Filmmaker Spotlight - Luke Wolbach, dir. "Row Hard No Excuses"

One might call "Row Hard No Excuses" Luke Wolbach’s third child. The production, which began in earnest back in the summer of 2000, has so thoroughly overlapped with the timeline of Wolbach’s young family that the two have become almost inextricably linked.

“I was married toward the end of 2003, the year we were fundraising,” says Wolbach as he delineates his family history. “Then there was the editing after my son was born in 2004. My daughter was born last March. We thought we’d be done [with the film] by then, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.”

Many a night, Wolbach would put his kids to bed and then immediately head up to the attic of his San Francisco home for hours of solitary editing on the film, trying to compress 250 hours of raw footage into a concise package. It was his first feature-length project after years of documentary shorts and freelance editing work. Admittedly, Wolbach had gotten “really ambitious” and perhaps in over his head in attempting to complete the documentary. But with each misstep, he refined his methods.

“The past several years have been my film school experience,” says Wolbach, poking fun at his relative lack of formal training.

Throughout 2001, Wolbach worked in concert with his father and brother to document the journey of two middle-aged rowers as they attempted to traverse 3,000 miles of unforgiving ocean from the Canary Islands to Barbados as part of the Atlantic Rowing Challenge. Unable to find sponsorship for their endeavor, the pair – Tom Mailhot and John Zeigler – constructed their own boat. They dug deep into their personal savings to finance their entry into the competition – despite the fact that no prize money lay waiting on the other end of the Atlantic.

“There’s a heroic element to it,” says Wolbach of the sport, “the idea that it will make you special. They want to do it first, do it fastest. They get it in their blood. Society at large doesn’t necessarily feel like – unless it’s for charity, it’s a very individualistic pursuit. Some call it selfish.”

For their single-minded devotion to the competition, both rowers’ personal lives suffered greatly. Mailhot lost his job as a construction supervisor and Zeigler’s marriage collapsed as a result of the demands that the race placed on them. As Wolbach found himself drawn deeper into the heart of this project – the months of scrounging up funds, the marathon editing sessions, the debates on how to best tell the rowers’ story – he began to empathize all the more with the plight of his subjects.

“‘Obsession’ is close,” he says. “There are a lot of similarities and parallel experiences between making a film and rowing across an ocean. I definitely felt obsessed. But it was a worthwhile endeavor.”

Worthwhile, because not only did Wolbach complete his first filmmaking odyssey, but he also emerged from the experience with a new perspective on his father and co-producer, Bill. The whole project actually stemmed from Bill’s experience as a rower. He had met Tom Mailhot through their shared interest in canoe racing. When he heard that his old acquaintance was preparing to tackle the grueling Atlantic Challenge, he brought his filmmaking son aboard, hoping to put together a short promotional video to help Mailhot and Zeigler find a sponsor. From those small and simple beginnings, Bill’s passion helped to fuel the project as it expanded into a full-length beast.

“I learned a lot about my father, especially,” Luke says. “He feels what these guys feel. They had strained relationships with their fathers, and I think he had a strained relationship with his own father. And then there’s the whole aspect of being middle-aged and having feelings of regret. It was an eye-opener, to hear him talk about these things himself.”

The completed film also helped to salve the relationship of its two stars. After those months trapped together in the cramped confines of their boat, enduring extreme mental and physical fatigue, Mailhot and Zeigler did not speak to each other for a good two years after the race. But both attended the film’s world premier at last month’s Slamdance Film Festival, and fielded audience questions afterward.

“It felt like a closure event of sorts,” says Wolbach, part of the rowers’ “reconciliation process.”

Wolbach, however, isn’t quite ready to put the experience behind him. He’s still promoting Row Hard, hoping to get a one-hour version broadcast on television and release a DVD. Any talk of future projects might be a bit premature, but Wolbach would prefer to do something centered in San Francisco, so that his next film won’t distract him too much from raising his family. For Luke Wolbach, three children are enough for now.

---

For more stills from "Row Hard No Excuses" and additional visual goodies, visit the T/F Flickr Group at:

The T/F Flickr Group

To learn more about "Row Hard No Excuses," visit:

Lantern Films Web Site