UT alumni 'Pedal South' for inspiration

Five adventure-seeking UT alumni (three of whom are RTF’ers) are gearing up for an intense, year-and-a-half trek along the Pan American highway—more than 18,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina—which they’ll undertake entirely by bicycle. The team will document their experiences with a feature-length film, PEDAL SOUTH.

While exploring their own journey via the feature, Director Ricardo Palomares (BS ’12), Executive Producer/Director Jack Reynolds (BS ’12), and Cinematographer Riley Engemoen (BS ’13)—along with Photographer Thomas Allison and Writer Dyar Bentz—plan to regularly update the PEDAL SOUTH website with smaller documentaries about the people and NGOs they encounter along the way.

“Our goal is to share photos, stories, and short films of social entrepreneurs who are dedicated to making a positive impact in their communities.” —pedalsouth.org.

MFA candidate Erica Pallo spoke with two of PEDAL SOUTH’s brave journeymen about the project –Texan Jack Reynolds and Mexico City native, Ricardo Palomares.

What was the inspiration for this project? And what made you choose this route?

(JACK) Ever since I was a young kid, my passions were traveling, cycling, and filmmaking. I first got into cycling through my dad at the young age of 13. I grew up in a small town of 5,000 people so getting out on the country roads to cycle was very easy for me.

When I was 17, three of my best friends and I did our first cycling tour. It was a short three-day trip from Austin to the Gulf Coast. While on the trip, I realized that the following year we had to take it to the next level, and so we planned a cycling trip from Texas to California. Looking back on it, the planning of the trip was pretty similar to PEDAL SOUTH’s, except on a much smaller scale. We sold shirts, got local businesses to sponsor us, planned the route, had a huge send off at the county courthouse, and ultimately inspired a lot of people in our town.

I knew that I had to take it one step further, and so I decided to go to UT and do the Texas 4000. Texas 4000 is a student organization that is made up of 50 UT students who cycle from Texas to Alaska to raise money for cancer research. During the trip in the summer of 2010, I came across two cyclists in the Yukon Territory who were heading south to Argentina. At that moment I was so inspired. I wanted to turn my bike around and travel with them, but I knew I couldn’t just yet. From that moment on, I spent the next four years planning, fundraising, and assembling a team of creative media makers to form PEDAL SOUTH. I wanted to do this route because it is literally the longest stretch of road in the world and I think hopefully it will finally satisfy my urges to ride. Nothing is bigger than this trip.

Everyone is a UT alum, but some come from different departments. How did the group meet and find common ground in documentary filmmaking?

(JACK) My very first teammate was our writer Dyar Bentz. We met through Texas 4000 while on the same route and we grew to become really great friends. He’s been there from pretty much the beginning. The other guys I met in film school and through Students of the World (SOW).

I first met Riley and Ricardo in Intro to Documentary with Ellen Spiro. Riley and I naturally gravitated towards each other in the class because we had similar taste in filmmaking. I remember telling him about PEDAL SOUTH one day after Ellen asked the class what their dream project would be. And from that moment on he was signed up for the long haul.

Ricardo and Thomas didn’t come on board until much later after my two childhood friends dropped out of PEDAL SOUTH. We had all done Students of the World together and I knew just how awesome of a DP Ricardo was and how amazing Thomas was at photography. At that point we had solid group of creative guys who loved travelling and storytelling.

We believe that storytelling is the most powerful medium to inspire people. Although personally I move towards filmmaking, I [also] love photography and writing. Each one of those mediums have touched me on a deep level in a crucial time of my life and changing the course of it. Because of that I think that by using those different mediums of storytelling, potentially we could reach more people.

Tell us a little about Students of the World. What is your affiliation to them and was it an inspiration for PEDAL SOUTH?

(JACK) Students of the World is a non-profit media company based out of San Francisco that is partnered with the production company Participant Media. Participant is the company behind films such as LINCOLN, THE HELP, and THE COVE. At the time, SOW was an internship program that took college students to third world countries to produce media for non-profits. I got involved after learning about them through a friend from Texas 4000. Their mission is to shine a light on social innovators, those making a positive impact in their communities. Currently they are a student-run organization at UT and have several other chapters at Universities across the West Coast.

Having all completed the program, we wanted to further their mission of celebrating good people doing good things along the Pan-American Highway. And so we reached out to them to become our fiscal sponsor.

SOW has definitely been an inspiration to our journey. We really believe wholeheartedly in their mission statement, and we just want to travel the world, sharing unique stories from the amazing people that we meet along the way.

You have a website and Facebook page, and accounts on Instagram and Twitter. How did you choose those social media platforms and how have they helped and/or hindered your project? Also comment on your customized merchandise for sale.

(JACK) We chose those social media platforms because they are the most widely known. They have helped us significantly gain an audience. We have a friend at FB who is able to donate $250 of free paid promotion per month. And so for the past two months we have been creating ads to target countries along our route. As a result we’ve gone from less than 1K supporters to nearly 8K supporters in just two months. Of those supporters, the majority of people are from Latin American countries. This has been a huge help to prove to potential sponsors that PEDAL SOUTH has an international appeal. We also created our online store to not only raise funds, but more importantly turn PEDAL SOUTH into a brand that could potentially grow into something bigger than just this journey. I would love to it turn into an outdoor clothing company in the future.

What was your strategy for crowdfunding? Why Rally and Thunderclap? How is this relevant to post-graduates?

(JACK) Up until now our focus has been mainly on corporate sponsorship and in kind donations from outdoor companies. So we haven’t spent a lot of time on crowdfunding. However, that has become the new focus for the months of February and March as our departure date gets closer and closer. We’ve decided to go with Kickstarter because that is the platform that is most familiar with our young audience. I think it’s great because it creates a sense of urgency with the countdown and it really motivates people to donate because if we don’t meet our fundraising goal then we don’t get any money at all.

Were these skills of filmmaking, networking, community building, and self-promotion all things that you learned while in school or after graduation, or both?

(RICARDO) Actually I’ve learned most of those skills before going to UT. My first introduction of visual storytelling came early in life through my brother; he is a comic book artist. Then I decided to go to photography school because I thought it was a great way to travel the world (Since I can remembered I have been dreaming about exploring the world.) Photography school was kind of an associate’s degree. After school I moved to San Antonio to learn more photography, and ended up having a couple of businesses: one in wedding photography, the other a small ad agency. At some point I got tired and move to Austin to go to UT film school. At the same time being involved in these project and having Jack (producer) doing such a great job has helped me to sharpen those skills at a higher level due to the size of the project.

What are your strategies for meeting people from different cultural backgrounds, languages and ways of life?

(RICARDO) We don’t have specific strategies, but I think that is the beauty of it. Each one of the members of PEDAL SOUTH has traveled to different parts of the world to tell stories of different cultures. I think what helped each one of us to successfully tell stories around the world were two things: (1) Our shared natural curiosity to explore and understand the world that we live in. (2) Our true concern and appreciation for people. Having those two qualities as our main core has helped us to overcome cultural, religious, and language barriers.

How did UT prepare you for the obstacles you will face when you embark on the PEDAL SOUTH project?

(RICARDO) At UT film school I learned what is true team collaboration. Spending so much time creating projects where each one of us has a very specific and important role made me appreciate and long for future collaborations.