Joy Ride: Filmmakers R.J. Daniel Hanna and Christian Sander Talk ‘Hard Miles’
by CHAD KENNERK
Jackson Kelly, Damien Diaz, and Zachary T. Robbins in Hard Miles. All images courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment / Pensé Productions
Directed by Academy Nicholl Fellow R.J. Daniel Hanna and co-written by Hanna and producer Christian Sander, Hard Miles highlights the vast landscape of the American West and the depth of the human spirit. Handsomely shot on location across the Sierra Nevada, the Navajo Nation, Utah, Colorado, and Grand Canyon National Park, Hard Miles tells the uplifting true story of Coloradan Greg Townsend and Rite of Passage’s Ridge View Academy bicycling team. In the film, social worker Greg Townsend (Matthew Modine) assembles a motley crew of troubled teens for a (nearly) 1,000-mile transformative bike ride from Denver to the Grand Canyon. Along with the reasoned judgement of fellow social worker Haddie (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams), Townsend leads the boys on a cross-country journey that challenges them to discover their potential and encounter their hearts.
The youth-centred organisation Rite of Passage (ROP) provides education, therapeutic programs and life skills to at-risk youth with behavioural or emotional difficulties. Located throughout the US, ROP’s Watkins, Colorado location was the site where long-standing staff member Greg Townsend taught welding and helped create the cycling program. In addition to providing the inspiration for the film, Townsend also served as an on-set consultant and provided the actual bikes that appear in the film – all welded in his shop by real ROP students. The producers also received help from NBC Sports analyst and Olympian cyclist Christian Vande Velde, who helped get the project off the ground and inspired other passionate cyclists to join the peloton.
An official selection across the festival circuit, Hard Miles held its world premiere at Geena Davis’ Bentonville Film Festival and went on to win the Audience Award at the Denver Film Festival and the Naples Int’l Film Festival, as well as the Heartland Film Festival’s Jimmy Stewart Legacy Award. As Hard Miles rides into US cinemas nationwide from Pensé Productions and Blue Fox Entertainment, Film Review chats with writer/director R.J. Daniel Hanna and co-writer/producer Christian Sander about receiving Townsend’s blessing to bring the inspiring story to the screen.
In conversation with writer/director R.J. Daniel Hanna and co-writer/producer Christian Sander
Film Review (FR): Christian, seven or eight years ago when Greg’s story initially came to you, what was your research process like reaching him and ultimately pitching him the idea of telling his story?
Christian Sander: Greg has been doing this for a long time and it took a couple of decades, but it did catch the attention of a couple of journalists, including Tracy Ross at Bicycling magazine. She published a great article. There were a couple of other articles, but hers was the best. She went on a ride with him. This Grand Canyon route was something he had done before and something he’s done since, but she did the actual route that they do in the film. Her article tipped me off to this program and what Greg was doing. It checked a lot of the boxes that you see in an inspirational sports drama. I could visualise the open road unfolding on a cinematic landscape. It was kind of small and intimate at its core, but against these backdrops that span the Colorado Rockies to the Grand Canyon. A typical movie studio would just green screen everything. I was intrigued by actually doing it with a small crew.
Seven or eight years ago, I reached out and Greg was not interested at first. He’s not really a ‘fame’ guy, he’s definitely in it for the kids and to make a difference. I eventually wrote him a handwritten letter and I think he shoved it in a drawer; he never responded to that either [Laughs.] Thankfully, his wife Maureen read it and was like, “What the hell’s this Greg? This sounds interesting.” I was able to connect with Maureen via Instagram and I think she got it. I got her in my corner and she helped champion the potential for the project with Greg on my behalf.
Eventually I got to fly out and ride bikes with the boys. It was snowing that day, so we hit the trainers, or the rollers as they call them. It’s not really a stationary bike, it’s an actual bike on the 1970s rollers, so if you get wobbly or stop, you’ll tilt over. They all knew how to do it, but I’d never done it before. I was holding onto the wall and making an ass of myself. I think the fact that I was willing to humble myself, sweat with those guys, and spend a few days with Greg, was enough to show that I was serious about getting it right. I was not just coming to try to strip-mine his story for Hollywood’s sake. We’re independent filmmakers. We’re grinders.
(FR): The things Greg has done go well beyond the glimpse in the film. Co-writing the script together, how did you hone down Greg’s 40-plus year career at Rite of Passage into a two hour script?
R.J. Daniel Hanna: That part was tough, because there were choices we had to make right away. Do we go with the fact that he’s done this many times before? Do we make it about the first ride, a middle of his career ride, the last ride? There’s a really big canvas there across 40 years. We wanted to tell a story that was true to the spirit of everything, because so many ‘based on a real story’ movies throw everything out and go, “Oh right — coach, bike, across country.” We wanted to, even while fictionalising it, make sure everything happening was based on something in reality, even if it has been put in a different place or condensed. We decided to make it one ride, the first ride, and to see this guy go through the kind of journey he might have gone through across his entire career, but happening in a really short amount of time.
(FR): Greg was on hand as a technical consultant and coach for the film. How did you go about building a crew that was familiar with or knew the sport?
