is this thing on?

So, out of desperation, I've started to consider the possibility that my email account for 'project pedal' is unstable... in reality, it's probably very, very unlikely. But, I'm waiting for reply's from: trek, nashbar, blogger's support team, the crew in belgium, a guy who designs very low-cost, high-end fully maneuverable cranes… as well as many other individuals who I won't go into at the moment. And this isn't simply my being impatient, oh no, it's been days. In some cases, weeks, I've sent follow-up letters. I'm stuck here waiting from some kind of signal from twenty different contacts...


On a slightly less frustrating note: out of boredom, I’ve been tweaking with the template for the website, working in ‘comments’ [those will probably be up as soon as blogger writes me back], unfortunately the behavior of this site’s “permalinks” causes a few commenting-problems, but they should be up and running in… well, who knows, soon I hope. I’ve also been laying out a new “official” site for ‘project pedal’, as we get closer and closer to production/ the trip I would like for the site to have a more “user-friendly” face to it. Instead of the ‘blog’ being the home page, it [this blog] would be a link on a simpler, cleaner site design.

Well, it’s late and I should be getting to bed, in the morning I have to get up and take the car in – just as we’re trying to save money for the trip; everything expensive around us starts to break down. “Typical”. But before I get up from where I’m sitting, and walk two feet over to the bed - I wanted to link to David Duchovny’s blog for his new film ‘House of D’, this might be old news to a lot of you considering he’s found his way onto blogger’s “blogs of note” listings. It's strange, but one of the things I like most about his site is that he writes in all lower-case letters… I can’t explain why it is that I find that appealing, but I do. To hell with proper grammar [as I get excited and start to blurt out incomplete sentences]. All the same, I’m looking forward to seeing this film.

nine weeks to go

Excited. Nervous. On the edge of hyperventilating. It’s strange; you plan and you plan over months and months, you take everything: your ambitions, your money, your time and energy, your life, and you ball it all up into this single moment – and in a way, honestly, it’s terrifying when reality hits and you realize that it’s right there in front of your face, staring your down. You always knew the day would come – but when it’s weeks, days, hours away… I guess I’m just saying I’m getting a bit anxious.

Anyways, here’s another quick update of things I’ve been keeping myself busy with:

* Tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with Darren, who is a very, very promising applicant for the sound position – I don’t want to say too much too early, but I will tell you that on top of his sound-experience he has gone on several big-bike-trips since 2001.

* Amanda and I are leaving on a mini-bike-trip the 2nd & 3rd of April, we’ll either ride from North Hollywood to the beach (North of Malibu) or we’ll drive out to the beach and then ride a day up the coast and then the next day come back down. I’m not sure if we’ll make anything of this, for sure we’ll bring along the digital camera but I’m still debating if I want to lug around the canon or not.

* I’m going to be helping out with a short film on the 22nd, 23rd & 24th of April – something called “worm”, all I know is it’s a 25-minute long steady-cam shot. I’m a sucker for anything that reminds of P.T. Anderson / Scorsese, I’ll be sure to let you all know how that goes.

* This whole fundraising party I keep mentioning here and there, it’s time I tell you more about it: the “party idea” was suggested to us by Tricia, who used to throw fundraising-parties for a theatre she was involved with – her best efforts raised $12,000 in one night for a small-stage production a friend of hers was staring in. Now, I don’t expect to raise nearly that much – but hopefully, even if the party bombs, the film could pull in a few thousand dollars and a lot of support. With nine weeks left until production, I’m hoping to get a party set-up four weeks from now, giving us a good amount of time afterwards to pull in the last of the budget.

Aside from the fact that I’m not the best in big-party situations – it should be a good time.

* Clif bar is sending us a handful of boxes for the film; I would like to thank them very, very much for their generosity and interest in the project.

* Some of you might have taken notice already, but it is a fairly obscure link so I thought I would take a second to point it out; I’ve added a “filmmaker’s resources” directory – it’s between the ‘contact’ and the ‘archives’ to the left. There’s a bit of everything in there, so take a moment to check it out.

