#71 – George Kroeker & Ian Rodriguez: Redefining the Running Documentary

29:33But seeing it just be the way it is now has been very, it's been very just encouraging to see. So I would say, yes, it is kind of now a, we say we're not a Christian company, but there's a lot of Christians here. Right. And I think the one thing to that point that like faith plays a role in is we, I think in a workplace like this where you have a lot of like-minded people with you, I think we're aligned in the sense of like, we're not all doing it for like personal gain. I think just having a group of guys that are just like-minded and have just a belief in God and what that means. We're all working towards advancing the kingdom and not ourselves.

30:24And so I've worked with people who are very much in it for their own glorification. But I know here when we make something, we all celebrate it. And when something doesn't work, we pick each other up. I think those are qualities found in other believers. And so I think that lends a lot to the process of us just being able to work well around each other. And yeah, I mean, I've seen this guy grow in his faith. When I first came here, we were trying to read the Bible together, and he was just going through it for the first time. But it's so much fun to watch. And I just see it like, I see the blessings not only in like our personal lives, but as the business grows, like just the way that it continues to intersect is just so such an answered prayer.

31:09Yeah. Love to see what's going on right now. It's so cool. Amazing. I want to jump right into the title, Surrender, because I think surrender itself has a lot of meaning just by that word. And watching the film, I felt a sense of faith just within it. There are some themes and things that I felt just sort of in the air while watching it. And I think that the film itself has a lot of these sort of like ethereal sort of feelings, like a lot of pads in the song, a lot of synths, a lot of just like ethereal sort of soundscapes in my head, a lot of slow motion, a lot of things that I don't also normally see in documentaries that have this sort of stylized approach.

31:56But before we dive into sort of like the visual approach and just how you created this, I'd love to hear about the title Surrender and how that came to be and sort of the meaning behind it. Yeah. Yeah. You want to go? Yeah. Well, again, we were using Milano a lot and we in the main, as soon as you open this board, there's a ton of things. But one of them was a section of potential titles. And so as we edit or as we were going through footage, because we spent probably like a month going through footage. Because a little backstory on Dead East, the way we found Dead East title for the Speed Project was someone said it offhand on one of the nights.

32:35And it just had a nice ring to it. And we had some potential titles, but none of them were Dead East. And so we're like, when I heard that one, we're like, what do you think? And we both knew in that moment, that's what it should be called. And so with Surrender, we had a bunch of potential names. And the one that I remember putting, I put Surrender on there. I was like, I like this one. And the main reason was not only is it very symbolic to what the two winners had to do to come to a, for there to be a proper ending, both of them had to surrender in order to have like this poetic ending. Because it's not a last man standing official race.

33:15It is that type of format, but technically there's only one winner. And so the fact that we had two and they both had to surrender to get to this point, I was like, one, it fits that. And then two, as believers, I'm like, dude, surrender to Christ, dude. Like it's just such an important act that you need to do in order to actually like receive. And so surrender just kind of came very naturally as we were, like, I think this is probably what, like three weeks before? yeah i want to say it was like it was like either it was more than a month before the finish i i know that i wasn't i wasn't too hyped on it at first mostly because when we going back to dead east when he said dead east i knew immediately i was like this is the title it's perfect and so i was waiting for that like that feeling like yeah which unfortunately didn't come but uh he he was persistent on it and the more the more i thought about it and the more because i was working with the dialogue for the bull a lot at that point and just kind of going back to that like okay what does this mean i just kept coming back to it i was like all right this this is the one it wasn't like a moment where i was like oh this is the title but i think over time i was like okay this this this fits what we need so yeah worked out yeah and what was very timely around that time was nick had said because we told him the title because once it was official because we put it on branding and the thumbnail and everything.

34:39He was like, we told him the name of it. And he was like, that's been a, that's been a word in my vocabulary a lot recently, surrender. And I was like, that's not by any kind of, uh, that's not a coincidence. Yeah. Amazing. When, when this whole race started and you guys were tasked to sort of like document it, what was your sort of intention going? Did you know that you were going to make this sort of feature long documentary about this project? I mean, if I can speak for a second, I think with any of these projects, there's a level of unknown where you can, you can prepare as much as you want and you can spend a lot of time in pre-production, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to wait and just see what plays out.

35:27I mean, we, we spent, this was probably the project we spent the most time in pre-production with. I mean, and pre-production for us, uh, for context is usually very short, like only a week or two and like very few meetings. I mean, this one, I remember Ian working on just some ideas for over a month and we had a lot of concepts, sort of a rough outline of like what could happen, but really no clue what would actually go down. I mean, this is the first year of this race, like the first year of it being put together. And I remember like Hope and Tony, um, they're like co-race directors talking about like people coming in they're just like we have no idea like this could go for 24 hours this could go for a week there's just so much unknown and so i remember at one point we were looking through the people who had entered the lottery who had like gotten into the race and we were like finding their instagram and finding photos and trying to figure out like okay who's actually going to go that far right and the funny part is like kim wasn't even on that list like we didn't even know who he was until two days into the race someone had told us There's so many big names of people that competed that you would think would go forever.