Christian Sander: Our production designer Susannah Lowber is a passionate bike packer and she had a whole team of people that are mountain bikers, bike packers, and gravel riders. They connected with the material, but first it started with casting. We had to find four fresh faces that covered a pretty diverse set of backgrounds in the script. Our casting director Ron Pennywell spent a long time casting. I think we were casting those four boys for the better part of a year.
R.J. Daniel Hanna: That was a really great first collaboration on the project. The casting directors for most of my movies are the first person on [the project]. I’d worked with Matthew before and Leslie David Baker was Christian’s idea, but Ron really found all of our other people. We really had no idea where to go and how to fill these characters out. From Cynthia Kaye McWilliams to all the boys, there were lots of people who could have played the parts, but there was always one person who we felt would continually bring something extra, something special, something we’ve never thought about to the role. It makes all the difference to have that depth to the character.
(FR): Can you talk about embracing the chaos of the shoot? How did you map out this journey?
R.J. Daniel Hanna: It benefitted the story in some ways. With these four chaotic boys, it’s Greg’s job to wrangle them and Haddie’s job to keep them in line. That was sort of happening all the time on the shoot, which created a good balance. We were in the elements all the time. Our DP [Mack Fisher] was great about that, we had to accept that we couldn’t only shoot at dawn and dusk. We were shooting at noon, outside, to get what we had to get. We tried to embrace and roll with how things were going and also tried to incorporate the environment into the shoot whenever we could and let it be another character in the movie.
Christian Sander: It was incredible what Daniel did – hitting five or six pages, sometimes more, a day. On location, in the elements…
R.J. Daniel Hanna: On bikes…[Laughs.]
Christian Sander: With a lot of moving parts. The only thing that I really did help him out with, was that we did kind of shoot chronologically, which shows up in the film. You can see they’re more wobbly in the beginning than they are in the third act. That progression felt pretty natural. It was physically demanding. The crew really loved the material and that helped them put in the physical and mental labour of thinking about the blocking, the performance, and how it was all going to fit together. Daniel was also an editor on the film, not our primary editor, but he was the finishing editor. He wears a lot of hats on all of his projects.
R.J. Daniel Hanna: Christian’s initial idea was, “Ok, if the landscape is the production value; if the trip and the journey is the production value and the scope of the movie, what can we accomplish?” What we really had to focus on was character and drama, because we’re actually out there – we’re at Vermilion Cliffs and places that are so stunning. That basic idea, even as complicated as it was, freed us up to focus on actually getting the story on camera. As opposed to shooting on green screen, which would have occupied all of our faculties. Everything would have gone into how we make the green screen right. Instead of, “We’re here, how do we capture something real?”
(FR): It’s great seeing Matthew back in a leading role, and this one fits him like a glove. He must be a joy to collaborate with.
R.J. Daniel Hanna: Absolutely, he was on for about a week on my first movie [Miss Virginia]. He has a really fun way of working. He always has a lot of ideas, and because of that, he pushes the film in a slightly different way than you think. I think that’s what a good leading actor does, they have a take that makes you think, “Ok, what is the best version of this version of the character?” It opens up a lot of new possibilities. Matthew is a very open, friendly, engaged actor, who is also never a grump. Even in situations where he had to ride straight up a hill and come down for one take. If we had to do it again, because it went just past our frame of focus on this long lens or something, he’d be like, “I don’t know if I can do it again,” and then be like, “Ok, I can do it again.” He’s just game. It’s great to see someone who is just down, after being in the industry over 40 years.
Christian Sander: And he set the tone for the young actors too. “Ok, if this guy with a filmography of a hundred plus credits is not complaining, if he’s still putting in this kind of effort, I guess I have to put in at least that much effort.”
R.J. Daniel Hanna: We had one trailer. The production office is where the actors would hang out, make-up is right next to it, and then bathroom is right next to that.
Christian Sander: Because we’re on a mountain road. They had trailers where I could get them trailers [Laughs.]
R.J. Daniel Hanna: That’s true, when we were out on the road there was one trailer, otherwise they had their own. Matthew said — in a way where he wasn’t being a jerk about it — “I haven’t been on a movie like this since I was like 20.” He was totally down for it and he wanted what was best for the movie. What’s best for the movie was not trying to shoot around where we could park six trailers; it’s just getting to the right spot. If Matthew was fine with it, what does anyone else really have to say, you know?
(FR): We don’t often see men contending with emotion together and men addressing trauma through challenge. Can you talk about capturing the masculine journey, the hero’s journey, through this story?
R.J. Daniel Hanna: It’s something that I thought was really important to do and cool to see. We have lots of movies where men are the lead characters, but this is something Greg does in his real life, he’s trying to figure out for these boys: How do you become a good man? What does that mean? It’s that discovery and finding the balance between pushing through or pushing past something that’s hurtful, and just ignoring it and pushing it down into a place that’s not healthy. People tend to have really extreme opinions about that. It’s a balance, it’s a nuanced thing. We kind of have to do both in our lives. In real life, Greg helps boys through this. He sometimes offers one thing, sometimes offers another. In the movie, we let Haddie and Greg be the two sides of the coin there, with one saying tough love, one saying compassion. They need both, together.