* Been working on the ‘cast & crew’ pages a bit, but I was hoping to get some feedback from the readers on what specifically people wanted to learn the most. Do you just need a name with a picture? Would you rather read a short-post taking about what that person has done, and how they came to be involved with this film? Would it be best to list a general: age, hometown, blah blah blah? Be creative and let me know – maybe a video-post would interesting…

the story of: the documentary

part six of seven [ one . two . three . four . five . six . seven ]

By this time in my life, I feared I had lost sight of almost everything that was valuable and true from the bike trip – my rough split from “Rolling Chair” combined with a short list of emotionally-draining events in the past two years had left me feeling unfocused and caught-up in route, I had, since Sept 11th, become obsessed with world politics, something that on one hand I found fascinating, but on the other, this obsession, often times, left me angry, confused, distracted, cynical…

I desperately wanted to leave on another bike trip – this time; sharing the experience with Amanda – to get away from everything that I found distracting: TV, my day-job, politics, errands, bills, money, etc… On my first trip, everything was so clear, the perspective was different, instead of feeling distracted through 80% of the day, I felt clear-minded, able to focus on things that are eye-opening, for example: “there are more links in a person’s brain than atoms in the entire universe”, or “no energy is either created nor destroyed, everything is recycled and reused and replaced”… Of course, not everything that consumed my thoughts on the bike trip revolved around science, maybe these are terrible examples, but you get the idea. These thoughts broke the boundaries of the day-to-day-mindset in a way that was liberating…

It was around this time, of planning a second bike-trip, this time, with Amanda, that she suggested to me creating a documentary around the cross-country trip. But before I get ahead of myself; right around the time the bike-documentary was born, Chuck entered our lives again, he had started living at the dorms over at Eastern, which were minutes away from where Amanda and I were living in ‘Ypsi’. In the beginning, I made it a point to not bring filmmaking into our friendship. The three of us – Amanda, Chuck and myself – began hanging out quite often; hanging out at Chuck’s dorm-room, going for late night walks around Ann Arbor. At this point that I was working for myself as an editor / videographer, I began asking Chuck for his help in shooting events that required more than one camera… it was around this point that Chuck showed an interest in the bike-documentary idea, and although I intended to not bring “film” into the picture, he was so genuinely excited and anxious at the mention of the project that I --

I think it’s important for me to stop and take a moment to explain something relevant to this story and my relationship, both personally and professionally, with Chuck: shortly after the bike trip, but before we moved into together, Chuck and I made a promise to each other; “that we would, no matter what, make films together”. I rarely make a promise to someone - only when I truly believe I can keep that promise 110% do I feel comfortable making it in the first place – and this promise was always something that weighted on my conscious when “Rolling Chair” seemed broken. I always wondered if there was more I could have done? Was I too intense or pressuring? So you can imagine my predicament here: do I put our friendship at risk again by starting “Rolling Chair” back up? Or do I tell him no and avoid taking responsibility for my promise?

Having said that – we began planning the bike-documentary together – we even designed a new logo for “Rolling Chair”. Then winter came, it was terribly cold and miserable in Michigan – one night, out of nowhere; Chuck suggested we move to California. At that point in time, he was suggesting we leave that night, just pack up everything and drive west, tell no one, just go – but this was something I couldn’t and wouldn’t do because I had editing jobs I was currently working on that month, not to mention it seemed a bit inconsiderate to our families.

But we didn’t dismiss the idea – we spent hours that night discussing the move. For Amanda and I, moving to L.A. was something we wanted to focus on after our bike trip. But at the same time, Chuck and I were close again – and I couldn’t and wouldn’t leave without him. So when he suggested the idea, we didn’t have a lot of reason not go besides the fact that we were all broke at the time.

But, for whatever reason – maybe simply because it was so amazingly cold outside - we started seriously discussing the possibility of moving. Chuck wanted to follow his dreams of directing films and “what better place to do it than in Hollywood, right?” He said. It was a terribly frightening/ risky decision – and in my experience, those are the risks you regret not taking the most.

promotional politics

The other day I tried to drop some 'Project Pedal stickers' off onto my favorite theatre in downtown Santa Monica, Laemmle's Monica Fourplex. I was naive enough to assume it would be no big deal.

First I was re-directed to the main office, the employees did not have permission to simply place a small stack of twenty stickers on their promotional table. So Amanda and I drove down Santa Monica Blvd in bumper-to-bumper traffic until we reached the Laemmle-headquaters, I wandered through an un-marked door and up a narrow flight of stairs overflowing with what looked like old mail.

