Rock School's in Session

Better Than Black

Green says that if the filmmakers had come a few years earlier than they did, they would have stumbled upon the same sorts of kids -- the promising few, the misfits and some youngsters who didn't know their way yet -- but there wouldn't have been much action. "It would have been me sitting around with a couple of kids playing video games," he says. If they had come even a few months later, they would have missed most of Green's antics, since he has now taken on more of a managerial role, overseeing branches of the music program in New York and several other cities, and he has moved to New York with his wife and son.

While the filmmakers may have been right on with their timing, that wasn't their only potential obstacle. "Our biggest challenge was how not to paint Paul as an a**hole all the time," says Argott. "That's one aspect of his teaching style, but not the whole thing. He's a really complex personality. You don't want the audience to make up their minds right away. At the end, hopefully, they're rooting for him."

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