36:33Yeah. Which is, that's another reason that we thought this story was, it was served on a silver platter because the characters that won were people we didn't expect. They didn't have a following. They were both underdogs. So you just had so much going to root for them. And it was fun to tell a story that where we hadn't, it wasn't a BPN athlete or it wasn't Nick. It was just very interesting to tell a story about like Kim and Kendall. Yeah. What is his pre-production? Kim and Kendall. Yeah, right. What is it? Like legitimately, what does a pre-production look like in a project where you have no idea how long it's going to last for?

37:12Logistically, how do you prepare for this with your team or your crew? People shooting, you know, backing up foot. Like that logistically, it sounds insane to be able to prepare for this. Thankfully we had, we've done like, like these ultras usually go more than a day anyway. So when we did Leadville, that was an overnight thing. When we, when we did survive the night, that was an overnight thing. And we, we went to Leadville back for another athlete before. Last year. Yeah. Last year. So we're like aware of the, of the load that that brings. So we knew storage is going to be key, but we also knew uh that we can't expect people to stay out for two days straight like you just won't be in the right mind to to work so again a big credit to Jordan is he figured out the shifts uh for like when the like team one will go and sleep first and then team two will go once these guys come back so once we had that rhythm going it was pretty it was that was pretty straightforward because we knew storage-wise that dumping the footage would be like day one and then the camera names.

38:18It wasn't – should we have done more? Maybe. But it was enough to get us through. The main thing is to make sure the footage made it, to make sure people were rested, to make sure we had outlets to charge all the camera gear. Keeping it simple was kind of key for this because if there's too many moving parts, it's only going to get more complicated. Yeah, to add on to that, I think, like, our team is very used to this kind of uh style of work and not in the sense of like length this is the longest like shoot that we've done collectively but all of us are very familiar with like this run and gun style i mean we had shot lists but a lot of our work is very much in the moment you just have to be on your feet and just be creative and so like that was that was a big part was like knowing like okay all of us have done these events we've proven ourselves like at leadville these overnight races like we've all been through that and so there's a lot of trust again involved with just knowing what we need to get and then just giving people the freedom in the moment to stick with it.

39:16One thing I will say that was different about this project is we knew, this was an idea that Ian and I talked about, I think a week or two before the race, was like, if the race would go down the way we thought it would, which at the time was other competitors, so different people, both of us, I think to take a side note for a second, we're both very influenced by other films and directors. I think both of us have a passion for just telling stories. And so when we look at inspiration or things to pull from, none of it is on YouTube and it's not like other docs or things like that. We're just looking at films.

39:52And I think both of us, we're at a point where I think we want to try something more filmic. What does that look like? I don't know. Okay. We're like, can we do this without interviews? And the main thing I was trying to push for was like creating scenes. I was like, we have to get comfortable with these racers as soon as possible so that they're, they're like comfortable with talking to each other with us in the mix. And like, especially if we're like very close on someone and naturally in a race like this, like as it thins out, you start to see the same people and then it's down to like four or five and then it's just two.

40:22And so now you're kind of, you're kind of friends with the crew. So they give you a lot of leeway to kind of just be in their face and they talk. But that was the big thing was like we knew from the start we didn't want to do interviews. I've seen so many docs that have that. I was like, I want this to feel like a film, to go through it in that structure. And that was just a guess, sort of a shot in the dark. And then when we were standing in that house after the race had been decided, I remember thinking, this is too good not to do it like this. I was like, this is such a perfect, like, filmic way to tell this story.

40:54The way it ends is so poetic. like there's no way we can't like try and do it in this way so that was like from the start we wanted with an idea of like i think we can pull this off but as the race progressed and then the way it ended it was like okay this we have to do it this way yeah i was just doubled down the the main like the big direction was ultimately it's gonna we're gonna start wide and we'll narrow in because that's the the nature of this race it's gonna dwindle down and so we knew start wide get Like you said, get comfortable with people because we're mindful of the – cameras can be – for the first time people like on camera, they can be like – they'll just make eye contact with it or they think they have to speak to the camera.

41:34Throw a peace sign. They'll throw a peace sign. I'm guilty of that. Yeah. I mean that's what I would do. And so we knew we had to get ahead of – he had a very great call like let's get ahead of this. Let's make people comfortable with us. and being comfortable with essentially directing people a little bit with saying like, hey, don't look at the camera. Like simple as that. Like if I ask you a question or if you're going to speak, try to speak to your team or you can talk to me because we'll try to hold the camera a certain way. But yeah, it sounds silly, but it helps a lot to just get uncomfortable a little bit with telling someone like, hey, this is my job at the end of the day.