Christian Sander: If you rewind a couple of years, when we were developing the film, there was a lot of ink being spilled about toxic masculinity at that time. The ability to endure suffering is often lumped in with toxic masculinity and a lot of men take that to an extreme that’s unhealthy. I’m thinking of David Goggins or veterans that aren’t willing to talk. You always hear that getting talked about now. There is a virtue in that to a certain extent, but it needs to be balanced out with this more feminine energy of being in tune with your emotions and being ok with letting them wash over you.
We wanted to have Haddie represent that in this kind of classic divide. She forces him to face his uncomfortable emotions with his father. Until he can do that in his own life, everything he’s telling these boys is ringing hollow. In the film, not in real life. It was really important for the movie version of Greg to apply what he has been preaching in his own life, in order for the boys to believe him and for his words to matter.
R.J. Daniel Hanna: It’s just kind of amazing, because it was there in Greg’s story — someone who’s superpower could also be something that holds them back in some categories. That was sort of the struggle there with the character. The thing that he can really bring to the boys is also maybe something that holds him back from getting his own full resolution in his life, if taken to an extreme.
(FR): Did you have a teacher or mentor figure in your own lives that made an impact on the way you tell stories?
R.J. Daniel Hanna: I wasn’t going to be a writer necessarily. I was going to go into law and I was making films and writing on the side. I had a writing professor in undergrad, Molly Giles, who is a Pulitzer Prize nominee and a really gifted, sharp, smart person. I think this is a lot of what Greg does too, it was honestly, the fact that she was willing to give me time and attention years beyond when I took a class with her. Finding that she had an interpretation of something I’d written that took me years to understand what I was putting in there, even if that wasn’t my goal. I think that’s really the approach that I try to keep. You have your ideas, your themes, and you do have to intellectualise it, but you also have to be free to put yourself in there without making everything a calculation.
That was a good approach to us writing together too. We would talk through a lot and have a lot of ideas. Then when we were actually writing, things would come through without it being too structured, too fast. I like that the movie has a little bit of a loose quality. You don’t know everything that’s going to happen at every moment, because it’s just things that happen along the road and conflicts that arise. All of that really came from exploration.
Christian Sander: Neal Moritz let me sit in on calls when I was a nobody at his company. He’s a multi-billion dollar producer and I just got to hear the whole business being done. Also my real mentor was this guy named Barnet Bain. He’s also a producer, but he’s mostly a writer and has written a few books. He’s very in tune with his emotions. To see those two spectrums, of the marketplace and feeling, and being able to make choices in the writing and the story structure that really supported the character’s emotional development while also holding onto, “Ok, what does that do in the film’s marketplace?” and remembering that it is still a business. It’s art, but it’s also commerce. How this is all going to fit together in the grand scheme of things is always a fun challenge for me.
(FR): Growing up, what were the films that inspired or resonated with you?
R.J. Daniel Hanna: I loved Spielberg growing up. Jurassic Park and Jaws. Those movies made me want to write and create. They really sparked my creativity. I love Scorsese and the way his movies can’t quite be defined. They’re really about a journey, they’re not formulaic. They’re funny, and dark, and a drama or a different genre all mixed up. That’s something I’ve always liked. Even though we were saying we were going to make a sports movie, in a way, it’s also a character piece and also a road trip movie and a comedy.
Christian Sander: Similar tone for me: Spielberg, John Hughes. The stuff that’s universally appealing. You get a little bit of everything, as Daniel likes to say, it’s a full meal. It’s a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake. You get your moral of the story, you get your American values, but you also get a little irreverence, a little humour, and a little heartbreak. You leave feeling satisfied.
R.J. DANIEL HANNA is a Toronto-born, Arkansas-raised director, screenwriter, and editor. In 2021 he was one of five winners selected to receive the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for his script Shelter Animal. He made his directorial debut in 2019 with the true-story feature Miss Virginia, starring Uzo Aduba, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Vanessa Williams, and Matthew Modine. The film was listed as a New York Times and USA Today must-see movie and won the Audience Award at the Naples Film Festival. Hanna has also directed projects for Coca-Cola, Subway, Cole Haan, and Chevrolet. As an editor, his work includes dozens of features, such as What Lies Below and Supercell.
CHRISTIAN SANDER earned his degree in Motion Picture Production from Loyola Marymount University, and served as a development intern for Neal Moritz, producer of the Fast and the Furious franchise, and for prolific film and TV producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Upon graduation he worked in Sony Pictures' digital marketing, publicity, and international television divisions before joining Pensé. Sander currently serves as Director of Development for Pensé Productions, maintaining industry relations with emerging talent. He produced the feature length college comedy, Dean Slater: Resident Advisor, which is currently in distribution through Cinedigm. In 2015, he created the Bracket Reel series for Red Bull Media House. Sander has produced, shot, and edited content for GrindMedia, Yahoo!Sports, and Newschoolers.com.
Hard Miles is in US cinemas 19 April from Blue Fox Entertainment.
