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When we started NFL Films, there were no focus groups, there were no demographic studies, there were no surveys. Every decision that we made, we made with our hearts, not with our heads. And, in the very beginning, we really didn't even have a business plan.

Steve Sabol

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Steve Sabol
Age: 69 †
Born: 1942
Born: October 2
Died: 2012
Died: September 18
Cinematographer
Film Producer
Filmmaker
Poet
Moorestown
New Jersey
Stephen Douglas Sabol
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Plan
Business
Films
Demographic
Didn
Beginning
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Film
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Heart
Started
Nfl
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Hearts

More quotes by Steve Sabol

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You know how I came up with the name 'Road to the Super Bowl?' It's an homage to the old Bob Hope - Bing Crosby buddy movies - you know, like 'Road to Zanzibar' or 'Road to Morocco.' Can you tell? All I've done my whole life is go to movies.
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Football is a sport of emotions, and we have to capture that in our films.
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My dad has a great expression. He always says, 'Tell me a fact and I'll learn, tell me the truth and I believe, but tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.' Interestingly enough now, my dad's story is going to be in Canton and hopefully that will live forever, too.
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The importance of an artist is bringing new signs into a language.
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The autumn wind is a Raider, / Pillaging just for fun / He'll knock you around, / And upside down, / And laugh when he's conquered and won.
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The autumn wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along swaggering boisterously. His face is weather beaten, he wears a hooded sash with a silver hat about his head... The autumn wind is a Raider, pillaging just for fun.
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When my father bid $5,000 for the 1962 Championship Game, that was a huge amount. It was double the bid the year before. Pete Rozelle was flabbergasted. Who was this guy who was willing to spend so much money on what seemed like relatively worthless rights to the NFL Championship Game?
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If there's one thing I can't stand, it's not being noticed.
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To me, football is very personal. Even as a kid, I looked at football in dramaturgical terms. It wasn't the score that interested me, it was the struggle.
Steve Sabol
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I was kicked out of school one year for streaking.
Steve Sabol
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That helped us nurture not only the game's traditions but to develop its mythology: America's Team, The Catch, The Frozen Tundra.
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There have been nine Super Bowls in New Orleans, and not all of them have brought the best of luck to NFL Films. We got robbed twice there, got food poisoning, and my hotel room was broken into on the day the Bears played the Patriots in January 1986.
Steve Sabol
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I've been very lucky in the freedom that I've been given. Every artist needs two types of freedom: You need the freedom to - the freedom to come up with an idea or treatment - and then you need the other half of the freedom, and that's freedom from - somebody saying, 'This is great. This is how I want you to do it'.
Steve Sabol
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My Dad hated his job. He sold overcoats, but he wanted to make movies. He had a failed career working with the Ritz Brothers - they were like the Marx Brothers, only a tier below. I always had a picture in my mind of him in a straw hat.
Steve Sabol
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I don't go to games as much as I used to because of the NFL's Sunday Ticket. So I'll watch the games, take notes.
Steve Sabol
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A perfect record does not mean that someone is the greatest. Rocky Marciano never lost a fight, but I never hear anyone say he's the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.
Steve Sabol
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NFL Films has had one continuous, creative vision for 47 years. These are timeless things timeless stories that we capture just like people go back and read Greek mythology.
Steve Sabol
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Live your life as a revolution and not just a process of evolution. I realized today that if I stay on a path of gradual evolution into the man I ultimately want to become, I am going to run out of time before I reach the goal.
Steve Sabol
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If you can show something as complicated as two people falling in love with just music and camera angles, well, just think about what you can do with football.
Steve Sabol
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I never thought of what I was doing as a way to sell the NFL. I was making movies about a sport that I loved, about players and coaches that I respected. I wanted to convey my love of the game through film. And most artists convey their love through art. And my art and my love was expressed through film.
Steve Sabol