42:13And so if you can, like you said, we had these scenes in mind. And we knew how we would want these talking parts to look like. And so it's shooting for it and just praying it works and that people remember when the next time you see them to not do it. So just start wide and then focus in. And again, like you said, trust. We knew that the guys that we had on the team, which is Landry, Steven, Trevor, Oz, George, and I. And Sam. And Sam. Sam was a freelance friend of ours that came in. we knew that we could trust them to get footage that we would like be happy with essentially did you talk about style beforehand about like these are the this is kind of what we're looking to get whether it's normal speed whether it's slow motion or drag shut like in terms of style how do you communicate with your team like we need to make sure we cover all of our bases here but still feel creative in your ability to shoot something yeah well that was one of the like the the meetings beforehand or a couple meetings was like you said we were referencing films a lot and we like watching like 2000s and 2010 films and for some reason that era they loved using like compression it was very like the long lenses everything looks bigger it just looks really cool and so we knew the one the one note that i i really wanted us to do because i know that also we can't be too crazy like i know as as as creative as we want to be we're both still very much aware of like hey it has to also be bpn like filter it through the through the lens of bpn and so i couldn't be like hey everyone we're not going tight we're only going as tight as 100 millimeters like it was i was there's a little bit of compromise and the one thing we did say was like the more compression the better so if you guys can uh stay don't go wider than 50 millimeters like if you if you absolutely have to maybe but it was really if you need a wider shot just move back and keep it compressed.

44:11It just, it looks better. It looks different. That was the thing. Different was kind of the common word. And one of those ways, visually, we can keep things looking compressed. It will look different. And it helps for just not having to be so close to the runners and their crew when they're having moments. So it lends itself to it. And then using frameset or other images that we find, we throw it in Milanote and we have references like, all right, this is how close-ups can look. or if you're going to shoot, look for ways to dirty the frame and shoot through the tents, shoot through the bottles or things.

44:45And also, the other note I remember that I think was helpful was, however you think a doc would normally do an establishing scene, don't do that. It's like, yeah, if it's going to be a wide establishing, go for a tight establishing on somebody. Like, just go against what you think is going to be the move. I remember when you said that, and I just remember fighting this feeling in me at the moment to be like, but what about this? Because he wrote that out on the list for the meeting was like, don't get the safe shot. Or I think it was when you were talking about the compression. He was like, don't go wider than 50.

45:22And I was like, dang it. I love a good 24 close up. But that was absolutely the right call. I think, yeah, like he's talking about you need a balance of direction and then also freedom. So like, you don't want to give the team too many rules to where they like feel bound in, where they like can't be creative. But at the same time, like you want to give them some direction. And all of those guys that he mentioned, like they do a really good job of like taking direction from us and like doing it in a way that is very similar. I think we all have a good taste for what BPN media should look like. And so they did a great job of like following what we wanted.

45:57But at first I was a little bit hesitant. But then once we got out there and we started using the lenses, and the main thing was like we're using some like some zoom cine lenses. And so the reason for the not wider than 50 is because they were like it was like a 35 to 180. 35 to 80. 35 to 80. Yeah, 35 to 80. So we're just like telling the guys like don't go below 50. And visually it was also we all shot on Sony FX6s. The gimbal stuff was on FX3, very similar image. And then we all had the same lenses. we did have one extra camera which was the uh for the super slow-mo things that was the ember um and but that's super that super slow stuff was really really impactful yeah like that was it was those were amazing things i remember in the pre-production was like well how else can this be different it's like dude i know about this one camera that i've never used it before i i've heard about it and i knew you could get off lens rentals and so i was like dude if we can use this for the moments we thought it was like let's say they dropped the poker chip and the thing or let's say it's at the we knew there was going to be water moments where they're going to spray spray water over themselves.

47:03I'm like, if you can just show that we weren't going to reinvent the wheel. But if we could show it, it's a little bit more different. It's fun. It's also more fun as the filmmakers is to like, let's try this out. Let's see how this looks. And so yeah, the cameras are similar, lenses were similar. The direction was there. And again, back to the trust, we trusted everyone to be able to like have be able to lock in that during that shoot to have a very similar um eye for what we wanted the story to be was there a moment during the race where you guys looked at each other or like something is different for this something is happening like there is something we're not expecting is going on right now storm maybe yeah i think the the first time that i was really like surprised or like I knew this was different is we during the third day I mean the whole race itself is such a spectacle I mean that's what we kept reminding ourselves in post was like just because we know how this type of race works and we talk about backyard ultras all the time doesn't mean the audience knows and just the whole idea of like running until you can't is such a such an interesting concept and so like that that was fun to see but like when it really started to feel different.

