Aboslute Elation (2026)
Admittedly, I’m not much of a sports person. I respect athletes and enjoy occasional stints of watching live baseball– maybe a game or two on the radio in a given year. With that being said, I am a documentary person who works in the creative side of the sports world. I’ve worked on documentaries with a focus on all sorts of subjects.
The subject for this film was one of Saucony’s pro athletes, Julia Paternain. She ran the Tokyo Marathon in 2025, and won the bronze medal… something she was surprised by when crossing the finish line. Absolute Elation follows Julia’s journey from casual runner to one who exploded into fame and landed in the Sports World’s spotlight.
Production began by heading to Flagstaff, AZ for a week of shooting with Julia and her team. The city is known for its high elevation, which pro runners train in for a myriad of athletic benefits. Great for runners, but a little more challenging when lugging cameras and other gear from location to location. We met Julia at her house for our prime interview, and followed that by capturing supplemental footage in the area; An casual run with Julia, a hard workout, and some marketing moments for Saucony.
Different to other documentaries I’ve worked on, I expanded my previous roles with 2 Player Productions as Audio Lead and Associate Producer. I was a part of this project from the beginning, taking the lead on pre-production so that the rest of the job would be easy: Directing, producing, shooting, and then moving to post production editing, mixing, and color correction. My fingerprints are on every part of the creative process. Documentaries aren’t something that Running Warehouse or Saucony has done, so it was rewarding to bring my prior experience to both brands.
All the time spent with Julia allowed me to get into her mind and to allow her to tell her story, in her words. What came of it is an exploration of how community promotes success, and how staying true to one’s self and ignoring competition can result in truly amazing accomplishments. This was the case for Absolute Elation, as Saucony (and Julia) were thrilled with the end result.
Absolute Elation was shot with Sony FX3 and FX6 cameras. We used Rode mics for audio capture. Editing, mixing, and color correction were done in Adobe Premiere.
Starring: Julia Paternain, Connor Blalock
Sports Warehouse : Mike Roberts, Rob Greenwald, James Alcott
Saucony: Erin Heenan