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spring 2026
Photograph (left) Jordan Bank/Getty Images
n the first day of shooting a new documentary about New England Patriots captain Marcus Jones, Suffolk filmmaker Daniel Weidknecht, BS ’09, MBA ’24, and his students found themselves in a field behind Jones’ house struggling to capture the cornerback’s trademark speed in action. “We
The team eventually ended up with three storylines, with the first following Jones’ remarkable journey into football. The same day the team had him running sprints in the field, they interviewed Jones’ parents, Marc and Viola. His father described how, when Jones was just 4 years old, they signed a waiver for him to play with older kids, his feet dangling off the bench. “He was just so persistent to play the game, he developed the work ethic to play the game,” his father, a retired army veteran, said.
That work ethic eventually led to Jones’ drafting by the Patriots in 2022. Just three years later, his teammates voted him one of their 2025 captains.
At the same time, the Suffolk filmmakers captured Jones’ on-field journey throughout the season, which presented its own triumphs and challenges. Looking at the schedule beforehand, Weidknecht figured the Patriots would win easy games in the beginning, then lose some in a tough middle patch, before eventually triumphing to enter the playoffs.
“That’s the perfect story structure, right?” he says. “But that’s not what happened.” The Patriots continued to win all season, securing a first-place finish in the AFC East with a record of 14–3, undercutting that imagined dramatic arc.
“If you end up with the story you imagined at the beginning, you haven’t been listening along the way,” Weidknecht says, quoting the famed documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles.
Instead, the filmmakers found drama in individual games. Jones returned not one but two punts for touchdowns—including a 94-yard run against the Giants on Monday Night Football—and converted an interception into a pick-six defensive touchdown during the postseason.
They also found quieter drama in the third storyline, capturing Jones’ off-field life, as he navigated buying a home and negotiating his first major contract.
Despite Jones’ obvious charisma, the filmmakers found him somewhat reticent in talking about his own life. To compensate, they relied on his family and friends to tell his story, including his girlfriend, Imani Corinne Matthews, whose bright smile and energetic personality became the perfect foil to Jones’ quiet charm. A fashion influencer and charity promoter, Matthews steals the scenes she is in, bantering with Jones at a farmers market, or cajoling him into sampling seasonal treats at Boston’s Snowport Holiday Market. “We shifted our story to focus more on Imani and viewing Marcus through Imani’s lens,” says Jesski.
To meld those stories, says Weidknecht, the filmmakers developed separate visual languages. For the on-field heroics, they used a “sexy look, almost like a Nike commercial,” he says, while for the off-field sections they shifted to a more intimate visual style.
“We wanted to humanize Marcus, and put the audience inside of his shoes,” Weidknecht says. “So there’s an ebb and flow to the story, a dynamic push and pull. Are we in his shoes or outside looking at him? When he makes a big play or signs a new contract we let the momentum build, and then we have this big change and take a breath.”
A dynamic duo
were running around with a camera rig trying to keep up with one of the fastest people in the NFL,” Weidknecht remembers.
At one point, they had Jones run toward a student lying on the ground holding a camera. As he hurdled over the student at the last moment, all Weidknecht could think was Please don’t break your ankle.
Injury risks aside, the resulting footage succeeds in capturing Jones’ unmatched energy and exuberance. As captain, cornerback, and return specialist, Jones was a key asset in the Patriots’ run to the Super Bowl this past season. At five-foot-eight and 185 pounds, Jones is tiny by NFL standards—but more than makes up for his lack of size with his lightning speed and uncanny ability to backpedal as he sticks to receivers and disrupts their passes.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, I feel as though [cornerback] is the hardest position other than quarterback,” Jones says in a rough cut of the film. “Everything that people do forward, we do backwards.”
From the beginning, Weidknecht and a team of Suffolk students and alums were there to capture all the ups and downs of what turned into a breakout season for Jones, creating a portrait of his life both on and off the field.
Little did Weidknecht—a lecturer in the Communication, Journalism & Media Department, as well as manager of Suffolk’s production program and facilities—know what he’d be getting into when he first received a call from his former student Hannah Arroyo, BA ’20, a community relations specialist with the Patriots, telling him Jones wanted to collaborate on filming.
“I thought we’d get five people together over the summer to film what he does in the off-season,” he remembers. Instead, it was clear from their very first Zoom meeting that Jones had something else in mind. A film buff himself, Jones showed up for the meeting wearing a camera rig, talking shop about film technique as he proposed a multipart series that would follow his entire season.
