By Kirsten Coachman
Growing up on the Navajo reservation in Gallup, New Mexico, Navajo transgender writer-director Sydney Freeland had no idea she would one day write and direct for film and television.
“I kind of stumbled into it,” Freeland explained during a phone interview last fall. “Like, I grew up going to the movies and everything. I saw the names on the screen, but it didn’t mean anything to me, you know? It was so far away from anything that I knew.”
It wasn’t until her last semester as a computer animation major during her undergraduate studies, in a video course, that she realized that she wanted to change her creative direction. “I want to do this, whatever this is, I want to do this,” said Freeland, recalling the lightbulb moment.
Following her instincts, Freeland arrived in San Francisco to pursue her master’s degree at Academy of Art University in January 2005 in the School of Motion Pictures & Television (currently part of the collective Schools of Entertainment).
“I didn’t know the first thing about film schools or anything like that, but it worked out really well,” said Freeland.
Indeed, it has.
Since graduating from the Academy in 2007 with an M.F.A., Freeland has already been making her mark in the industry. Her alma mater later honored Freeland at the Spring 2023 Commencement with the Distinguished Alumni Award, citing her impressive list of credits.
Her feature directorial debut, “Drunktown’s Finest,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, followed by “Deidra & Laney Rob a Train” in 2017. Notably, she directed the Emmy-nominated “Her Story” series, episodes of FX’s “Reservation Dogs,” two episodes of the long-running ABC series “Grey’s Anatomy,” and multiple episodes of the Marvel Disney+ series “Echo,” of which she also co-executive produced. Additionally, she’s directed episodes of the “Grey’s” spin-off, “Station 19,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” Last fall, Freeland’s latest feature-length film, “Rez Ball,” was released on Netflix.
Co-written with Sterlin Harjo (“Reservation Dogs”) and produced by four-time NBA champion LeBron James, “Rez Ball” is centered on the Chuska Warriors, a Native American high school basketball team in Chuska, New Mexico. In the face of fierce adversity, the team works toward its goal of winning a state championship.
Art U News had the opportunity to speak with Freeland to learn more about the making of “Rez Ball,” from navigating the various emotional beats of the film to making it authentically Navajo throughout, as well as words of advice for current filmmaking students.
“Rez Ball” is partly inspired by a series of articles and the book “Canyon Dreams” by Michael Powell, which is about his time following a Navajo high school basketball team. What stood out to you about his observations, and how did that inform the story that you and your writing partner decided to tell?
We were approached in 2019 by this production company, Wise Entertainment, and they had purchased the rights to this series of New York Times articles. And in reading the articles, it was like, “Oh, wow, I know this world. I grew up in this, you know? And so then the articles, obviously well-written, super informative, but it is a very kind of outside-in perspective. And then, so when Sterlin and I came together to write the story, our conversations were really like, “Well, if we’re gonna tell a rez ball story, we would wanna do it from the inside out. And how would we approach it?”
In that respect, the articles were more like conversation starters, and then from there, it was like the germ of the story came from Sterlin and I sharing our own mutually shared experiences that we had: myself playing basketball in high school on the reservation, and then Sterlin didn’t play basketball, but he did football and wrestling but was also very familiar with rez ball. And we found that there are these common threads, no matter where you grew up. And that’s really the kind of things that we end up focusing on.
When you’re working with Sterlin on the script, how did you both decide on the different emotional beats to layer in? Up top, the team experiences a collective loss, but Jimmy (played by Kauchani Bratt) also has a complicated home life, and the team’s coach, Heather (played by Jessica Matten), is experiencing career disappointment. How did you navigate each of these storylines while the team is collectively grieving?
One of the first initial conversations was this idea of the white savior in films, you know, or the outside character coming into the small town, the small community, and then teaching them how to play the game the right way, you know?
Yeah.
So, one thing that we were very adamant about was that we wanted a coach character to be from the community. And as that idea grew and evolved, it sort of grew to the idea of Coach Hobbs being from there—her being a star player 20 years ago, she was able to break through, find success in the college level, ultimately, make a career for herself, and on the pro level as well.
