ReelSports, staged baseball

Rob Miller remembers the late comedian Bernie Mac for a lot of reasons. One of them was the way he swung a baseball bat.

"He had some ability," says Miller, the president and CEO of ReelSports Solutions, a Charleston, S.C.-based company that, among other services, coordinates athletic training for actors in sports scenes in film.

"Bernie could hit a little bit. He was also a great guy and was constantly cracking all of us up, which made it even more fun to watch."

Miller worked with Mac on the 2004 movie "Mr. 3000," and his company also helped out on baseball films "The Rookie" and "The Final Season" and the TV series "Clubhouse."

And while he's also worked on sports hits such as hockey's "Miracle," football's "Invincible" and basketball's "Coach Carter," Miller says he particularly loves baseball projects.

"Baseball's great because for years and years, it's been such a storytelling sport, more than maybe any other in America," he says.

"We all grew up with great baseball movies, so to help continue the tradition is quite a thrill. It's a passion and fun to go out there and help tell these stories."

Miller and ReelSports accomplish that in many ways.

The company doesn't just train actors like Mac to look good playing the games. ReelSports also uses an extensive casting database on its Web site, ReelSports.net, to recruit athletes to play the many needed bit roles in action scenes, such as the much-lauded Olympic hockey recreations in "Miracle."

Open casting calls are regular events, and Miller, a former college football player and strength and conditioning coach, shows up and treats these auditions like legitimate training camps.

"For (2007's)'The Final Season,' we went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and 1,000 baseball players showed up for the casting call," Miller says. "We whittled it down to 50. We needed each guy to be a great player who looked like he was in high school, had the time availability and the right attitude.

"So it's just like being a coach in that way. We're big believers in team collaboration."

It's paying off, too. Miller's company continues to score big-time projects and reap major benefits, in Hollywood and, yes, even in "Bollywood."

In 2007, ReelSports branched out to India, landing a women's field hockey movie, "Chak De! India," in the land of the Bollywood genre from a cold call by the director, Shimit Amin, who was impressed with "Miracle."

Not at all knowing what to expect, Miller took on the project eagerly, getting the sequences that led the film to astonishing success. The film won the Indian equivalent of five Oscars and five Golden Globes and was the third-highest-grossing movie in the country that year.

"It was a great experience, and it's something that I always dreamed of for our company," Miller says. "Part of what we've always wanted to do is grow worldwide."

Miller, meanwhile, is still spending a good portion of his life in India. He's working on a cricket movie, and he says he's even putting some of his baseball experience and knowledge to use, since there are "a lot of similarities between the two sports, although it's taken me a while to figure out what they are."

Miller says he's confident that more baseball projects will present themselves to ReelSports soon.

With great excitement, he mentions one upcoming script by friends of his that are "some of the best writers in the business," and adds that he can't wait to get back on the diamond and set the stage for the true drama that only comes with the Grand Old Game.

"One of the challenges for baseball for us is the best thing about it, which is that it's really a sport of moments," he says. "And trying to capture moments is everything.

"When you get one of those moments on film and really nail it and you see it play out in the theater at that climactic point of the movie, it resonates and is very powerful and memorable."