The documentary Linsanity is almost as improbable as Jeremy Lin himself.
Jeff Yang in his blog for the Wall Street Journal talks about how for the longest time it was a movie with no ending.
Lin’s rise to the NBA made a nice story line, but it needed something special at the end, and director Evan Jackson Leong & producers Christopher Chen & Brian Yang knew they didn’t have it.
They almost didn’t have anyplace to start either. That’s because for the longest time Lin refused to agree to allow cameras to follow him.
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“We exchanged a couple of emails, began a casual relationship. But whenever I asked about putting him on film, he’d say no. He’s a really humble guy — he kept saying that all he was interested in was playing ball,” said Chen.
But if Lin was going to ever let anyone tell his story, it would be these three.
Leong had previously made a documentary on Christianity in Asia. Chen had done a documentary on Yao Ming, one of Jeremy’s role models and Yang was commissioner of New York’s “Dream League” adult-hoops organization. On top of that, all three were from the Bay Area native and could relate to where Jeremy grew up.
After dozens of meeting, Lin agreed. Then one day Linsanity took off. You can find out more about how this acclaimed documentary came together in the Wall Street Journal.