When I came around the corner and into the small loft office, all three people were on the phone - so I stood there awkwardly for a second until the receptionist finally acknowledged my entering the room. I explained what I was doing and asked if it was okay for me to leave some stickers with them, the receptionist then said I would have to talk with the marketing director, when I asked who this person was, he pointed to the guy - still on the phone - two feet to my right. So, I stood there some more and waited while he wrapped up his conversation, then ours went something like this:

Mike: Hi, I was hoping I could leave of stack of these stickers at your Fourplex on 2nd, they're for an independent documentary –-

Marketing Director: [cutting me off in mid-sentence] Are we showing this film?

Mike: What?

Marketing Director: This documentary, are we showing it?

Mike: No – the movie is still in preproduction. I’m just hoping to raise some awareness –-

Marketing Director: [cutting me off in mid-sentence again] I’m afraid the ramifications of placing said stickers on a small-table within just one of our many theatres would be unpredictably catastrophic. A risk we are unwilling to take at this given time.

Mike: [very long pause] Oh… ‘kay.

Marketing Director: Please leave.

to explain

Earlier today it dawned on me how misleading the synopsis reads compared to what I actually have in mind for the documentary. It implies that it’s a film about “our” 4,000 mile cross country bike trip, with a few “cameos” by random encountered travelers – and that’s really not the case at all, actually it’s almost the complete opposite. But, having said that, I still find it difficult to “sum-up” the real ideas behind Project Pedal… mostly because the many layers I want in the film – but there is a fine line between “layers” and just watering down the point of your movie, so I have a hard time covering the gist while not ignoring the subtle things. But I figured it was time I sat down and tried to clear things up:

The main idea behind Project Pedal is that “our” trip is merely “background” [okay, I’m getting a little carried away with the quotations] – in other words, we won’t verbally tell our story, but the travelers we meet a long the way will tell their stories and it will, in a symbolic and reminiscent kind of way, tell ours.

So, hypothetically speaking, we’ll talk with rider ‘A’ – who is a young first timer, making his way alone across the country from Detroit to Washington to catch a game of ultimate-Frisbee. And then we’ll have rider ‘B’ – a 65 year old man who is at the half-way point of his sixth cross country bike trip throughout his lifetime, biking this time to raise money for breast cancer, which took his mother’s life several years ago. And these two riders, ‘A’ and ‘B’, will, through their own experiences and point of views, set an overall mood – of course there will be more then two hypothetical riders, but you get the idea.


Now this next part is a fairly new idea [so I would love to hear your feedback on it]: I’m hoping to get through 95% of the film without ever using any original audio from just “our” footage – to clarify, only the footage with only us [Amanda, Nick and myself] will have the audio removed – any other footage does not apply to this rule, almost as if “our” trip was filmed with old-super8 – and everything else was captured using the ‘normal equipment’. Why would I want to do this? What’s the point? People “look” at film differently depending on whether or not it has sound.

When you watch an old VHS of someone’s birthday party from eleven years ago – and you can hear the kids laughing and shouting, and you hear a parent asking so-and-so to stop running, then the person holding the camera is mumbling to a someone off screen about the cake, etc… it’s a completely different emotion from watching old super8 of someone playing in their front yard twenty-some years ago, when there’s no sound, just them, running in circles, smiling, and falling down from dizziness. The first almost leaves the viewer waiting for the ‘punch line’, when there is none. With the first example you're watching a moment, with the ladder, a part of you realizes your watching a memory. Remove the audio from the birthday party home-movie and you start to break apart the body-language, even on a sub-conscious level, it forces you to look closer.

This isn’t to say that the bulk of the documentary will be silent – not at all – instead it will be layered with other’s narratives and/ or music. Hopefully, I did a decent job of explaining that, I’ve only ran it past two people and one of them loved it and the other just said they had no idea what I was talking about.


