Behind the Scenes Breakdown – OTA Series: Chris Malo

Motorcyclist and entrepreneur Chris Malo has a passion for starting companies that self-sustain. He also has a passion for riding through the Black Hills and beyond on customized motorcycles. From learning to disassemble and reassemble motorcycles in his childhood to starting and running successful businesses (and honoring his late father along the way), Chris has a powerful story to tell.

This short film used some interesting—and somewhat terrifying—film techniques, amongst other things. So we went behind-the-scenes with director Joe Hubers and producer Andrew Reinartz to talk about the making of this OTA piece on Chris Malo.

So, first things first… was Passenger at all familiar with this motorcycle culture going into the shoot?
Joe: No. In fact, I’m the guy who didn’t really understand Harley culture at all before working on this piece. After this, I felt like I at least understand why and get it now. I’m not necessarily going to go out and buy a Harley, but I get it.

Andrew: Chris and his guys live this culture in their own way, and being around them really helped us understand it better. Even the fact that they’re customizing all of this stuff. They do custom parts, they do renovations. It reminded me of the do-it-yourself lifestyle or underground music scene in a way. A little more like self-sufficiency. Instead of the guy who puts on a Harley jacket and rides his bike once a year, these are the guys who are in it—they’re really on the road and really living it.

This was definitely interesting in terms of the shots and angles and perspectives. How did you do the shots like the motorcycles out on the road?
Joe: Chris has many motorcycles and one of them is an old Russian motorcycle…with a sidecar.

Andrew: So Joe is sitting in this sidecar terrified for his life going around these hard curves on two-lane highways.

Joe: Yeah, there’s no seatbelts on those things.

Andrew: Just sitting there, holding this camera, like, a foot off the ground.

Joe: And we’re going up Spearfish Canyon with all these blind corners and we’re in the opposite lane on the oncoming traffic side so we can get the right angles on these motorcycles we’re filming, and I just had to trust that his driver knew what he was doing.

We also wanted to do a mix of slow-motion and normal speed so they could build off each other and build energy.  And we wanted to shoot with a higher shutter speed so we could get that kind of strobey, stuttered feeling, which really seemed to play out well in the end.

The story has a pretty deep emotional story regarding Chris and his dad. Had you planned from the beginning to tell that story specifically?
Joe: Well his dad had actually passed away three weeks prior and we didn’t realize that. So sitting down with him and talking, that sort of just came out naturally. We really felt like we could tell this story through his relationship with his father—starting with him learning to ride bikes with his dad and his dad threatening to throw his disassembled bike away if he didn’t fix it, all the way through him building this custom bike for his dad and now carrying on without his father… we thought it was a good arc to take to tell this story.

Also, we were a little surprised when we arrived to see that Chris's shop wasn't the same as what we had envisioned initially. Rather than this chop shop, sparks flying, metal grinding type of garage, it was more of a clean, precision craftsmanship type of environment. So that was a little bit different from what we'd been thinking in terms of visuals and everything, and we had to adjust accordingly.

Andrew: The whole goal of Passenger is that, in the beginning of each project, we have an idea of what we want to do. But we have this approach that tries to be authentic to the story that’s there. So if we have an idea of what it should be when we walk in and then we walk in and it’s different, instead of just going, “Well, there’s nothing we can do now,” we just figure out what that story is and just pick apart and dig deeper into what’s there. Instead of being flabbergasted by this thing that didn’t meet our initial expectations or anticipated plans.

Joe: We do a lot of disposal plan-making that gets ditched right when we walk through the front door.

Andrew: And obviously you need the plan to prepare, but the plan gives you flexibility to adjust when you need to if certain things fall through. And it’s always for the goal of chasing the most authentic story.

We obviously knew what we were doing—or what we wanted to do—but then we had to just tease out the story as we went. I know filmmakers who need to hyper-control everything to fit their vision. On the flip side we bring a crafted documentarian style that helps us tell a story. So we combine this filmmaker style with the flexibility of a documentarian and tease them toward the overarching vision that we’ve worked out in collaboration with the client.

Sound seemed to play a key role here. Can you talk more about that?
Joe: Yeah, with this one I knew we wanted to really use sound design as a big element of it. Just because, being outside of that culture, the first thing that hits you is that overwhelming noisiness and loudness of a bike. So I like the idea of starting out in this calm, serene nature and then filtering in the bikes and noise.

Andrew: And even all of the noises of wrenches working and metal clattering just helped put you inside that environment in a more tangible way.

Joe: And I like when he talks about his dad, all the sound is stripped out and you hear the wind rushing by. I imagine when they’re in the zone and they’re riding, you’re not quite as aware of this loud bike, you’re just in the moment with the wind rushing by on the open road.