John Facenda Narrating Soccer

[2014cwajts71]

I've seen him narrate golf also.

[voiceaddict]

You want the real highlight, turn the monitor off after you hit play and listen to John Facenda and Sam Spence build the scenes in your mind.

This fails for one main reason -- they did not capture any dramatic stories on the field which could have been accented by the sport itself. The visual highlights are found in those moments and those moments alone -- nobody cares about what they know already, the fact that they scored another point.

These producers failed.

[thecelebratedmisterk]

@voiceaddict You do know this was 1975, right?

[voiceaddict]

@thecelebratedmisterk Yes, this was 1975. Think about this... NFL Films got started in 1965. They came out of the gate producing documentary style films with high speed cameras and the intent of using slow motion photography elevate their product to another level. With the addition of Facenda, Spence and Sabol's scripts, those pieces became pure United States Platinum. No matter "when" you're from, you simply can not take great voices, music, scripts and poor footage, and expect greatness.

[thecelebratedmisterk]

@voiceaddict If you spend the money to do so. This particular production used the voice of NFL Films, but it was not an NFL Films production. I doubt very seriously they devoted NFL Films-type resources to this particular film (though I'll have to go back and check the DVD).

[thecelebratedmisterk]

@voiceaddict (And NFL Films became NFL Films in 1965, but Blair Motion Pictures actually started in '62.) Lastly, my larger point is that it was 1975...not that you couldn't make good films in 1975, because you could. But that Facenda is dead, and the producers are either dead or very likely too old to really care what a random guy on the internet thinks of something they did 36 years ago.

[voiceaddict]

@thecelebratedmisterk I will defer to my initial statement, the real highlights here are in the story, as told by Facenda over Spence's music, with the visuals off -- even a random visitor can acknowledge it, however, I'm not exactly a random visitor... and those producers did care. Whatever the case, we could go on for ages about this.... Your post was regarding John Facenda's work on this highlight, my point was that without John, this piece was nothing. He saved the production.

[thecelebratedmisterk]

@voiceaddict Feel better now? Good. 

[STP43FAN1]

Nice. The full power of NFL Films from Facenda narration to Sam Spence music cues on display.

[FellowWorker1905]

horseflesh2000 (or maybe it's "Horse's Ass 2000"?); yes, the worlds most popular sport is lame.

Go back to watching pointyball, basket-ball, basebrawl or ice hockey.....PLEASE!

[tommerj]

Great old footage of the Tampa Stadium before the expanded the endzones for the Buccaneers in 1976. Also, at 1:15, you can see they put all the fans one side of the stadium. This was probably done for TV purposes, though the Rowdies were one of the stronger teams in the NASL.

[Skinhead1982]

how many soccer highlits did Facenda cover?

[Horseflesh2000]

Not even "The Voice of God" can save this lame ass "sport"....

[thecelebratedmisterk]

@Horseflesh2000 You're one of those meatheads who has to piss on everything, right? You don't like it, don't watch it. Jackoff.

[Skinhead1982]

@Horseflesh2000

well this lame ass sport is played everywhere in the world and even in the Us there are about 20 million people playing it, so who's the lame ass????

if you don't like it just don't watch it

[AshburnStadium]

We here in Philadelphia were also blessed with both the "Voice of God" (Facenda) and the "Voice of the People" (Harry Kalas).

Both men were the voice of NFL Films, but John Facenda was also the head anchorman for WCAU-TV (then CBS, now "NBC-10"). Kalas was the Hall of Fame voice of the Phillies.

[Staszu13]

This is SO COOL! If Big John had done this more often, maybe soccer would've done better in the USA

[StraightOuttaDC]

@Staszu13

Pfft. YEah right.