Notts-based film director Naphat “Naps” Boonyaprapa has released a documentary on his favourite topic - table tennis. Here's what we thought of it...
Red Black Green, an East Midlands-based documentary shot across the short span of three days, focuses on the sport of table tennis, and the surfeit of success Draycott and Long Eaton Table Tennis Club have managed to amass through the years.
Not allowing the temporal constraints to destruct the flow of film, director Naphat Boonyaprapa and the production team manage to create a documentary with a well-executed dual operation between sharp sporting shots and a composition of Draycott TTC as a home for the best in England’s table tennis community.
The interview sequences, which prove to be the overarching audio component of Red Black Green, set out the free-flowing structure and relaxed pace while simultaneously injecting the film with a familial undertone that smoothly undergirds the entire documentary.
Even with the primary focus being Connor Green and his national - and international - table tennis triumphs , the rest of the screen space is opened up to the whole Green family. All of whom have a certain skill for the sport.
While Connor and his two sisters, Erin and Anna, all attribute their first introduction to table tennis to their parents' love of the sport - both of whom took them along to their matches in the formative years - what permeates through the succession of family interviews is that every decision was always entirely that of the children. Never is there the perception of being pushed into a space of athletic ambition that was not cultivated by their own individual potential and enjoyment.
Despite the director's self-admitted constrained material conditions and limited physical production space, his skills as an emerging director shine through clearly
Connor’s mother makes a particular nod towards this “hands off” approach, emphasising the importance in allowing her children to fall in love with their sport themselves. The familial support is at the forefront of this documentary, with Erin, Anna and Connor always reflecting on how the consistent support of their parents has only propelled them into further enjoyment of the sport.
The Green family attribute a lot of their enjoyment for their passion to the club they’ve trained at for their entire lives: Draycott and Long Eaton Table Tennis Club. This East Midlands-based institution, host to a constant influx of national table tennis champions, seems to function less as a regimented sports club and more as a moving vehicle in which the potential of the individual is reached and encouraged.
In another interview segment, Connor’s primary trainer mentions that he often asks his students what their goal is for the next few years within the sport, and whatever that is - whether it's going professional, like Connor, or just ‘getting a couple years of the sport in before going off to university’ - he will do everything in his power to ensure their growth, without favouritism and enforced expectations.
The ethos of the club seems to revolve around facilitating students to reach their own desired potential, not a potential dropped onto them by external forces. And with a sports club formed on such a strong character, it is no wonder it is home to a large surplus of national champions.
What shines through the entire film is the community feel of it all; the emphasis on the local club, the succession of sustained encouragement from family and friends
The true essence of the documentary lies in the relationship between voice-over and image, and with the comfortable, humble dialogue of the Green family placed within their family home or Draycott gym - the mix of comfort and community perfectly coalesces to form a documentary that constitutes itself not only as a record of sporting reality, but also a record of humanity.
Despite Boonyaprapa's self-admitted constrained material conditions and limited physical production space, his skills as an emerging director shine through clearly, the sequencing of the interviews, atop of and aside to Table Tennis England’s shots of Connor, Erin and Anna’s games, showcase strong directorial skill, with all sporting shots comprised in such a manner that seems to optically duplicate table tennis players' way of experiencing the game.
What shines through the entire film is the community feel of it all; the emphasis on the local club, the succession of sustained encouragement from family and friends, the humble overhead narration.
Red Black Green is a locally comprised sporting documentary that really works to showcase the humanity to be found in the sporting community.
Foot In The Door Productions | Drayton and Long Eaton Table Tennis Club
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