling the amazing events at Medinah? Leanne: Yes, it really felt like they were excited to talk about it again, you could tell it was a time they will always enjoy remembering and despite saying they could only do 10 minutes most stayed for as long as they wanted because they were enjoying it so much. They also told us other stories off camera! Most memorabe was Peter Hanson talking about Lee Westwood crawling along the floor at the final press conference and having his mic turned off because he was so overwhelmed by it all he kept interrupting everyone. Emma: Even though they'd obviously spoken about it many times before it still seemed very fresh in all their minds and stirred up a lot of emotions when they were talking. Like Leanne says, all the interviews ran over the arranged time. We were really lucky, but we'd certainly written enough questions to keep them going as long as they were happy to be answering them! You could definitely see a light in the players' eyes when they were talking - properly re-living the stories they were telling us. We and the crew were getting quite emotional as well at some points - particularly when they were talking about Olazabal and Seve's influence on the team. They were all definitely re-living the moments they were recalling and not just telling us the same old thing they've said over and over. Did you have a favourite interviewee? Justin Rose certainly shines with his depth of recall and insights.