And then she’s coming back home with this knowledge, but she’s from the community. But that one decision had a lot of positive consequences, right? So, for example, when the team faces adversity, she’s not going to go to an outside source, she’s not gonna take them to the big city and teach ’em how to use like a salad fork or “this is how real people do it.” No, she’s going to take them to what she knows from her experience, which is she’s gonna take them to sheep camp, and she’s gonna use that team bonding exercise, which is gonna plant the idea for Jimmy to ask the question to say, “Hey, what if we call the plays in Navajo?” And the more we kept pulling all these story threads, the more the positive consequences came from that one decision. But that was one example of those initial conversations.
Watching the film, there’s this overwhelming feeling of authenticity from shooting on location to hearing Navajo being spoken, and actors playing rez ball onscreen. How important was it to you to incorporate as much authentic culture for viewers who may not be familiar with what growing up on a reservation and playing rez ball can look like, as well as the importance for those who are native, getting to see aspects of life reflected on screen?
We said on set that all roads lead to authenticity, and that we try to permeate that in the film in as many places as possible; whether that was shooting on location, on the reservation, whether that was casting kids that could actually play basketball, and then also like Navajo language and culture, as well. The thing for me was really about, “Okay, it’s gonna require a little bit extra leg work, but, fortunately, this is a Netflix studio film, and we have the resources to try to make this happen.” It was a combination of people just rolling up their sleeves and really doing all the hard work.
But then again, still, it’s not a science; it’s art, right? So, even like the Navajo language, you try to set yourself up to be as authentic as possible, but what is authentic, right? So one person’s authentic is another person’s like, “Well, we don’t do it that way,” you know? So again, it was finding this right balance to have the overall feel be one of authenticity. To use basketball, for example, Netflix was very supportive in that these kids had to be able to play basketball. ‘Cause, if we’re gonna do a movie about rez ball, you can’t have kids that aren’t able to play.
‘Cause in addition to playing, I’m also a huge basketball fan. I can always tell immediately when someone isn’t able to play in a movie, so we did a casting call for 10 players on the team, and they had to put themselves on tape. But in addition to that, they also had to film themselves doing three basketball drills. So then they shoot a layup, shoot a free throw, and then shoot a three-pointer, and then submit those as well, too. And [laughs], we thought that would weed people out. Long story short, we got 5,000 submissions for 10 roles. From there, it was really about finding those 10 players that had the right combination of acting ability and basketball prowess.
And I couldn’t be happier with the results. I think four of our players ended up actually being Navajo. And some of them actually speak Navajo. So then we would try to highlight them. Like, for example, Jojo Jackson. Funny story. Talking about authenticity, right? By doing this legwork up front, we had, you know, all of these happy accidents that were able to happen along the way because we had that sort of foundation, right? Another example of that is actually Jojo Jackson, one of our players who plays Warlance, and he’s Navajo. And so we were filming a scene, and the scene scripted was the district championship game. … And the script, it was one sentence, and it just said, “National anthem plays; Bryson is so hungover he can barely stand.” Jojo came up to me on the day, and I remember him asking me, “Hey, who’s gonna sing the National Anthem?” I said, “Nobody, we’ll probably just pipe something in in post and put something in after the fact.” And he said, “Well, you know, I sing the National Anthem at games on the reservation.” And I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah, do you want me to sing on camera for you?” I was like, “Uh, yeah. Can you do it with zero warmup, and can you do it in about 10, 15 minutes?”
And he said, “Yeah, of course, of course. Do you want me to sing in English or in Navajo?” And I was like, “You can sing the National Anthem in Navajo?” … And, he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
So we literally just pointed the camera at Jojo, and I think he did it in two takes, zero warmup, and knocked it out of the park. Then, in the edit, we found that that scene was actually emblematic of the story in itself. It was this great cinematic device of showing the audience that yes, we’re in America, but we’re also not in America, right? We ended up repurposing that National Anthem scene in the first game and the opening of the movie, and I think it just sets up the feel and the tone in a really great way. It took a lot of legwork up front, but there were all of these sorts of unintended positive consequences that came from that work up front.
It absolutely did. And to your point, I thought it set the tone really well for what type of story you’re telling. For the game sequences, as you mentioned, you were casting actors who needed to know how to play the game. What was the biggest challenge in shooting the game sequences?
