One
of the many reasons I’m determined to complete our documentary about injured
veterans who have taken to long-distance road cycling to heal their physical
and mental wounds is because I was certain at one point during the filming that
I was going to severely injure or possibly kill several of them.
It was July 7, 2011, the day that the Ride2Recovery nonprofit had arranged for its pack of several hundred riders—representing all branches of the military and who’d served in conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan—to ride the last few kilometers of Stage Six on the Tour de France an hour or two before the racers would come zinging through the same stretch in downtown Lisieux, France. The route was barricaded to traffic, and spectators had already begun to line the streets. I’m sure the riders enjoyed cruising down that hallowed corridor, but I’ve never been more gripped filming these riders, 100 percent certain that catastrophe was not only imminent but would occur before the lenses of the world’s sporting press.
And, moreover, that it would be my fault.
Let me pause a moment to describe exactly what I was doing. When fellow journalist Michael de Yoanna and I came up with the idea to make a documentary about these riders and the challenges they face returning from the battlefield, it was decided that he would be the director and I would be the director of photography. He’d already covered these rides for print publications and knew the story; I’d been a teenage amateur filmmaker (emphasis on “amateur”) in the Super-8 days of the 1980s and knew a thing or two, rusty as my knowledge may have been, about cinematography.
Each role came with its challenges. For Michael, that meant riding his own bicycle for every mile that the soldiers rode theirs, usually toting a backpack with a backup camera to shoot extra footage. He also strapped a GoPro HD camera to his bike for low angle and close-up shots. But the biggest reason he embedded in such a way was to prove to those who we wanted to interview later—usually at a level of detail that could become uncomfortable—that we were willing to suffer to get their stories, unlike every other reporter we encountered over the course of months of filming. Typically, the local media showed up at the beginning of the ride or at the end … and usually with a style that was less than empathetic. Michael rode nearly 2,000 miles with the men and women we filmed, gaining unique, up-close insight into how cycling can lead to healing.
My job was less physically taxing, but no less arduous. Situated mostly on the back of a Can-Am Spyder three-wheeler driven by Vietnam vet and American Legion escort Gary Hilton, we threaded in and out of the lengthy column of riders, scouted ahead for good static shots and helped other American Legion motorcyclists stop traffic at intersections through the busier parts of the day’s route. Most of my time was spent pretzeled around on the “bitch” seat trying not to drop the camera.
But I didn’t have Gary’s expert riding skills to rely on in France (the American Legion escorts are all volunteer and pay their own way to protect the soldiers on these rides; since most are Harley-Davidson to their core, none would have been caught dead on a French rental). Instead, I was assigned to the media van driven on that day by Deb Spano, a public relations coordinator for United Healthcare, one of the Ride2Recovery sponsors. While Deb can drive perfectly well in most other traffic conditions, leading a peloton of bicyclists speeding down a steep hill at up to 50 mph inches apart from one another on narrow, winding roads requires special skills.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
One of my other jobs as DP was to maximize our audio quality. Our camera, a Panasonic HMC 150, has a so-so onboard microphone, OK for home videos but not for theater quality films. So we were using an odd combination of wireless Sennheiser lapel mics and Rode shotgun mics to capture sound. The night before the Tour de France leg, Michael and I sat at the bar in our hotel and sketched out how I would shoot it.
The plan was for the cyclists to ride to a predetermined location on the edge of Lisieux, where police manned a barricade that would be moved aside once we were all assembled in a tight pack. The media van would be at the very front, acting as the vanguard for the entire group—we would lead everyone across the finish line.
Riding to the rendezvous point, I was nervous. Being in front of a pack of speeding downhill cyclists—who, with some exceptions, were mostly amateurs riding within elbow-rubbing distance of other cyclists on both sides at speeds that can kill—is one thing if you’re on a motorcycle, which is quick and nimble enough to get out of the way. Being in a passenger van driving through an urban course at high speeds with a soccer mom at the wheel would be another.
Stopped at the rally point, I sprang into action. The idea was for me to sit with two other photographers in the back of the van with the hatchback open, facing backward. But in order to get good audio that didn’t include all the chatter inside the van, I quickly rigged our fully-extended telescoping boom to the bike rack on the outside of the rear hatch—now arched overhead and out of view of the camera—using five or six plastic zip-ties. If we’d learned anything in our time with R2R, it was that the organizers didn’t wait for anyone, including documentary filmmakers worrying about how solidly they’d tied down a six-foot boom mic. I would have preferred another dozen or so zip-ties for redundancy’s sake, but before I could arrange it, we were on our way, wending through the streets of Lisieux.