Okay, now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go listen to “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (pt.1)” by ‘The Flaming Lips’… don’t ask why, I’ve just had it stuck in my head the past few days and I can't get it out.

the story of: 'rolling chair'

part five of seven [ one . two . three . four . five . six . seven ]

Six months later, Chuck and I rented an apartment outside of Ann Arbor together, with the hopes that it would give us the freedom to work on film-projects more consistently. Chuck began taking film-courses at Washtenaw – and at first, things seemed promising. We would often work on Chuck’s film assignments together, I was even allowed to sit-in during classes on occasion. A highlight of “Rolling Chair” was seeing two of our shorts played at an Ann Arbor film-festival in ‘The Michigan Theatre’.

We’d completed a few shorts and shot several small projects, mostly just goofing around, but we never shot anything serious or wrote another script. Over time, I found it increasingly difficult to spark Chuck’s interest in personal-projects. Weeks between “Rolling Chair” projects quickly became months. Many of our works-in-progress never made it past a late night of brainstorming. In public, Chuck was quick to point out our interest in film – “Rolling Chair” though, was becoming more of a conversation-started for Chuck than an actual routine.

“Rolling Chair”, for me, continued to grow as an idea. I often spent my free-time working out details and storylines to a number of different projects; it was a form of release from my everyday life. I spent many nights pacing the top-levels of parking garages in Ann Arbor; several scrap pieces of paper and a pen in my pocket. The parking garages gave a birds-eye view of my favorite theater, ‘The Michigan’. But, it seemed the more my interest grew in film, the more distracted, on a monthly cycle, Chuck became with: his girlfriend going off to college, zines, stamp-making, aggressive-inline-skating, starting a sticker company…

By the next spring Chuck and I were no longer living together. The lack of hands-on filmmaking/ screenwriting had, over time, driven an uncomfortable wedge in our friendship. I hadn’t talked to him in months. He was living an hour away at his cousin’s, and I was now living with my girlfriend, Amanda, in a house just down the street from my first apartment.

At this point, whether I liked it or not, Rolling Chair seemed dead, and I was getting used to the idea of going-it-alone. Which almost brings us “Project Pedal” – but before “Project Pedal” there was moving to California, well… kinda.

eleven weeks to go

A quick overview of what I've been keeping myself busy with:

* Attempting to run-up my debt - I put in a handful of credit card applications, but with no luck, they all wasted no time in turning around and laughing in my face. I'm just going to have to raise the remainder of the budget the old-fashion way... desperate pleading.

* Sponsorship - at least the credit-card companies have the decency to acknowledge your request, I've been sending out emails and making phone calls to Trek, and Nashbar without so much as a "thanks for trying" in return.

* Maps - on a more positive note, Adventure Cycling is waiting for the last batch of 'Pacific Coast' maps to come off the printers and then they'll be sending those along with our 'Northern Tier' maps. I'm very excited about getting those - a special thanks to Adventure Cycling for being the first company to believe in the film.

* A few of you may have already noticed a few minor differences in the site; most obviously there are the new roll-over images for our sponsors [to the left]. And if you watched the [mock] teaser lately, I'm sure you've noticed I've added a "click-to-play" link over the movie... that was a little on the tricky side to be perfectly honest.

There not up and running yet, but I've been working on cast & crew bios - it's kind of hard for those new to this site to know where the project stands and who is attached unless you sift through all of the archives. But for the time being, here's a link to some of the team's past work, knock yourself out.

* I finished up the fundraising letter, along with a DVD to mail out with each letter. I'm just waiting for some feedback from Chris to actually go-ahead with them, I'll post a file of the letter later after it gets the final touch-ups, maybe it will prove useful to someone... someday... somehow.

* Project Pedal Party - with only eleven weeks to go [just typing that makes my heart start pounding] I'm gearing up for a fundraising-get-together. I would go into the details now but I have to get ready for work, so until next time.

'camera'

The other night, I watched 'Videodrome' on Criterion Collection, honestly, I had never really heard of the film until recently - and for whatever reason, it only sparked my interest because; a) 'Blondie' was in it, and b) I thought the case for the DVD was the most creative Criterion case I’ve ever seen, although ‘Fear & Loathing’ is a close-second.

I had very mixed feelings about the film, maybe it just wasn’t the “kind” of movie I was in the mood for at that particular moment, but in any case, this is all besides the point.