48:15I remember this was day three and, and in the film, this is right. Like around when Kim falls asleep, like every single lap, someone would text the group chat or like be on the radio and be like, okay, this is someone's last lap. They're like, all right, Kim's, Kim's going in. He's done. This is it. Everyone get ready. And so we would all get ready at base camp. We all knew, okay, like I gotta be on this person. Someone's gonna get the wide shot. This guy's gonna go out here and do this. We're all like ready for something to happen. And then they would come in they drink some electrolytes take a gel and they'd go back out again and this was every lap like literally right up until the last lap it was like every time someone someone either heard from somebody or someone said something then they were like this is it the race is over and i think just after like three or four times of that you're like okay whatever but i think that that to me was like okay this is different the fact that like you're watching these two guys come in every lap and they're both, they look dead.

49:08I mean, especially like Kim on that, that third morning just looked awful. And then Kendall right before the storm, you're like, how are they still going? And then you watch them go back out again. And it's like, that kind of stuff to like be in front of and witness and film is like the thing you pray for is like a documentary filmmaker. Cause it's like, it's, it's tension and drama that you can't fake. And like the crews are running around and they're worried about their person. They're like, where is he like that that's so much fun because it's it's just real and it's in the moment and especially when you can you can be with a group of shooters who like know what they need to get and they can nail the right angles and the right person and like you come back to it in post and the the scene is like there and you can feel it that's such a fun feeling the early the early on moment for me was uh was kind of i think uh when chad dnf'd when chad right dnf'd yeah i was like whoa i thought this it goes against what you expected like i thought this guy would make it well beyond past this.

50:00So when that happened, that was kind of an early sign of, dude, this race is, it's different because one, it was hot and people weren't used to it. A lot of people aren't used to it. A lot of people came from out of Texas. Like the two winners, one is from Germany and the other is from Costa Rica who was staying in Australia. So when Chad DNF, that was for me like, okay, this is interesting. You really can't make any bets right now. And so, yeah. And the final one was really the storm when the storm started brewing i can remember like maybe just because visually it looks so different it was like blue hour forever and we were just like dude this something there's something happening something's coming we could really feel like something was coming yeah yeah well when the race ended obviously after three days and the way that it ended i can't imagine the sort of feeling of what that was like and you know witnessing what those two people did had to have give some sort of feeling of inspiration and just like a burst of energy to a degree and i'm curious like when that race ended how long did it take for you guys to sit in front of a computer and start seeing those clips because i feel like there's some momentum that you kind of want to kind of have without taking too long of a break after that race yeah i think it was really like a week or two before we were actually able to kind of sit down.

51:22I think the, we were both like amped to go. But unfortunately there was like three other things going on that needed to be wrapped up. I had to jump out and like DP the summer sale campaign and then go to Chicago for something. And so I was feeling this tug constantly of like, I need to be back. I need to be looking at this, I need to be working on the story. Cause you kind of look at the calendar and, you know, know we set the date for september pretty early um you're like all right that's that's 12 weeks but then you're spending a week on this one shoot and then another week on something else you're like dang i gotta get back back to it so it was about say two and a half weeks and then he was on vacation for a bit got engaged congratulations amazing yeah but it was about like two and a half weeks before we were both together like both sitting down like fully into it but i was itching to get into it for quite a while yeah yeah who started to edit first and what was that first sort of sit down moment like when you open the i think it was uh i think george got in on it first because he he started you start oh well i think i made the team project but then you organized everything right yeah i mean it it was really both of us there was never like oh edit edit edit though was by the same time but you got into the organizing everything yeah we spent a good third of the entire like post-production just on sorting and organizing the footage sure yeah um one thing that i'll say real quick is both of us like try to be like constant students and so uh i i think i work my best when i'm able to be like learning something at the same time and it always seems like certain books and certain things just fall into our lap at the right time and there were there were two very important books that showed up, um, kind of like right at the beginning of this process.

53:11So literally right after the race, I ordered these two books. Um, and it's story by Robert McKee and then save the cat by Blake Snyder. And they're both books on screenwriting, which you would think is like, it doesn't apply, but those were absolutely like vital to what we needed to know for the storyline. Because like we both felt the weight, uh, like you said, of being at that race and seeing what happened. We're like, okay, this story deserves a different level of attention. And so when we sat down to the edit, it was really just notes we had taken from this book. I'm like, because both of us know, I don't want to say the basics, but you talk about the hero's journey and how to structure a film.

