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For the third year in a row\u2014and fourth in the last five\u2014White Horse Pictures finds itself in the middle of the Emmy horse race.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the White Horse production The Apollo, about the legendary performing arts venue in Harlem, earned Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Last year, White Horse\u2019s The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart was nominated for six Emmys, winning one. This year it\u2019s back in contention with Lucy and Desi, Amy Poehler\u2019s documentary about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, which is nominated for half a dozen Emmys\u2014more than any other documentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m ecstatic,\u201d says White Horse Pictures partner Jeanne Elfant Festa of the Emmy recognition. She\u2019s a producer of the film, along with Michael Rosenberg, Justin Wilkes, Poehler, Mark Monroe and White Horse co-founder and principal Nigel Sinclair. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor, it\u2019s a thrill. We have the best team led by the best director, only female director that was nominated [in the documentary special category].\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Video released the documentary, which held its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last January. The film reframes our understanding of Ball and Arnaz, illuminating the loving bond between the couple that endured even after their divorce in 1960.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople just love rediscovering Lucille Ball. And obviously, the fact the Ricardos film [directed by Aaron Sorkin] came out in parallel, helped break the ground,\u201d Sinclair notes. \u201cBut I think the nourishing story [is] this very interesting relationship between these two very complicated people\u2026 Lucy and Desi.\u201d<\/p>\n
The filmmakers were granted access to family archives maintained by Lucy and Desi\u2019s daughter, Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, voluminous materials which at that time were stored at Lucie\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was rummaging through photographs and seeing things that you\u2019ve seen before. And then Lucie said, \u2018There\u2019s more boxes in the pantry. Go inside,\u2019\u201d Festa recalls. \u201cIt\u2019s a story that you can\u2019t make up. I literally reached out to stretch and I saw a lockbox at the top of her pantry, and I asked her if there was anything in it that would pertain to us\u2026 And she said, \u2018Ah, you\u2019re going to like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside were audio recordings the public had never heard, labeled \u201cMom\u2019s precious tapes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the exciting things we found was this incredible pool party,\u201d Festa says. \u201cYou could hear the water splashing and you could hear Vivian Vance and you could hear Desi and the kids. Lucille Ball asked the kids, \u2018What is your favorite I Love Lucy episode?\u2019 And they reenacted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those archival recordings formed the basis for a fresh take on the titular couple.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was gold,\u201d Festa says. \u201cIt gives chills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archival-driven documentaries have become the signature of White Horse Pictures, which in addition to executives Sinclair and Festa includes partner Cassidy Hartmann, a writer-producer and former journalist, and president Nicholas Ferrall. White Horse\u2019s credits include two docs directed by Ron Howard, Pavarotti and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week \u2013 The Touring Years, which between them made $20 million worldwide in theatrical release.<\/p>\n
White Horse boasts an impressive slate of films in production\u2014both in the narrative\/fictional and nonfiction realms. Among its upcoming docs are Shari & Lamb Chop from director Lisa D\u2019Apolito (Love, Gilda), a film about puppeteer Shari Lewis and her ovine creation, Lamb Chop.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have eight projects on the go,\u201d Sinclair says. \u201cSTAX [a documentary series] for HBO\u2026 Billy Preston [directed by Paris Barclay], which was announced. Wilder, which is in post-production.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDirected by Chris Smith,\u201d Festa adds, in relation to the doc about Gene Wilder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do with our company is to look for these films that are about something iconic,\u201d Sinclair explains. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t have to be fabulously iconic. It has to have something that\u2019s reached people\u2019s hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
White Horse has proven successful in bringing topnotch directors on board its projects, like Emmy-nominee Smith (100 Foot Wave, Bad Vegan) and Academy Award winner Howard (A Beautiful Mind). It often teams with production companies including Imagine Entertainment, partnering with Howard and Brian Grazer\u2019s enterprise for the aforementioned Pavarotti and Beatles docs, as well as Lucy and Desi. White Horse also collaborates regularly with Monroe, who earned an individual Emmy nomination for writing Lucy and Desi, and Robert A. Martinez, nominated for editing the documentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an amazing, emotional cutter,\u201d Festa says of Martinez, \u201cwhich is key.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinclair praises Monroe\u2019s gift for identifying how to structure a documentary in three acts. In the case of Lucy and Desi the arc follows the couple\u2019s trajectory as they get together (beginning), find success, then pull apart (middle), and ultimately reunite as Desi\u2019s life draws to a close (end).<\/p>\n
The ending was punctuated by a moment from the Kennedy Center Honors in December 1986 where Lucille Ball was honored. The ceremony took place only a few days after Desi Arnaz had died of cancer. Robert Stack read a letter Desi had drafted in which Arnaz wrote, \u201cI Love Lucy had just one mission: to make people laugh. Lucy gave it a rare quality. She can perform the wildest, even the messiest physical comedy without losing her feminine appeal.\u201d He wrote in a tender postscript, \u201cI Love Lucy was never just a title.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDesi was a naughty boy and he did hurt Lucy, but it was also true that it broke her heart when he died,\u201d Sinclair says. \u201cThat speech that he wrote to give Robert Stack to deliver at the end, he knew he was dying, he knew he was going to go. I mean, you can\u2019t make that stuff up. If it was a movie, you\u2019d say this is over the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
White Horse\u2019s success can be attributed in part to the way its lead executives work together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our company there are four partners. Nick Ferrall is the president and Cassidy, Jeanne and I are producers with Nick on things. One of the things we decided early on is that we actually all work on each other\u2019s documentaries as a point,\u201d Sinclair indicates. \u201cWe try to think like a music band, that the movie is somebody\u2019s song\u2013might be Cassidy\u2019s movie or Nick\u2019s movie. Nick is driving Wilder, for example. We\u2019ve all looked at cuts, we all give him notes, we talk about it and there\u2019s never any, \u2018F-off and get off my project,\u2019 which you get in most companies because people are competing for success. The \u2018one for all and all for one\u2019 thing\u2013there\u2019s only eight of us, we\u2019re doing all this work. I mean, it\u2019s something, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their willingness to keep pushing towards storytelling perfection extends beyond the point at which a film, ostensibly, has been finished. Such was the case with the Bee Gees documentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took 5 minutes out of the film after we\u2019d locked the picture, which cost us producers another $40,000,\u201d Sinclair notes. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be a slightly bonkers, fanatic person to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds, \u201cWith the archival docs, you have to have a philosophy that you\u2019re not turning in a program by a [particular] date. You do not give up until your heart beats fast when you watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n
View this article at Deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" White Horse Pictures\u2019 Nigel Sinclair And Jeanne Elfant Festa On Their Emmy Contender \u2018Lucy And Desi\u2019: \u201cThe Best Team Led By The Best Director\u201d: For the third year in a row\u2014and fourth in the last five\u2014White Horse Pictures finds itself in the middle of the Emmy horse race. In 2020, the White Horse production The
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