Afterwards, I skipped around some of the ‘special features’ and stumbled across a short film by Cronenberg titled, 'Camera', a project he did as a prelude to celebrate the “25th Anniversary of the Toronto Film Festival”. 99% of it was shot with video – a very rough-handheld documentary styled look to it – except the very last cut is in 35mm. The contrast is so startling and amazing and unexpected. The director really does a great job of setting up the audience to “look” at his short a certain way, and then, right at the end, pulls the rug out. I watched it twice in a row, just to get the full effect.

Watching it really got me excited about the 30-minutes of 16mm stock the crew and I plan on buying for the film. That’s not to say I wasn’t very excited about it before watching ‘Camera’, but the full effect of ‘video in contrast to film’ hadn’t hit me until that last shot. It’s surprisingly powerful if done right.

Well, I spent about an hour sifting through broken links, searching for a downloadable clip of ‘Camera’, so please, make my efforts worthwhile and watch this short. Enjoy.

the story of: the bike trip

part four of seven [ one . two . three . four . five . six . seven ]

May 26th, 2001 – this was the morning the three of us – Tim, Chuck and myself – said goodbye to family and friends and started west on our bicycles; there was 4,000-some miles between us and the Pacific - and none of us had the first idea what we were in for. The 55 days that followed hold too much to even attempt to break down into a few paragraphs – if I had to sum up the experience in a few words, I would say, “it was the most beautiful and difficult experience of my life” – but only the first three days of it are relevant to this story:

Hurricane Alice was stirring up some of the strangest and most-severe weather the mid-west had seen in decades, we spent our first night camping in a muddy strip of trees running behind an unfinished subdivision about 50 miles south of our starting-point, unknown to us at the time, there were several tornado watches and warnings in our area all through out the night.

We weren’t more than four miles into our second day when something unexpected happened, something that changed everything; Chuck stopped his bike in the middle of the road, let it fall carelessly to the ground, and sat, Indian-style, on the yellow line, not talking, just staring silently ahead. When we approached him – without looking up at either of us, Chuck flatly stated he was “going home”. It was a side of Chuck I’d never seen before – and, I’ve always believed, it was the beginning of the end for our friendship.

Chuck didn’t turn around that morning – after a heated argument – we continued on in silence, the next several days consisted of constant rain and continuous threats from Chuck of quitting. One night, in private, Tim told me I shouldn’t expect Chuck to ever have the endurance for filmmaking – a part of me wanted to believe that was a harsh statement, but in the back of my mind, I feared Tim was right. Days later, Chuck would go home due to a knee-injury.



For me, the bike trip symbolized a test: in my mind, I saw the challenge of riding across the country, and the challenge of making a film, as one in the same, both required a kind of “stubborn-determination”. In a strange way, at the end of every exhausting day, I felt stronger as a filmmaker – maybe ‘confident’ is a more fitting word, but in any case – after thousands upon thousands of endless miles, Tim and I reached our destination; the Golden Gate Bridge, it was the most enlightening moment of my life – a powerful emotion I’ll never be able to fully explain… and one that I was eager to experience in filmmaking.

the story of: tim

part three of seven [ one . two . three . four . five . six . seven ]

Whatever our reasons for failing at “Love at Last Sight”, “Rolling Chair Productions” was just beginning, but before I can tell the story of Rolling Chair, I have to tell the story of my first bike trip, but before the bike trip I should introduce Tim:

Tim was voted 2000 runner of the year for Michigan – which in itself, goes a long way in explaining the kind of person Tim is – it’s important to note though that Tim wasn’t the “fastest” runner in Michigan, there were other runners who, on occasion, could out-race Tim. That’s not to say that he didn’t win an overwhelming majority of the races in his high-school-career, but it’s important to point out that his performance stood out from the crowd, I think, because of his energy – before, during and after the race, a rare form of modest-determination that rubbed off on both his teammates as well as his “rivals”.

But this isn’t the real reason Tim needs an introduction – the real reason is; Tim was my best friend from our four years of cross country, and more importantly, was this moment:

It was our senior year of high school; Tim and I had been running the one mile together all season long for Track & Field, the two of us were expected to go 1 and 3 in the 1600 - Tim, of course, finishing first, Ida’s star-miler second, and myself third – but as the two of us were warming up for our race, Tim was worried about the last lap, he knew that Ida’s miler had a far stronger finish – and if, in the end, the two were nose to nose; Tim would lose first place. Tim told me he needed to me to stay with him during the mile – that he needed me there to out-finish Ida’s runner if it came down to the last 200 meters – but most importantly was Tim’s support and genuine confidence in me.