53:56There's very broad strokes to it that we had both understood, but this was our first time really kind of getting into like the nitty gritty of like, okay, how do you understand like a character arc? And like, okay, why does this like a screenplay have to work a certain way? And both of those books were very helpful because it allowed us to view the film through a mindset of like the story first. And so within that first month of post-production, we were organizing footage, yes, but we were really trying to build out the story. And so every scene, every montage was on a sticky note on a board between our desks and then in Milanote as well to keep it like congruent.

54:32But we put everything on there. And so the entire film was written out scene by scene before we even started the actual edit. So before we even had like a first assembly, we had the entire film written out, each scene, each act, like we'd split it all up and we had matched it to the beats. There's something that in the book, Save the Cat called the, what is it? The Blake Snyder beat sheet, but it's essentially a it's similar to the hero's journey in the way that like how you break up a good story like what each section should be how it influences the characters what it does to the arc how how the action should feel and so we kind of use that as a guide to like break up each scene identify the characters and really build it out like we would a script and that was the goal like do we want to put the story first and then and then we'll get into actually putting all the scenes together amazing yeah that was how we knew too that the story was kind of like i said served on a silver platter because as we were going through the footage and referencing the beat sheet, we were like, dude, this is this moment.

55:29Dude, this is the catalyst. This is the beat story. This is like, it was there. You just have to spend the time to, you have to have the patience to get through the footage and think about it. Not only is it there, but is there enough footage to actually build that scene out? So yeah, those two books were huge for this one. And it gave us a lot of, uh, cause we knew it wasn't a strict outline. It was more of a, like you said, a guide. It can help us get through it. Um, and ultimately it did. And we were just very blessed that it ended up fitting kind of to a T. Yeah. Were there any specifically challenging moments in post-production where you, you guys struggled to maybe find a new avenue or push through something?

56:11Maybe it was writer's block or something along those lines where, uh, it was, it was really challenging. Were there any moments where you had to find you had to push through those? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say initially the first draft or the first idea was we knew we didn't want to do interviews. So we're like, oh, maybe we will need some kind of exposition to give the people a lot of information. Because we didn't get someone saying this is a 4.2 mile loop. And we didn't capture it in a way that we wanted to show it. That's really the thing. And so we're like, all right, maybe a narrator is justified for this film.

56:52And so we had the narrator in Act 1 and maybe Act 2. But as we spent more time in it, I was like, dude, there isn't a need for the narrator in Act 3. And so we kind of just thought about, okay, how can we alleviate the problem of the narrator in the beginning? and referencing Robert McKee's book, one thing he said that really made me go like to challenge ourselves to figure this out was, he says cinema is telling the story by connecting image A to image B. And he says a lot of modern day or a lot of new films tend to end up becoming like audio tapes or audio books because there's so much voiceover.

57:33There's so much narration. And not that narration is bad. And I also, when I tell people this, a lot of them will say, oh yeah, narration is the easy out. But I can't stress enough. It sounds like the easy out, but it can go really bad really fast. Some of my favorite films have narrators, and there's also really bad ones that have narrators. So the line of a great narrator and a terrible narrator is very thin. And so I realized the pressure to make a narrator was like, if we can alleviate the narrator, one, it's more true to cinema, and two, it's a big weight off of our shoulders because it's you're getting more time to really flesh out this voice and so we figured out like okay we just have to uh have the exposition be here and here and the challenging part was because it's out of our comfort zone to to recreate scenes and um i was gonna ask that i was gonna ask that too if you guys had to do any recreations yeah quite a few Yeah, yeah.

58:35A lot of you. And that was like the challenging part is because as we were planning them out in Millano, we're like, we're both kind of not scared, but we knew this was out of our comfort zone. But at that exact same time, we said, I think that's why we think we should do it because it's kind of, it's almost, it's exciting. And then we said this to our CFO, Josh Hawley, who he's just a great leader and great mentor for a lot of things. And when I told him that moment, he said like in an offhand remark, he's like, those are usually go hand in hand when you do something out of your comfort zone.

59:11But you experience a lot of growth from it. So he was like, they usually go hand in hand, which is no surprise. So I think that was one. Yeah. I mean, just to piggyback on that for a second. Yeah, just deciding the moment we were like, okay, we can't use a narrator because we knew there needed to be exposition. You don't have interviews. and then I just remember Ian brought up that point from that book and in the back of my head I'm thinking I know he's right like I know we can't if we're going to do this because there's already at that moment we still had the voice of the bull in there as well so there's going to be like two narrators like that's confusing and then yeah the narrator wasn't even really needed after act one like I had written some stuff but only because I was like oh we have to have the narrator in here I was like this is such a backwards way to look at it but he said that and then immediately my mind jumped to like some scenes or like ideas of scenes from other movies.

