Teaser 015 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

So, people have been asking me to post a FToM teaser that had a little bit of dialog in it for a while now. And I don't really have an excuse as to what took me so long to actually picking one out.

But, I have to give Erica some credit here... I had yet *another* quiet biking shot picked out and ready to go and she strong-armed me into saving that for another time and picking out something "different".

This group was one of the first people Larry ran into after having to say goodbye to his best-friend Jay earlier this morning. I know it must have been hard on Larry to carry on as if nothing was wrong or out-of-place.

Labels: Teaser, Vimeo

I'm sitting by the open window right now, enjoying the smell that comes after a mid-west thunder storm, and an iTunes playlist from Jon. It's almost been 10 days since my last post, so I thought I'd better check in and give everyone an update on what I've been busy with.


FToM: First on the list, the film. I've still been very busy going through clip by clip and dropping what I like in the timeline. I'm probably 1/3rd of the way through the 2nd TB of footage.

Two days ago I sent a FCP project file to Amanda, she has the back-up drives in LA, and I've been waiting for feedback on what she thinks so far. The way it's cut now, it's not much to look at, but when looked at side-by-side with our notes on the arc of film, I can see a pattern emerging, and places where certain moods and points can be made. I'm anxious to be sitting back in-front of the typewriter again.

Stockpile: I've been pushing hard promoting Stockpile on Vimeo, ACA, and popular bicycling forums (like Crazy Guy on a Bike). We're already getting some great feedback and interest so far. And today a few more clips were shared in our group.

One reader replied, "I have a good feeling about the project. It looks like the personal essence of the moments will come through. Teaser number two shows, to me anyways, how profound it is to be insignificant. Good luck on the project."

Our main goal with Stockpile is to be able to visually show just how connected we are by the places we've been - how our experiences are intertwined in ways that are easily overlooked. We have a long way to go before we reach the number of videos needed to do that, but with steady pressure and outreach, by the time the film needs it, I believe we'll be prepared.

Kickstarter: Our Kickstarter campaign finished a few days ago and we were able to overshoot our goal by $105! I've adjusted the funding progress by by $1,105, which felt great to do. I can't thank everyone enough who donated, twittered, and help spread the word in anyway. It's by far the biggest jump in donations we've received since coming home from production two years ago.

It turned out to be a really impressive and supportive community of people. of all the sites we've joined that had fundraising support, it's been by far the most successful.

Also, of course, a huge thank you to those of you who have recently donated via our new funding site. I know we had a few people do so during the Kickstarter campaign and I didn't want to sound like I was leaving them out.

I'm excited about the next round of funding - and have been thinking of ways to incorporate a breakdown of upcoming expenses that we can split into individual campaigns.

t.minus: I've also been putting together the next t.minus project. If any of you have dropped by the site recently, you'd have seen our 'currently closed' splash page - hopefully after this weekend I'll have it swapped out with all the new info.

I can't say too much about it at the moment, but I can tell you it's a collaboration project that anyone can be a part of! And, if I can make up my mind on a design, there could be t-shirts involved too.

Labels: FToM, Fund, Post-Production, Stockpile, t.minus

Sorry this took so long to upload - I recorded this friday afternoon, and wasn't able to edit it while in Kentucky like I'd hoped.

Post Production - Week 78 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

But here it is - just an update on how I've been combing through the footage for the trip and making sense of it. It's a basic approach, but the baby-step process seems to be helping.

Labels: Post-Production, Punakea, Weekly Update

Last night I twittered that I finished off the first of two 1 TB drives full of FToM's footage - I went through and condensed many of the edits and took out clips I knew weren't working now that I had seen it next to other clips. So the timeline is still just barely pushing 2 hrs and 15 min.

But with another 1 TB of footage to comb through, and 400-some Mp4 clips (from Larry, and the crew), I'll be busy for a few more weeks before I have a solid 5 hours of footage that count as the most usable of the film's media. Then, the plan is, to play that edit on a loop while I make notes, write more of the script and narration, draw out the last of the storyboards for scenes we still need to film with Larry in Northern California... picking out music, et cetera.

I have a long, long road ahead of me. Finishing one of the drives was a great feeling, but it was a small step.

We only have 9 days to go on our Kickstarter campaign - another $300 and we'll have reached our goal! Just as a note; none of the money pledged to this point goes through if our goal isn't reached. This $1,000 will be set aside for the post-production and pick-up shots I mentioned above.

In my last post, I mentioned that I had been working hard on updated our Stockpile project. If you haven't seen the new site yet, please take a moment to check it out and help spread the word. When I was on the phone with Winona, from Adventure Cycling, she suggested I create a promo video for our outreach campaign. I thought it was a great idea, so here it is, our new 60 second Stockpile promo:

Help us burn through the more than 16,600 HD embed'able plays we have left on Vimeo!