So far so good, as far as shooting was concerned. The pace was leisurely and Michelle and Larry, the other photographers, joined me in hanging our feet out the back of the van. The audio sounded good and Deb kept things smooth enough that shifting gears didn’t jolt the cameras too much.
But then things began to pick up. We started going downhill, which is no problem if you’re in a car or even on a bicycle riding with a couple of buddies. Being a rider in a peloton, though, is much different. You’re no longer on your own, but a single cell in a much larger organism. Anyone who panics and hits the brakes is going to take out the guy rubbing tires behind him and everyone from there on back. Add in that many others suffered from injuries as varied as blindness to lost limbs to traumatic brain injuries and the risk of a catastrophic crash seemed to enter uncharted territory. The trust and concentration on everyone’s face was evident even without the benefit of a zoom lens. Riders began to tuck down to lessen the wind resistance and pick up speed. They were packed like a school of fish and the margin of safety was measured in centimeters. They quickly gained on the van. We yelled at Deb to step on it and get out of the way. It was tricky driving; she had to stay far enough ahead not to cause a collision or panic reaction, but close enough that we could film.
My little rig on the back of the van was perfect for when we were going 25-30 mph, but we quickly exceeded 50 mph. The wind was blowing the hatchback closed and tossing around the boom like a fishing pole that had hooked a barracuda. I silently thanked myself for having had the foresight to lash the Rode mic to the boom with a few layers of heavy-duty duct tape in addition to the screw mount. As we gained speed, the photogs sitting in the back began looking futilely looking for something to hold onto … I think it occurred to all of us at once that falling out of the van at 55 mph would have been bad enough, but falling into the path of a hundreds of speeding cyclists 20 feet off the rear bumper would have been like falling into a thresher.
Then we hit a speed bump.
To her credit, Deb yelled out to “hold on!”, but she did so a split second before we went sailing. This wasn’t a U.S.-style speed bump, which (little known secret) is best hit at 45 mph in a car with good shocks—you can barely feel it. This was a European speed bump, better referred to as a speed berm, whose design was clearly inspired by some of the WWII defenses we’d seen throughout Normandy. The recoil slammed the hatchback down, the only thing preventing it from cutting us off at the knees being the Rode mic flapping on the end of the boom, which, still miraculously attached to the hatchback, slammed into the ground at 50-plus mph at the same time both my feet skimmed off the street when the van bottomed out its shock absorbers.
Everything went into slow motion as I pictured something I’m responsible for—the microphone, the boom pole, a flip-flop, the camera itself—tumbling out of the van and into the path of the speeding riders. It would have had the same effect as a hand grenade and taken out half the group in a disaster that would have made sports tragedy highlight reels for years to come. I only overcame the panic by focusing on shooting. If someone is going down, even if it’s my fault, I’m at least going to have it on film.
No one went down. But when we crossed the finish line, I remember thinking, “This better be worth it, by God.”
Which is a really long way of finally getting to the point. Those of you who follow me on Twitter and on Facebook have heard my recent appeals for donations to finish this film. We started it only through the generosity of contributors who gave enough for us to buy equipment and finance our travels (trust me when I say not a penny has gone to “salary,” which would be the same as it being spent on a crew of leprechauns; salary doesn’t exist). Now we need funds to finish it. Our seed money resulted in more than 400 hours of amazing, emotional and life-affirming footage, all of which must be boiled down to 90-some minutes of feature film. We’ve been blessed to attract talented volunteer editors, led by professional documentary filmmaker Mike Shum, who will massage our footage, with Michael’s expert guidance as director/producer, into a full-length feature film. But Michael, like me, is a freelance journalist, meaning that our resources to afford professional editing equipment and funds for marketing, manufacture and fees, to say nothing of the time needed to do the work, are as real as that crew of leprechauns.
We need your help, and we’re willing to offer at least some perks for your generosity, which are all listed on our fundraising site, www.indiegogo.com/recovering. But please know that time is almost out—if you’re inclined to donate, please do it today.
Finally, if the personal appeal of an impoverished journalist isn’t enough to convince you, please consider the words of a Medal of Honor recipient. Former U.S. Army SSgt. Sal Guinta—an R2R rider who was among those I might have accidentally maimed had the boom pole not stayed put—was the first living Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War. I’m proud to call him my friend and prouder still that he wrote in support of our fundraising effort. Read his endorsement of this project here.
And now click here to follow his recommendation and see this project through to completion.