Ultimately the project evolved into a feature-length documentary, as Weidknecht drafted a lineup of some 40 Suffolk film students and alums to follow Jones around for 20 weeks. Weidknecht divvied up his team into roles as producers, directors, and camerapeople, handing over the reins to serve in a “showrunner” role. In reality, team members pitched in wherever they were needed. “You had producers behind the camera, holding the boom pole,” Weidknecht says. “From a teaching perspective, it allowed for a lot more ‘touches on the ball.’”
One of the directors, Chris Jesski, found the project’s decentralized structure invigorating. “It’s been an incredible experience to collaborate with so many different creative minds,” says the senior marketing major. “We hear everybody’s ideas on what we have, what we need, and where we want to go, and for the most part they align—and when they don’t, it’s a great challenge that makes you think outside the box together.”
Senior biology major Kostas Winslow was taking a film-production class with Weidknecht, working on a science documentary, when he heard about the Jones project and enthusiastically volunteered. As the film’s sound producer, he worked to capture the background noises of Gillette Stadium and researched New England musicians who match the type of music Jones listens to. “I felt like if this is the New England Patriots, we needed to get some New England artists involved,” he says.
“No one [in the film industry] cares what grade you got in Professor Dan’s class—you don’t get a job based on that,” says Weidknecht, with Meghan Flaherty, BA ’25, while filming on site in Foxborough. “You get a job based on finishing a project you can take to an employer and say, ‘Yes, I can do that, because I’ve already done that.’”
that's a wrap
Over the course of 20 weeks, student and alumni filmmakers like Delarose Mahmoud, BA ’25, and Lydia Comprosky, BA ’25, participated in every aspect of production, swapping roles as needed. “From a teaching perspective,” says Dan Weidknecht, lecturer in the Communication, Journalism & Media Department, as well as manager of Suffolk’s production program and facilities, “it allowed for a lot more ‘touches on the ball.’”
BEHIND THE SEASON
As with any project of this magnitude, the film shoot was not without challenges, especially deeper in the season as Jones’ availability became more limited. Often, Weidknecht would have to assemble his crew at a moment’s notice—calling students in the evening to meet down in Foxborough the next afternoon, ready to film—and planned shoots were sometimes canceled last minute.
“There are definitely moments you can get a little stressed, but it’s been such an incredible learning experience,” says Jesski. “You have to remember things will go wrong, and it’s just a matter of going onto the next thing and finding what works.”
While the Patriots didn’t end up winning the Super Bowl, the Suffolk filmmaking team captured a unique portrait of a burgeoning superstar on and off the gridiron. Currently, the team is editing the film, hoping to finish by summer so they can enter the documentary into fall film festivals. Weidknecht also plans to screen the film at Suffolk as well as in Foxborough for the team, and will be releasing clips on Instagram, TikTok, and other social media.
For students and alumni, the project was a hands-on crash course in filmmaking. They learned how to collaborate and make crucial decisions on the fly, and even got comfortable working with a celebrity. “You learn how to communicate with stars who are skilled in their field,” says Ian De Musis, BS ’23, who worked on sound. “It demystifies the process when you make a joke and an NFL star laughs, or have a conversation about what kind of music he likes. We ate his hot dogs and sat on his couch.”
Beyond sharpening their hard and soft skills, students also earned marquee credits for their résumés: a documentary headed to festivals. “No one cares what grade you got in Professor Dan’s class—you don’t get a job based on that,” says Weidknecht of the film industry. “You get a job based on finishing a project you can take to an employer and say, ‘Yes, I can do that, because I’ve already done that.’”
The experience also forged lasting creative partnerships. Two film-production houses emerged from the experience, says Weidknecht, including one helmed by Jesski, who already has several documentaries and features in development. “At the end of the day, my goal is to be a director,” he says. “It truly is my calling.” Perhaps that’s the most important lesson the student filmmakers learned from Marcus Jones: When you get the ball, run like hell and don’t stop until you reach your goal.
The human element
At one point, the student filmmakers (at left) had Jones run toward a student lying on the ground holding a camera. As he hurdled over the student at the last moment, all Weidknecht could think was Please don’t break your ankle.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
watch a preview of the Marcus Jones documentary
By Michael Blanding
Photographs by Michael J. Clarke
Photographs from top: Nancy Gonzales, courtesy of BeSpoke