One hundred eighty-three miles in less than 60 hours. This was the requirement Jason Romero, a legally blind ultra-marathoner, had to meet for the Puerto Rico 150+ race.
This was also the premise for Taylor Shain’s ’12 first documentary: “Running Vision,” a 45-minute movie focusing on overcoming challenges and never giving up — both on the racecourse and in life.
Shain found the story when he met Romero working part-time in a running store in Colorado. Originally, he had no idea Romero was an ultra-runner, someone who runs more than 25.2 miles at a time, until Shain saw an article of him running laps around the park for awareness of a charity.
“I ran a couple laps with him looking to do a video to do this run in Puerto Rico,” Shain said. “I told him I wanted to go. Six weeks later, I went and shot the movie.”
Though he dabbled working for a few small production companies making corporate videos, Shain had never tackled a project this large before — or one he was this passionate about.
“When I was at Elon, I think one of my professors told me, ‘You guys work as hard and you can and one day you’ll find a story that makes you want to work really hard,’” Shain said. “I think this running story is that.”
To create “Running Vision,” Shain began filming preliminary interviews in January 2015 and flew down to Puerto Rico for three days to film the race in the beginning of February.
Filming got off to a rocky start, though. While charging his camera in the airport, Shain left the battery charger behind. He was forced to scramble to different electronics stores in Puerto Rico to find the right one.
Additionally, he filmed the entire documentary by himself, following Romero in a crew van and a police escort — even running beside him for 15 miles of the race and only sleeping for the four hours Romero did.
Once he returned to the United States, Shain spent a month and a half transcribing the interviews after some well-needed sleep. After the footage was organized, he planned the film by creating small vignettes and editing them together.
Originally, Romero was nervous to be the main focus of a documentary. But after seeing how powerful it could be, he opened up more.
“I watched Jason evolve,” Shain said. “When we first started, he didn’t want to tell anyone. Once he started getting ready for his run, he saw how impactful it could be for people and started talking about it.”
Though he was doing all of the production, he had some help from his wife, Mary Yost ’12, who, as long-distance runner herself, helped him prepare for the trip and gave him feedback on the film.
“There is always an intrinsic reason for running, especially for running long distances,” Yost said. “Taylor did an excellent job of telling Jason’s story and sharing his reasons for running: to show his children that anything is possible and to raise awareness about the visually impaired community.”
Looking back, Shain believes he could have done more to convey Romero’s visual impairment, possibly by having a scene where he takes a great deal of time to open mail, only to find it’s junk — one of the many difficulties Romero faces.
Also since this was his first film, Shain was unaware of the scope of the project, and wished he had fundraised and hired creative partners or an assistant to help with transcribing interviews.
“Since I’ve graduated, I’ve shifted gears to always learning as much as I can,” Shain said. “I joke that this is my grad school and I didn’t have to pay for it.”
For his next large project, he wants to get word out about the film earlier to build buzz even before filming begins.
“Really my goal is for people to be aware of it,” Shain said. “It has a lot of value because there’s such a strong, niche audience. This summer I’m connecting with visual impairment communities to get as much exposure as I can.”
The film premiered in Denver on Oct. 28, 2015 with more than 100 people in attendance, mostly friends and family. Shain said some of the people didn’t realize that Romero had a vision impairment.
“Running Vision” was also shown to the racers of this year’s Puerto Rico 150+ race and will be featured in the Rincon International Film Festival in Puerto Rico on April 13. The documentary will also be available on Vimeo on April 21.
The film inspired Shain as well, and he hopes to create more adventure-themed films in the future.
“I met Jason, and his whole thing is that even though he has challenges in life he still goes further,” Shain said. “And that was inspiration as to me because as a filmmaker, I needed to prove to myself what I can do.”