Filming with a Professional Runner Hans Troyer
This short film is a cinematic portrait of one of trail running’s most compelling young athletes, but it reaches far beyond race results.
Filmed in a single day in Boulder, Colorado, this piece follows Hans through sunrise and sunset runs, gym sessions, sauna recovery, time at home, and moments with his wife and dog to explore the person behind the victories. It’s a look at the joy, faith, ambition, discipline, and humor that shape the way he runs and the way he lives.
Hans is chasing greatness at the highest level of trail running, but this film is really diving into his personality and how to pursue something enormous without losing yourself in the process.
Starring: Hans Troyer
Produced / Directed / Shot / Edited by: Roo Smith
Starting With the Person, Not the Résumé
Hans is one of those athletes who can give you more than one film at once. There is the public version, the runner charging through major races, stacking wins, saying things like “Young and fit” and “These are the times.” Then there is the private version, the guy who finds joy in simple things, talks openly about God, wants to be a great husband and someday a great father, and still seems amused by his own catchphrases. In the interview, he says running feels like the purest form of himself, and that line became a kind of compass for me. I did not want to make a greatest-hits reel. I wanted to make something that answered a cleaner question: who is this guy when the race ends?
That shaped the whole approach to this short documentary. The film needed to hold both sides of this professional runner. Hans is elite, and I used archival race material to establish that early, but the emotional center had to come from the more personal material. His thoughts on Georgia, on faith, on greatness, on wanting to remain fully himself while chasing something enormous, gave the project real interior life. He is not interesting merely because he runs fast. He is interesting because his ambition is paired with joy, earnestness and a kind of spiritual steadiness that gives the pursuit a lot of depth.
The Shoot
The schedule was pretty loose, it was basically just Hans and I hanging out around Boulder all day. We started before dawn and met at a trail in South Boulder, then moved through to South Boulder Pond after sunrise. The middle of the day was reserved for the gym, followed by a house block for the sauna, cooking, dog, and interview. We originally planned to finish at Chautauqua Park, but ended up shooting the final running session at Walker Ranch instead. I’m super happy we did. Walker Ranch gave the afternoon section a lot more expansive views and less of the familiar Boulder postcard. It felt a little wilder, a little less groomed, which felt better since we got so many Flatirons views in the morning.
Keeping the Camera Gear Minimal
I shot the film on the Sony A7Siii, with the interview on an A6700. Part of the fun was leaning into a setup that felt nimble rather than lugging around something oversized for the sake of appearances. There is still a strange amount of mythology in filmmaking that treats the big camera as proof of seriousness. I have never found that especially convincing. Image-making starts much earlier than the body of the camera. It begins with framing, contrast, movement, timing, and whether you know what a scene is for.
Using those bodies felt right for this project and I personally wanted to prove to myself I could use a $1,000 camera to create a great interview shot. With this setup, I could move quickly, stay responsive, and keep the footprint small, which mattered because this was just a one-man operation. There was no one off to the side re-rigging things while I worked. Every decision had to be practical enough to make the day easy and fun.
Lighting With Restraint
I used one light in the gym, one light in the sauna, and one light in the kitchen. The choice was partly logistical and partly aesthetic. I wanted the gym to have a bit more shape and edge, something more sculpted and intentional. Workouts invite contrast to me for some reason and I wanted it to feel a bit more lit and commercial.
The sauna and the kitchen needed a bit of a gentler touch. Unlike the gym, I didn’t want them to feel “lit.” I wanted them to feel authentic but still look beautiful. That was especially important in the house material, because those scenes were carrying so much of the film’s humanity. If the lighting started announcing itself, the intimacy of just Hans and his wife Grace in the kitchen would break. The goal was to make the environments feel flattering and cinematic without ever sliding into obvious production design. In a piece like this, there is a lot of value in letting a viewer feel that life is simply looking its best for a moment.
My Visual Inspiration
Visually, I let myself have some fun. I used camcorder footage in certain moments, mixed in shutter blur, leaned on flash transitions, and embraced a few of the classic visual moves that have circulated through running films for the past couple years. None of those choices were made under the illusion that I was reinventing the form. They were made because they still create a feeling, and this project was built on feeling.
There is a kind of visual grammar that belongs to running culture now with speed ramps, motion blur, and flashes but, used poorly, those techniques feel lazy. Used at the right moments, they can still hit with real force. I wanted to try to see if I could understand when to use the for the right moments.
Hans has a naturally expressive persona, and the film needed some of that voltage in the cut. I wanted the polished footage to sit beside rougher textures and archival material in a way that felt lively rather than precious.
Why I Wanted to Make It This Way
More than anything, this project was a chance to flex the creative muscle and trust instinct. One day of shooting. Small cameras. Minimal lighting. A clear schedule. A strong subject. Enough preparation to know what I was after, and enough looseness to let the day breathe.
That was the real exercise. Could I build something cinematic and emotionally sharp without overcomplicating the process? Could I make a film that looked expensive without acting expensive? Could I let the work feel playful without letting it get sloppy? Those were the questions riding under the surface.
By the end of the day, I felt that rare satisfaction that comes from a project meeting the conditions it set for itself. The piece had motion, shape, warmth, and a point of view. It showcased Hans as an elite runner, but it also did what I hoped it would do from the start: it made room for the man inside the momentum. In a short film meant to answer who he is, that felt like the only part that really mattered.
Why We Should Work Together…
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Roo is an Emmy nominated commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has directed documentaries for Patagonia in California, produced films for Outside Magazine throughout Europe and Africa, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in South America, and has received notable recognition in the outdoor industry for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.