One team is a group of animators whose upbeat spirit carries them through the most demanding physical challenge they have ever attempted. Another honors a fallen friend, who died suddenly just one year earlier.
One group won’t let age stand in the way of the race they love. Another perseveres as one team member bounces back from a near-death experience.
Four teams. 197 miles. 500 hours of footage edited down to one documentary film about the world’s largest relay race.
Directed by UNCG alumnus Christoph Baaden, “Hood to Coast,” explores the motivations of amateur and veteran runners as they tackle the huge undertaking of running from Mount Hood to the Oregon coast.
“It’s very much a character film,” said Baaden, who resides in Los Angeles. “I always say it’s a film about sports rather than a sports film. It’s about everyday people accomplishing something extraordinary.”
The annual Hood to Coast Relay launched in 1982. It attracts 1,000 teams from across the globe, running day and night to complete the 197-mile race from Mount Hood to the coast.
Baaden was first exposed to the thrill of the race in 2007 when his wife Anna’s team was short a member and he agreed to step in.
“I kind of got thrown into this crazy community of runners and nonrunners,” Baaden said. “That’s the part I love about it.”
The sense of accomplishment and feeling of camaraderie were extraordinary, Baaden said. There is no prize money. Runners get very little sleep during the 36 hours of the race. And the descent from 6,000 feet to 0 feet isn’t a smooth one. What would possess someone to tackle such a physically demanding feat? Baaden decided to find out.
For his first feature-length documentary, Baaden followed four teams to discover what inspires them to compete.
The process of finding those teams was a long one. After sending an e-mail to all 1,000 teams, Baaden and his crew whittled down their focus to four with particularly compelling back stories.
“There’s this woman that had a heart attack during the same race in 2007,” Baaden said. “She was clinically dead for six minutes, and she got revived. She was told she would never run again, but running is what keeps her alive. This was a milestone she had to overcome to be that person again.”
In order to completely capture the experience of all four teams, Baaden assembled a crew of 100 people, some of whom had previous experience filming in high-energy situations on “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.”
Limited cell phone reception along the race route made communication among the crew challenging. The teams’ vans were wired with microphones and lights. Cameras suspended from cranes and a helicopter captured the enormity of the event.
During the 36-hour race, the crew worked in shifts to go everywhere each team went, to capture everything they did.
“When they’re up, you’re going to have to be up,” Baaden said. “You have to be truly embedded with them.”
The 500 hours of footage took one year to edit. All the hard work paid off.
“Hood to Coast” had its premiere in March at the renowned South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin. All three screenings sold out.
“There’s a certain stigma against films that have a sports theme, and for us to get that stamp of approval we always shot for, it was all for the people [in the film] and seeing them accomplishing something,” Baaden said.
Baaden has come a long way since his days growing up in Worms, Germany. Though he always loved movies, Baaden said he didn’t always aspire to be a filmmaker.
“I wasn’t one of those kids that had a camera when they were 8 years old,” Baaden said. “I always loved film, and I think it really ignited when I got an internship in Berlin.”
That internship was a production assistant gig on the Rolling Stones tour. He spent six months traveling across Germany with the band. In 1999, he moved to the United States to get his master’s degree in film and television production at UNCG.
Michael Frierson, director of graduate studies for the department of media studies at UNCG, said he remembers Baaden as an affable and enthusiastic student.
“He’s a very charming person,” Frierson said. “A big part of it is your people skills and how you work with people. I think that helps you get things going.”
UNCG turned out to be a good fit for Baaden. It was there he developed an appreciation for documentaries, and the confidence to tell the stories he really wants to tell.
“I not only loved the city, but I loved the film program,” Baaden said. “They’re hands on and hands off at the same time. The doors were always open, but they let you play a lot and discover story.”
That curiosity and drive is what led Baaden to “Hood to Coast,” and thanks to a novel distribution approach, his Greensboro fans will get the chance to see the film Tuesday at The Grande 16. The film will screen in theaters across the country for one night only.
Baaden said it was important to him that the film’s distribution reach beyond New York and Los Angeles. Since Hood to Coast attracts runners nationwide, he wanted to give audiences nationwide the chance to see the film.
“We shot it theatrically with a helicopter,” Baaden said. “You’ve got to see it in a theater. This distribution was a godsend.”
Baaden approached Fathom Events, a satellite distributor that brings special engagements to movie theaters, about a theatrical release. The people at Fathom loved the film, and they agreed to beam “Hood to Coast” via satellite from its red carpet premiere in Portland to 360 theaters across the country.
“When they saw the completed film, they wholeheartedly embraced the story, seeing its wide appeal,” said Anna Campbell, Baaden’s wife and one of the film’s producers. “And following the success of past sport-themed events, they agreed to do a “Hood to Coast” event that truly focuses on the spirit of runners everywhere.”
Though “Hood to Coast” hasn’t hit theaters yet, Baaden has already made an impression on one local fan.
“It’s very difficult to get a theatrical release on a documentary, so that’s a pretty major achievement,” Frierson said. “You have to have a certain amount of dedication and perseverance to even get that kind of work into the theater. I’m really proud of him.”
Contact Alexa Milan at amilan87@gmail.com