It's easy - just copy the code above and paste it anywhere you see fit. Thanks for helping to spread the word!

<object width="588" height="250"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5070041&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5070041&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="588" height="250"></embed></object>That's all the updates I have in me tonight. I'm leaving town for the weekend but I'm hoping to record a vlog update while I'm working in FCP in the afternoon.

Labels: Embed, Fund, Post-Production, Stockpile, Twitter, Vimeo

Since my last post, about simplifying my editing workflow, I've been cutting For Thousands of Miles like a mad man. I created a separate sequence, nicknamed The Odyssey, and went from a blank slate to over 2 ½ hours in the last few days.

Editing FToM Screen Cast from mike ambs on Vimeo

It feels so refreshing to just filter out the beginning, and the end of FToM, and just focus on the chunk that deals with a more linear (emotionally) arc. Treating it as it's own separate piece has lifted so much of the pressure and confusion from editing, and I can see already that having this larger, more complete block of the film actually in front of me, will make it much easier in the near future to tie it back into the bookends of the film.

But editing isn't all I've been busy with, over the weekend I did some updating and re-designing of Stockpile (which will go live in the next few days), I've been putting together a 60 second promotional video for it also - something that the awesome people over at Adventure Cycling suggested we try. We're really excited about the upcoming mention of Pedal in their Bike Bits newsletter, I can't wait to watch all the newly submitted bike-trip footage.

Back to work for now - be sure to let us know in the comments if you anything questions about what's going on behind the scenes of Pedal.

Labels: FToM, Post-Production, Stockpile, Vimeo

I'm excited about editing today - last night I was making changes in the film's timeline - currently I am working on the section of For Thousands of Miles that deals with Larry's trip in a more linear fashion. FToM doesn't start that way at all, and I was using a different (more structured) approach earlier on - but that approach carried over into other areas of the story.

And I realized last night that those solutions didn't work on this problem. So I'm excited about today because I'm going to try something very simple to solve something very complicated. I'm going to run through, clip by clip, and drop in the shots that I like. That's it.

It's how I usually go about editing more personal videos, not too much thought, not too much structure (at least at first), just grab what catches my attention, and set it in the timeline.

On the 1st of two hard-drives I have somewhere around 1,170+ individual clips, ranging anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 minutes. So, it's not to say that this is a quick solution, but the approach is familiar, it's simple enough to provide immediate gratification, and sometimes that's very important when editing.

Will I end up with a 5 hour rough-cut of a part of the finished film that is supposed to only take up 30-40 minutes? Yes, at first I will. But that's ok. I'll start picking it apart when the time comes. Time to get to work!

Labels: FToM, Post-Production

Teaser 014 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

This was taken in Glacier Park Montana - it poured there for about two days.

At this point in the trip Larry didn't even own a tent, I'm not quite sure how he managed to sleep and stay dry. He used a tarp and a picnic table to create a kind of make-shift tent.

It's a strange thing to be so cold and so wet in weather like this - and not have a real roof over your head. Not only for just a few hours, but for days. When the sun finally comes out and hits your skin - it's an amazing feeling to be back on your bike.

Labels: Post-Production, Teaser

Whew. I made it - barely, but still, in one piece. Next time I insist on driving across the country in a loaded station-wagon with no air-conditioner, someone might want to ask me to double think it. Despite my heat-rashes, I don't regret driving - I just couldn't afford it.

But, moving on: so I'm still living out of half-empty boxes and milk-crates, most of my hardware is unpacked and connected. I setup all my external drives and ran test on them to see how they handled the road trip and the 108 heat - everything looks great so far.

I have a lot of work to do today - so I'll try to keep this post short and sweet - and I don't have much to update aside from "I've been doing lots of unpacking and heavy lifting", but I wanted to stress just how much all of your comments, tweets and support have meant to me the last few weeks.

I would be lying if I said that my decision to move here was easy, and that the change in my life came with no aftershocks. As a struggling filmmaker, or really just as a human-being, I am full of second-guessing and nagging anxieties. And that's where all of you come in - you've helped me believe in myself. So thank you.


A few quick things before I go: 1) I started using Campaign Monitor to power our newsletters and out-reach goals.

If you're not subscribed yet, you can view an archive of yesterday's newsletter.

2) We launched a new Kickstarter fundraiser - in only 3 days 4 people have already pledged $65.

We have 31 days left to raise out $1,000 - which will go towards follow up interviews and pick up shots in Northern California - drop by and check it out!

3) We quietly launched our new Join our Team (formally our "Get Involved" site) and we are looking for people who are excited about indie filmmaking and anxious to become a part of the driving force behind Pedal's out-reach goals.

I'd love to hear feedback on what people are most interested in hearing about. If you want to know more about writing, or editing, or our out-reach, leave us a comment saying so.

Labels: Post-Production