I think the biggest factor for us was just time. We didn’t have a ton of time to shoot the movie, so I really relied on our basketball choreographer, Mike Fisher, so he really worked with the kids to kinda get them to dial in the plays and all that. But I think the biggest thing was just time. It’s like having an actor walk into a scene, hit their mark, say the lines, and then maybe exit a scene is one thing. But to have, like, five kids, even if they can play basketball, playing against another five kids that can play basketball, there are all these different variables that come into play.
It’s like, okay, this play is all five players have to touch the ball, and then this kid’s gonna drain a three-point at the end, right? So even in the best circumstances, that still takes a couple of times to get correct. And when we were up against it and we didn’t have the time, it was really just trying to be economical as possible. And with our setups, there were certainly times when we didn’t get as much coverage as I would’ve hoped. That was the biggest obstacle—just time.
How long was your shooting schedule?
So it was 29 days, but we have 11 games in the film. So we had set aside 10 days to shoot the games, and then that basically left us with 19 days for all of the narrative developments, which is a tight schedule.
One of my favorite moments you touched on earlier was when Coach Heather takes the team to round up the missing sheep. Can you talk a little about the inspiration for this scene and what that day of filming was like?
[Laughs.] I can tell you, don’t ever work with sheep. Going back to these conversations about the sports movie genre. Even if you look at the players, they are first-time actors. And, we don’t have that big kind of named actor. Of course, we got Julia [Jones], Jessica [Matten], to me, they’re movie stars, but in the case of the film, it was really like, “Oh, the genre is the star of the film. So the conversations that we had in writing and crafting were like, “Okay, well, what if we don’t try to reinvent the wheel, but we actually kind of lean into some of the tropes of the sports movie?” So here’s the part where they experience loss. Here’s the part where they come together. Here’s the part where they go on a winning streak, you know, which gets them to the championship tournament. And whether they win or lose, we’ll decide from there.
Looking at all of the other sports movies and everything, there needed to be that scene sequence, set piece, where the team makes a shift. They’re disjointed, they’re losing, they’re whatever, and then something’s gotta bring them together. And that was really kind of the impetus for sheep camp. I can’t tell you when or where the idea sort of came from, but it came from the sheep camp, and then it was like, okay, they have to herd sheep.
And obviously, everybody’s disjointed, and everyone’s out for themselves, and then it kind of presents itself, like, “Oh yeah, well, then if they’re gonna do it, they have to do it together.” So that was really kind of the framework, and I think this has been there probably since the first draft. And it didn’t change a whole lot. What I love about the sequence is that they come in as a disjointed unit, and then they leave as a team, you know? And, to me, the two bookends of the scene are the kids riding on the bus, right? They’re just single shots. You see ’em on the bus going to sheep camp, and everyone’s kind of like off to themselves in their own worlds. It’s very quiet, very somber. And then you see ’em in the bus afterward, and everyone’s like, shooting the sh– and laughing, and we’re regaling each other with all the tales, everything. … That’s really kind of where that came from.
With first-time actors in the film, what does it mean for you as a director to be the person who gets to introduce them on-screen? Did that add a certain specialness to the project?
Oh, yeah. I think to be a part of that and to watch everyone grow and come into their own, it’s incredibly satisfying and incredibly fulfilling, you know? ‘Cause I think there are kids here that can have careers and hopefully, their lives can be changed for the better. I certainly don’t feel like I’m in a place to take credit for any of that because I’m a firm believer in if you have talent and ability, you’ll find a way. So, whether it was with us, whether it was just something else, I think they would’ve been able to break through. But the specifics of this project, being able to play basketball and act, were particularly unique.
Just for myself, and being able to watch the kids go from being like, you know, terrified of acting in front of a camera on a gigantic Netflix movie, to see them find their rhythm and find their flow, and find out their kind of style for how they can approach stuff was amazing. Because that was me, you know? I remember the first time I sat on a film set being absolutely terrified and thinking, “Wow, I don’t deserve to be here. Somebody made a mistake, they’re gonna figure this out, and they’re gonna kick me off.” So I’m just like, gotta be quiet and stay as long as I can until they kick me out, you know? And so, I definitely felt like I saw a lot of myself in them. And to see them step into their own and gain that confidence and realize, “Oh yeah, no, I can do this. I can do this, and I can be successful,” there’s no better feeling.
