Here’s how the pieces fell. I saw, not necessarily that I was going to be let go, but I saw that they were not so happy with the games. They were making changes internally about what this was going to look like. This was even before the 2018 games.
I went to the games, and I told my boss, Tyson Oldroyd, I said, “Hey, we’re not going to make this documentary. I don’t need to be away from my family for seven days. I don’t need to go to the CrossFit games. If things are going to change after this, please let me know. I don’t need to go waste a week of my life.” [laughs]
I can go shoot some beer at the games, and I don’t need to be there the whole time. We got back from the 2018 games. Everything was great. Everyone was high-fiving about how well the games went off. All of us filmmakers, we were stoked about the story we got. I had gotten really close with Laura Horvath throughout the weekend.
I’d picked her out of…not a needle out of a haystack, but going into the weekend, I got really lucky that I got good footage of her because she had taken second. Lukas Högberg, same thing, got back. I was here actually in Newtown with my family vacation and heard that they had let go of half the media department. That was a shock. [laughs]
The amount of changes that they made was a shock. I called the night before because I had been hearing rumors. I said, “Hey, do I need to come home tomorrow? I’m here with my family. I could fly back.”
They said, “No, you’re fine.” The next morning, the same guy called me back. He said, “This is why we’re bringing you back. Technically, you were removed off of my budget.” I was under one budget, and they removed me. Basically, they fired me and then rehired me without me knowing. They moved me from one department to the other.
I was like, “Well, I’m extremely grateful that you guys would do that.” They were asked to cut the budget in half. That means the one side had to cut their budget in half. Then this side had to cut more than half their budget to bring me and Marsden on onto this side, if that makes sense, the side B.
I was extremely grateful. Then when I heard of a meeting from Greg Glassman that afternoon, talking about the new direction of the company, it made it very clear from his statements that I wasn’t a part of that new direction. The work I had been doing wasn’t going to be what CrossFit was doing anymore.
The conversation went from my end like, “Hey, look. I see that you guys don’t necessarily want to do these things. The audience really wants this, and I poured my heart and soul into this 2018 movie for the last few months. Could we try and take that and go and make it somewhere else?”
We were having these conversations. I did a big trip around Sweden and Iceland again to get some more interviews for that movie. Came back, and about a week later is when we were let go. [laughs]
I went into that day knowing that another round of cuts was coming. When I heard the new direction, it made sense that I wouldn’t be there. I just thought it was a matter of time. I didn’t necessarily make any big life changes at that point, but I was very well-prepared for the day I would be let go.