Heroes for a Day: The XSV Story

Heroes for a Day: The XSV Story is a 2007 American documentary film about professional paintball, directed by Patrick Spohrer and produced by Monkey With a Gun Productions. The film follows Sacramento XSV, commonly known as XSV or Excessive, during its development into a leading professional tournament team.[1][2]

The documentary follows members of XSV through international tournaments, training sessions and life away from competition, documenting the team's efforts to win a major professional championship.

The film was produced over approximately three years and includes a screenplay co-written by professional player and paintball commentator Matty Marshall.[1]

With a running time of approximately 137 minutes, it is a feature-length documentary combining tournament footage, player interviews and behind-the-scenes material.[1][2]

Production

Heroes for a Day was produced by Monkey With a Gun Productions, the company established by filmmaker Patrick Spohrer and his wife Bonnie Demenge.

Spohrer had previously worked with Bryon Benini on Push (2000) and Sunday Drivers (2002), before producing Cereal Killerz (2004).

Unlike these earlier productions, Heroes for a Day follows a single professional team across multiple tournament seasons.

The film was developed over approximately three years, combining footage of tournament competition with interviews, team meetings, practices and scenes from the players' personal lives.[1]

Professional player Matty Marshall co-wrote the screenplay with Spohrer.

The production incorporates colour-graded tournament footage, older-style 8 mm film sequences and music-driven montages alongside documentary footage recorded during XSV's travels.[1]

Subject and content

Formation of XSV

The film documents the development of XSV, a professional paintball team established in 2004 by former members of the Los Angeles Ironmen and other experienced competitors.

The team's formation followed changes to professional paintball competition associated with the establishment of the National Xball League (NXL) and the division between the National Professional Paintball League (NPPL) and Paintball Sports Promotions (PSP).

Several professional players left existing teams to establish XSV, seeking greater freedom to compete across different tournament circuits.[1]

The documentary follows the team's attempts to progress from its early tournament results to championship contention.

Featured players

The film principally follows the experiences of the following XSV players:

The players appear in competition footage, interviews and scenes documenting the team's internal relationships, training and preparation.[1]

Tournament competition

Heroes for a Day includes footage from professional tournaments in Europe and the United States.

Locations documented in the film include Germany, France, the Netherlands and California.

The documentary follows XSV through disappointing results, internal disagreements and near misses before reaching a major tournament victory.

The team's first-place finish in the PSP Open division at the Northeast Open forms an important part of the film's narrative.[1]

In addition to tournament footage, the documentary includes scenes from team meetings, meals, travel and players' homes.

These sequences provide context for the pressures experienced by players competing internationally while maintaining their lives outside paintball.

Soundtrack

Music forms an important part of Heroes for a Day, accompanying the film's tournament montages, travel sequences and personal interviews.

The soundtrack includes alternative rock, progressive rock and independent recordings.

On 26 March 2007, Patrick Spohrer published the film's official soundtrack listing on PbNation under the username MonkeyWithaGun.

The post identified fourteen recordings, their performers, album information and the sequences in which they appeared.[3]

Official track listing

No.	Song	Artist	Featured sequence
1	Jet Pilot High	The Red Telephone	Opening title sequence
2	Nobody Knows Your Name	Statistics	Germany, first year
3	Massive	The Loved Ones	Orlando
4	Going Home	The After Party	Toulouse, France
5	Heroes	Dean Edwards	Nicky Vegas departure, Huntington Beach and Denver
6	Movement III	Dredg	Modesto practice
7	Penguins in the Desert	Dredg	Pomona
8	The Heavy Persuader	Buckfast Superbee	Huntington Beach
9	By Way of the Valley	Buckfast Superbee	Germany, second year
10	Sleep Walking	Day One Symphony	Amsterdam
11	Static Sonata	Buckfast Superbee	Paris
12	Song for Anthony	Buckfast Superbee	Denver
13	Movement V	Dredg	Denver
14	Somewhere Out There	Bayroot Productions	Closing credits

Source: Patrick Spohrer, "Heroes for a Day - Official Soundtrack Tracklist", PbNation, 26 March 2007.[3]

Albums and recordings

The original soundtrack listing identified the following releases:

Artist	Album or recording
The Red Telephone	Aviation
Statistics	Often Lie
The Loved Ones	The Loved Ones EP
The After Party	Yes Sir
Dean Edwards	Pre-release demo
Dredg	Leitmotif
Buckfast Superbee	Self-titled album and pre-release demos
Day One Symphony	A Vicious Circle
Bayroot Productions	Absolute View

The documentary included several recordings that were not widely commercially distributed when the film was released.

In the contemporary PbNation discussion, Spohrer explained that Dean Edwards and Buckfast Superbee could be contacted about the availability of their recordings.[3]

A separate commercial soundtrack album has not been established by the available sources.

Release and DVD edition

Heroes for a Day was released in 2007.

The original DVD edition included the main documentary and more than 25 minutes of additional material.[1]

Bonus features included outtakes, sponsor material and a hidden video clip that could be unlocked through an online scavenger hunt organised on PbNation.

The physical edition also included a 45-page collector's booklet containing photographs from the production and a complete discography of the fourteen recordings used in the film.[1]

The production was released without a formal film classification. Its original packaging advised parental guidance for viewers under 17 because of strong language.[1]

Reception and significance

Contemporary WARPIG reviewer Bill Mills examined the film as a documentary about the lives of professional paintball players rather than a conventional tournament highlight video.

The review highlighted the film's access to XSV's internal activities and the contrast between tournament competition and the players' lives away from the field.[1]

Heroes for a Day differed from earlier Monkey With a Gun productions through its sustained focus on a single team and its development over multiple seasons.

The documentary also preserved footage of XSV during an important period of change in professional tournament paintball, including the expansion of X-Ball and the continuing competition between American and European tournament circuits.

Availability

Heroes for a Day: The XSV Story has subsequently been made available through Major League Paintball PLUS as part of its Monkey With a Gun documentary collection.

The streaming edition has a running time of 2 hours, 16 minutes and 35 seconds.

A separate commentary edition of the documentary is also available through the platform.[2]

References

External links