1:00:00I was like, okay, we could do this. And to Ian's point, it feels risky. But at the same time, I was like, dude, if we can do this, it's going to make it feel more like a film. And that gets me fired up. I'm like, if they can keep people in the story and like you can get away with like, just like doing it in a way that's more natural to what the story calls for. I was like, that would be sick. But at the same time, it's like, okay, it's a little bit of a risk. We got to write it out. but there was never a moment where I like questioned like, Oh, can we do this? I just knew it would take a lot of work and refining to like get the scripts and the everything we needed in the logistics to a point where it felt natural.

1:00:35And there was a lot of like playing around with scenes back and forth of like trying to make them feel as natural as possible and get them in there. And, you know, you bring like Jordan in cause you're too in your, too in your head about it a little bit and you kind of get fed up with a certain sequence. But I think in the end it worked out really well. And I'm glad that we went that route cause it was, it was not the easy path. It was the better path. Amazing. What is the symbolism for the bull and the voiceover of the bull? And just what does that symbolize mean for you? And was that something that you initially wanted in the film?

1:01:08Or is that something you found after and in the edit? you mind if I yeah yeah uh that was probably like one of the most fun parts of this process was again we both wanted to make a movie I mean we both love movies and so it's like anything that we can add to make the experience more I think you used the word ethereal at the beginning but just bigger is the word I would use just wanting it to feel big and like have some more meaning involved I love when you watch a film and it it it shows you a picture of life but it also gives you a look into something and when you can pick up on the symbolic details, even if it's the smallest little thing, like that to me is such a, a fun thing to uncover, especially when it's not told to you outright, like you have to kind of figure it out.

1:01:52And before the race even started, we had talked about some symbolism that we knew could work. We had an idea. There was some like Breaking Bad-esque ideas for a minute, like with this apple, like, like slowly decaying. There was some wild stuff we thought about, like what could symbolize time passing. It really just started as like, okay, is there an interesting way to show the other side of this race? Because the big thing with this story is the runners are fighting each other, but they're also fighting the ranch in a way. And the ranch itself, we knew that the ranch had to be its own character.

1:02:31And it started very vague. At first, it was just going to be a certain type of shot. We were going to use these like, really what it ended up with is those push-in dolly shots of the trees towards the end of the film. That was sort of the idea for the ranch being a character. We needed an antagonist. We needed an antagonist. And the problem is there's no winners. So it's like Kim and Kendall can't hate each other. They're both heroes. They have their ups and downs, but they have to end the film. They have to go into the storm even. They have to be on the same playing field, and they have to both be like, for lack of a better term, they both have to surrender to win.

1:03:05um and so really there was a discussion i don't remember who brought it up but we like okay there's there's some bulls there was a the the backstory for this is last year we had like an overnight race for like 100 people very low key but the the ranch at the time still had cattle on it and one of the bulls got out during the race and so there's this bull his name was big mike big mike was just running around the the race course and he was he was super chill he didn't hurt anybody but you know runners are coming up to the the aid station they're like there's a bull back there just standing on the trail.

1:03:35And we thought people were like joking, but we went back there and yeah, there's big Mike just chilling. And so like the whole idea of like having a bull on the ranch was already just an inside joke with the crew. Like we had, we had a lot of jokes about like big Mike and this bull being on the ranch. And then it somehow came around of like, okay, what if, what if there's a way to use a bull in the film? And the idea really came. And, and this is where I might say like some of those, like other projects I had to work on, like towards the beginning before we got deep into the post-production process were helpful.

1:04:05I was in Chicago and I just had a couple hours to myself where I was trying to work on some ideas. And I was reading about the idea of like the Minotaur from like Greek pathology. And just sort of the idea, it's like the man with the bull head and this creature who lives at the center of this labyrinth that the heroes have to go through. And the more I read about what that character meant and what it symbolized, the more I was like, okay, this is what we're trying to aim for. It's like this character who at first appears against the runners. And then over time, you realize that really the Minotaur is a reflection of your true nature in yourself.

1:04:47And so it's the overcoming of your own nature to achieve a higher state. and the the battle the entire time with that character was how do we do it tastefully because it was it would be very easy to go overboard and make it corny and that was our worst fear is like anything that takes the audience out or makes them think of it in a way that isn't meant to be shown is like the biggest would be the biggest miss from us and it's like plus this is this is a branded film like this is this is bpn it has to fit within like our ecosystem and make sense. It's not a passion project. Yeah, it's not like we're just doing a short film on our own.

1:05:27And so there was a lot of back and forth and a lot of really good conversations that Ian and I both had about what this character meant, who it represented, and really just stripping it back. I mean, the first assembly of this film, some of those dialogue sections were like three minutes long. It was just very, very long and winded. And And shout out to Joe Gatlin, one of our friends. She helped write a lot of the dialogue for the bull. But we had to kind of strip things back in a sense because we were just like, we're showing too much. We're showing too much. How can we show this in a more visual way?

