“The Sprinter” Part Two: The Setup
Justin Kemerling and Jason Hardy back in the day. Photo by Ian Whitmore.
Prior to creating “The Sprinter”, Justin and I had been in bands together since high school. We spent years writing, playing and recording music with our friend and drummer Mike Semrad. Being an active musician is a way of life. At the time we were writing songs, practicing two or three times a week, performing and recording, so I was constantly thinking about and working on music. Creatively it was an inspired and fulfilling time.
We played our final show as RKT FM in B-Rad’s basement at the Viapunx house and shortly thereafter Mike moved to Chicago to continue his personal musical endeavors.
It was at this time that Justin and I first started talking about “The Sprinter.” We both wanted to continue our creative partnership but we were ready to try something new. Justin was doing a lot of writing and, thanks to our friend Craig Turnwall, we had been experimenting with 8mm footage and were thinking about stories and moving visuals together. A short film seemed like a natural progression.
It was exciting to embark on a new type of project. We would get together in my apartment, sitting at the circle table in the kitchen and sketch and talk and plan and scheme and laugh and hope. It all felt new and familiar at the same time.
Over the next two years Justin and I worked on “The Sprinter.” Justin came up with the story’s premise and I focused more on the visual approach. We decided on using 8mm and having no dialogue. This being our first film, it just felt more true to start with a simple format and to set some limitations in order to focus our idea.
Still From”The Sprinter” – Part of the final scene.
The story is about a man who feels alone and out of place in this modern world. He is distracted by his thoughts and feels adrift with no history. To remedy this the man routinely embarks on a pilgrimage, driving a specific route through the streets of his city, stopping on a gravel road on the outskirts of town. There he parks his car, walks a quarter of a mile, between two markers, and sprints the distance back to his car. He feels a moments rest. A tiny peace. It is him chipping away at his discontent.
To execute the story we decided to divide the film into two different shot types. The main element would be a linear progression showing the man driving to the gravel road and climaxing with his sprint. We would break up the linear story with short bursts of hectic imagery and noisy ambient sounds, a reference to the data smog that the man wades through every day.
Still From”The Sprinter” – Part of one of the short, spurratic bursts of footage.
With the story established and the format decided upon we spent the next a year and a half shooting footage to use as the chaotic bursts. We also each carried dictation recorders with us and recorded ambient sounds to use as the audio for those sections of the film.
We had known all along that we wanted our friend Ringo to play the role of the man in our film, but we didn’t know if he would do it. When Justin first asked Ringo he didn’t hesitate. HIs response – no way. Justin assured him that he wouldn’t have to talk in the film, and that he would be the only actor, so he wouldn’t have to interact with anyone. After that, Ringo was on board.
Still from “The Sprinter” – Ringo, sprinting.
The next step was to find a car to use in the film. Neither of our cars really fit the part, so we started looking around for a car that would be a match for Ringo’s character. We remembered that a co-worker named Dan Henderson had fixed my girlfriends car once and had laoned her a car to drive in the meantime. That loaner turned out to be the perfect fit and Dan was totally game to contribute.
He later offered to sell it to us for $600, but we declined.