Leading up to “Rez Ball,” you had been directing different television series. Is there a different approach to directing a film versus television? Is it just the length of time, or how does that work for you?
Yeah, yeah, they’re two different mediums, right? Not mediums, but it’s different dynamics. It’s also different with a pilot versus episodic. But just to speak to episodic, you’re known as a guest director, and so with features, you’re there from the very beginning, you’re setting the look, the feel, the tone, the mood, everything. And then you are there and you shoot it, and then you go into editing and the entire post-production process all the way through to whatever color, visual effects, scoring, mixing, and all that stuff. And then TV is a little bit more of you’re hired gun, right? And you parachute into this whole apparatus that is already kind of midstream.
And in a lot of cases, the look, the feel, and the tone—it’s already been established. And then it’s your job to work within those confines of this pre-established sandbox. And so I enjoy it, ’cause it’s a different kind of way of directing. What I find is that it forces me to do things that I wouldn’t normally do, and it allows me to grow as a director, and you get tools for your toolbox and so that when something like “Rez Ball” comes back along again, it’s like, oh, okay, I’ve got all these new cool things that I can try. And TV’s like, you parachute in, you prep for a very short amount of time, and then you shoot for a short amount of time, and then you get like four days to edit if it’s an hour long TV show, and then it’s like a handshake, and then you’re done, and then you go out to the next week.
So it’s slightly different. It’s a shorter window, but I think the one thing that I particularly enjoy about TV is that you actually get to spend time directing, right? Because the whole thing of like, even going back to film school, it was like, I just wanna direct. I wanna direct, get on a film set. But it was always this huge effort to get onto a film set. Like, when I did my first feature (“Drunktown’s Finest”), it took me seven years to make, and we had 15 days to shoot. So in those seven years, I only spent 15 days actually directing. My second feature, I think it took us two years, and we shot it for 26 days. … TV actually gets you a chance to actually direct, because there’s no substitute, there’s no amount of books, there’s no amount of anything that gets to substitute for actually doing the thing.
When you arrived at the Academy, were you looking at just directing, or what aspects of the filmmaking process were you interested in?
Well, I was coming from a place of complete ignorance. I knew I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to direct. But it was definitely those first years at the Academy that really helped. I was very fortunate to have some really amazing [instructors] to really help define what the film industry is, what the different positions are, what are their different responsibilities, because each department has its own specific dynamic. Cinematography, directing, writing; those are three very different things. Just to give you an idea of how ignorant I was, I didn’t even know people would get paid to work on a movie set. I mean, yes, of course actors and directors and everything, but like everyone else, when I learned like, “Oh wait, people get paid to work on a movie set, like, that’s amazing. Wow, what a great idea.” But really, that’s where I was coming from: just wanting to know more about the filmmaking process.
Was there a class that started pointing you in a certain direction with writing and directing?
Donna Laemmlen was my screenwriting [instructor]. The things I’ve learned in her class have been so influential for me to this day. Whether it was something as simple as write what you know, or it was the basic mechanics of telling a story, writing a screenplay. She just had a way of expressing and teaching the craft of writing that made it so accessible. So many of the principles that I learned from her classes, I still use today.
Lastly, what is something that you would encourage our filmmaking students to do now while they’re still in school? Whether it’s directly related to their studies or otherwise, in helping them prepare for pursuing the film industry after graduation?
I think, just make something. Make something, don’t feel like “If only I had this or if only I had that,” you know? It’s all about making stuff, whether you’re shooting on your iPhone, whether you’re—I know they’ve got great resources there at the Academy. Like, take advantage of those resources and the equipment, and even if it’s just taking the camera out on a weekend and shooting b-roll, just make something because you never know what’s gonna come of that. And I think in relation to that, film is a collaborative medium; no one person can do everything, you know, or you technically can, but things will suffer, you know, require more time or money, or what have you.
I think the one thing that I don’t like about Los Angeles is that there isn’t really a sense of community. It’s those pockets of people that I’ve been able to meet that we really kind of found each other. So, really try to work with your fellow classmates and any sense of community that you can create there. ‘Cause those are gonna be the people that you’re gonna be interacting with in the industry in the future. So really embrace the people and the friends around you, ’cause those are gonna be the people who are gonna be able to help you out in the future.
“Rez Ball” is streaming on Netflix. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.