1:06:00Just like show, don't tell and not let the voice just like ride out too long. And so that was the battle we dealt with the entire time. And then I think, yeah, towards the end, once we kind of got the script finalized, it really became clear. And I mean, I was tweaking with some of the phrases and some of the images like right up until the final version. I mean, we were kind of trying different stuff out. But I think in the end, it really worked. And just pulling more out of it and just leading with images made it so much more fun. Yeah. Yeah. We found out very, very fast after that V1 that less is more.

1:06:33Like, yeah, by so much, especially for this type of character, the bull. Yeah. So once we saw that, you have to try it to figure it out. And so it was still, it was worth going for more because you can always strip it back. So, yeah. What is, I'd love to hear from both of you. What throughout this whole process of making surrender do you feel you're most proud of? Here we go. You can go. You want me to go? I'll just, I'll just yell for a minute. So tell me this question again. Yeah. Throughout this whole process of making Surrender from the point where you guys decided to co-direct this together, work together from pre-production to shooting for three days, all the way down to post-production and everything that goes involved, what can you look back for yourself and say, I'm really proud of this?

1:07:29honestly it's the the creative risk we took in and going for something that we weren't a hundred percent sure on if it would land like we knew taking these uh creative risks they're cut there it's a risk so i'm just proud that we weren't afraid to try it and because ultimately what it did it showed us that dude there's so much more we can do in documentary work um and it even uplifted the the guys on the media team like uh landry would like message us and just give us a lot of praise i'm like dude you guys don't know what like how much this movie fired me up essentially and so i'm just proud that we went for it and it showed it unlocked for us a new like just more opportunities because it was just it was just eye-opening so i'm just very proud that we saw the challenge and we didn't get we weren't afraid and we went for it And we grew from it.

1:08:25Yeah. I think kind of similar, but this is the first project that I've been truly satisfied with in a way. And I've worked on a lot of other series and campaign videos and a lot of things. And you're happy with it to an extent. But this is the first thing. I look at it and I look at the way it was received. I'm just very satisfied and grateful. It's like we left nothing on the table. Like we were here like every, every day in and out. And like, there was, there was never a question from him. I mean, shout out to his fiance. Like she let him stay here way longer than he probably should have. Jen's great.

1:09:04Like we, there was a lot of time poured into this and it was all worth it. And just the way it was received was so just so rewarding and just like grateful. I think like looking back, like there's, we can only do as good of a job as what the team gave us when they shot it. And so like even looking through the footage, like in the first month of that process, seeing like just these beautiful frames coming back and like these interactions. And so like you can only make a good film if you have good material. And the material was good. And then I hope like the writing was good. And it just kind of all came together in this way.

1:09:37And like, yeah, so just overall being satisfied with that. And then just being able to edit scenes in a way and like having dialogue and characters was just like it's a lot of fun. Like it's a lot of fun to to work on that stuff. And when you can like put this sequence together or this scene that wasn't working and it like finally fits, like that was a joy. One person that we like referenced a lot, he's been on a bunch of podcasts, but Eddie Hamilton, he's like the editor behind a lot of like the Mission Impossible films. But he's been very open about his process. And one thing that he said that I resonated with a lot was that when you're deep in the edit and you have to like go back and watch things through again and again, you have to watch the entire film through.

1:10:16He just comes at it with a sense of enthusiasm and joy. He just, every time he says, like, I want to treat it like how the audience is going to see it for the first time. And just, like, never get bored with it. Just, like, take it, like, with fresh eyes. And so that was a huge unlock for me because, like, I would get fed up with stuff. I'd get fed up with scenes. I'd show it to him, and I'd be like, oh, it still doesn't work. But just trying to day by day, like, look at it again, watch it through, and then, like, okay, how can I make this work better? And then you get on a roll and it's like, okay, I figured this out.

1:10:47Oh, I can do this better. And that feeling was a joy to experience. Amazing. What Eddie had said, he's like, he sits through each, because Eddie essentially said would watch the full, anytime there was revisions to the sound, to the VFX, color, he would have to rewatch it from beginning to end. And he says, I watch it with the same level of enthusiasm every time. and he said because I'm thinking about the audience member that's gonna watch this in like a couple in a year a couple years like he's thinking so long term too he says to I just want to give them a good movie night which is honestly awesome because we we know the feeling of going to the movies when you have your schedule cleared off you're with your with your friends or your or your fiance your wife and it's it's just a very it's a great experience so the fact that we had that opportunity because we knew this was gonna premiere at a theater here in Austin.

1:11:39We're like, dude, let's give them, let's give this premiere, like a real reason to be in this theater, essentially. Yeah. What was their, what was Nick or, you know, everybody's first reaction and the theater when they saw it for the first time? Everyone was clapping and a few people were standing up and everyone, I think some of them, some people knew where we were sitting. So we were, we were split up and they were just like looking for us. Yeah. They were kind of like, Like, clapping, like, shout us out and stuff. So it was cool. Just everyone, everyone just, we could tell the movie night delivered.

