San Francisco to Napa - Days 1 & 2

After a long time planning, Running America begins.  San Francisco is an incredibly cinematic city - the architecture, light, and overall energy of the place all make for opportunities and choices.  It is always wonderful to have choices when shooting. Beginning at city hall, we followed our police escort up Van Ness, taking a left and heading past the Presidio towards Golden Gate Bridge.  Our guest runners ran with Charlie and Marshall through most of the stretch, chatting them up from everything about family to politics to marathoning as we headed out into Marin county.  It was a hectic day, with lots of things to cover and just an overall shaking out of how a documentary film crew was going to go about following two runners and their support crews.  But everyone involved in this project is just incredible, down the line.  We headed into Napa after lunch, and although we had known intellectually what these two guys were taking on was immense, emotionally we didn't realize until 6 pm.  They were still running.  Headlamps went on.

And then they got up today and continued running.  And it was later in the day, as the sun was setting on a lonely road that I felt a great sense of privilege to have the opportunity to document and witness this event.  I felt privileged that Larry Meistrich at Nehst Studios hired me to direct the project and sent me out on the road for 46 days.  I felt privileged to have already met and interviewed some amazing people - from the mathematics major at Berkeley to the crop duster pilot to the guys outside Thompson's saloon cheering on Charlie - it's already been an amazing shoot.  And only two days in.

As you come upon these guys, taking step after step, you have to catch yourself as you think they're "just out for a run."  Because this run is going to last for another 44 days...