However, the most coveted interview was with David - and it proved nearly impossible to get. “We hounded him for over a year, just trying to get him to answer our calls,” said LaMendola.įinally, David’s secretary relented. So for four years we would just get together as much money as we could to either shoot an interview or get some archival.” “Once we shot those interviews, it was one piece of the puzzle that we would use to try to get financing for like the next piece. Said LaMendola, “It took a long time to convince them both, too, that it was something worth doing,” and build trust there were also safety concerns about Los Angeles gang activity. The next year, LaMendola filmed side-by-side interviews with Melnik and Catalan, who have become best friends since their days as attorney and client. With the support of his partners at New York production company Hayden 5, he began by flying to California to record five days of interviews with Melnik. LaMendola, who previously directed several shorts, was fascinated by the tricky case - but it also proved to be a tricky story to tell. After six months in jail, Catalan was freed and later awarded a $320,000 settlement for police misconduct four other men were found guilty of Puebla’s murder. Cellphone tower data also placed Catalan near the stadium. Melnik learned that the cameras belonged to HBO, consulted their timecoded takes, and was astonished to see Catalan and his daughter returning from a snack run to their row, mere feet from where David stood.
But Catalan pled innocence that night, he said, he was at a Dodger game with his daughter and some friends. They believed he had a motive: Days before her death, Puebla testified in a murder case in which Catalan’s brother was a co-defendant, with Catalan looking on. Three months later, police arrested Juan Catalan, a machinist who resembed a sketch artist’s composite. This was the backstory: The victim, 16-year-old Martha Puebla, was shot and killed on her Los Angeles doorstep in May 2003. It took LaMendola five years to make the 40-minute documentary: “I knew that it was worth taking the time to tell it correctly,” he said. Telling that story became “ Long Shot,” which is now streaming on Netflix.
Instead, the top entry explained that outtakes from “The Carpool Lane” - the season-four installment in which creator and star Larry David evaded traffic by inviting a prostitute to a Dodger game - exonerated a murder suspect. NYU film grad Jacob LaMendola visited the “ Curb Your Enthusiasm” trivia page on IMDB on a lazy day in 2012, expecting to find frivolities like how many f-bombs Susie Essman dropped in her angriest episode.