1:12:17And that was super satisfying. I mean, everyone, like, not only the media team, everyone who works at BPN was at that ranch helping out with the race. So it's like, it's not only is this, like, entertainment and a race film that were put together, but it's like all of these people who are here with us, they were part of it, you know, and their friends and family are here. and like it was just a celebration of just all the work i mean like literally going back to over a year ago and we did like decided to do this race and nick and hope and tony like started to put the plan together and go out there and build the course it's just like a celebration of the team like yeah it was takes a village takes a village it was so much fun i mean you you've been holding this this film like so close to your chest for the last four months and people walk by your desk and they're trying to look at something i mean we had to go if we wanted to watch something together we'd have to like go into our our editing bay room like like eight doors down because like if you played something out loud people would just show up out of nowhere they'd like crowd around and try to try to get a peek and i i got pretty protective i'd be like get out of here uh but finally being able to deliver and say like this this is why we wanted you to wait and like to give it to them in the full experience was was such a joy and and people they're like i don't even know how you did that but that was sick and like that's that's what you want to hear it's just grateful.

1:13:29I don't know if Josh messaged you, but Josh also, again, Josh Hawley, he said, I forget that how an impact you essentially can have on people because Josh said, after seeing the film, he said it reminded him to not let his foot off the gas because he sees the standard we're trying to keep with our media and he's just dealing with finance and logistics and like a whole different world. And the fact that the film delivered a sense of encouragement, I was like, bro, that's beyond what I was expecting. And I can only imagine like what people don't tell us. So I was just grateful that it could provide more than just entertainment, more than a great movie.

1:14:15And I realized, oh, it also helped someone's like desire to like keep going a little bit more in the job and just not forgetting that there's like a team here and how you do your job can really influence how the person that in a different field does their job. So that was really cool, Josh. Yeah. And I mean, to that point, like BPN inspired me four years ago when I found it. I mean, our tagline is going more. I'm sure many people know that. But it's like this, It's like, how do I inspire the next person? It's like we sell supplements, yes, but we also seek to just empower people to wake up in their lives and to do the hard things and to just make an effort.

1:15:01And so doing it in a format like this, with the opportunity to create a film like this and to show what that looks like. Without saying the words, go on more, how do you show what that looks like through somebody? and so like telling a story like this because it's a it's a film about running it's about an ultra yes but it's also like so much more than that and so it's like if you can give someone a taste of what that's like or like just an inkling of what it means to just go a step further like just do the extra thing and like commit to something difficult like that's the biggest win is if you can show people what that can be and if it just gives them just a little bit of the nudge that they need to just like click something different in their mind because that happened to me.

1:15:44I'm sure that happened to him. Like we've all been influenced by BPN on the outside. And so it's like, this is our, our time to, to turn that around and try and do it for someone else, if that makes sense. Well, guys, I have to say that I am, I admire who you guys are as human beings. After talking to you for this hour or so, I think your humbleness, your humility, and your courage to kind of push through hard things and be able to deliver on something like what surrender was. And yeah, it's just, it leaves me feeling encouraged after this conversation. And yeah, I think that your story of how you made this film and your teamwork and collaboration and just the whole team is inspiring.

1:16:29So I just want to applaud you and say that I think you guys are doing something amazing and I really am excited for what's next for you guys. thanks bro dude thank you it means a lot and like you said earlier in the very beginning that you could pick up on something from this film like the fact that you could pick up on that or who knows the other person that will pick up on that that's just it's just awesome that we can make something that like that that has that kind of impact or whether we realize it or not and so So I'm just grateful that you felt like you wanted to talk to us, dude. So thank you.

1:17:06Yeah. For people that haven't seen the film, where can people watch it? It's on YouTube, on BPN's YouTube, Bear Performance Nutrition. Yeah. Or BPN Subs. Maybe you can type in Nick Bear. Sometimes YouTube is weird. Maybe if you type in Nick Bear, our channel might pop up. Just look up Surrender. It'll show up. Surrender, BPN. It's also on Letterboxd. Give it a review. I got it on there. I was trying to surprise him with it, but he was in France. Yeah. By the time it updated. Yeah, I got a notification and I was like looking down and we're like trying to go get food. I was like, what is this? Who did it?

1:17:41And I was like, it's probably Ian. But yeah, it's on YouTube. Cool. Well, I'll link that in the description below. I definitely encourage everyone to watch it. It's a phenomenal film. So thank you guys. Thank you guys for coming on. I really appreciate this chat. Absolutely. Thank you, dude. All right, everyone. Hopefully you enjoyed today's episode. Peace out.