Long story short; this was the first time, over the course of four years – and hundreds upon hundred of races, that I had finished first in the mile – and in a way, the first time I had really won at anything important or challenging in my life – but it wasn’t necessarily the “win” that made the moment so unique to me; it was the first time I had greatly exceeded my self-expectations… the first time I had set out to do something that I believed was unreachable. I owe Tim more than I know I’ll ever be able to repay.

the story of: "love at last sight"

part two of seven [ one . two . three . four . five . six . seven ]

This was the end of graphic design school – the beginning of our friendship - and “the rest of our lives” - which brings us to “Love at Last Sight”:

I thought about going into detail about the night Chuck told me he wanted to make an independent film, I thought about going into detail about the plot of “Love at Last Sight”, or sharing the story of Chuck impulsively buying a Sony Hi-8mm camcorder with his graduation money before we wrote one word of script, or explaining our run-in with the local police during our first day of ‘location-scouting’…

But the two most important points here are: one, it was this moment in my life that sparked an interest in film, maybe an interest that was there all along, maybe film was appealing to me simply because it was an artistic outlet I had yet to explore, whatever the reasons or lack thereof behind my decision, I had no idea of the long-term consequences it would have on my life and my friendship with Chuck. And two, for Chuck, this “commitment” of making a movie together was no more serious – whether he knew this or not - than “…starting a sticker company, stamp-making, or vegetarianism”, although it would take me four years to come to this realization.

But before I get ahead of myself: writing, “Love at Last Sight” was an amazing experience for me. Chuck and I survived off a steady diet of IBC root-beer and ham hot-pockets for three months, staying up every night until 5 in the morning writing, rewriting, and storyboarding. With the help of Kevin, a friend of Chuck’s family, we began working under the name, “Rolling Chair Productions”. The walls of my bedroom where plastered with pages of screenplay and sketches of scene ideas. We would walk the empty streets of my small hometown, Onsted, Michigan, with a pad and pencil, brainstorming the story and fine-tuning our punch lines. We had no idea what we were doing, and we were enjoying every last minute of it.

A year later, half of our actors and actresses had left for college; we had no money to our names – let alone our movie, and only several hours of footage under our belt. “Love at Last Sight”, slowly but surely, fell apart, I’ve always been embarrassed to think that I could have done something to save it – perhaps I was just too young to know how disappointed in myself I would later become – or perhaps I didn’t, at the time, realize how important the experience had become to me. Whatever our reasons for failing at “Love at Last Sight”, “Rolling Chair Productions” was just beginning, but before I can tell the story of Rolling Chair, I have to tell the story of my first bike trip:

better really, really late than never

If I was going to do this, I should have done it months ago, but for whatever reason [ahem… she knows who she is]; I decided against sharing this. But that was then, and now I’d like to help the readers better understand why the ‘budget’ has evolved the way it has, and to share with you some of the ideas the crew and I have for this film.

I’m going to go back and dig through some early emails between the crew and myself - a lot of information was broken down separately and discussed in depth, and the crew did an amazing job of really scrutinizing ever little detail and giving me feedback on what was good, what would be better and what was just unnecessary. I own them a lot for helping me efficiently squeeze so much into such a low-budget film.

Now, none of the following is necessarily in chronological order, so I’ll do my best at filling in the “blanks”. First off, here’s a list of the equipment the three will be bringing with them, for you technical-buffs out there, this is all very exciting:

· Sony HDR-FX1 PAL + wide-angle + at least 3 batteries (HDV)
· Canon XM-2 PAL + wide-angle + fisheye + at least 2 batteries (DV)
· Homemade MINI35 Kit (fits both cameras)
· Kranogorsk K-3 (16mm)
· Canon EOS 10D (DigitalSLR 6mpx) + batteries
· Canon EOS 300x (24x36 SLR)
· Nikon F65 (24x36 SLR)
· Optics: Nikon (35/50/85mm) + Canon (20-35/28-105mm)
· Glidecam 2000 Pro Steadycam + Body Pod (www.glidecam.com)
· 2 x 5.6'' TFT LCD Screens (work on AC/DC)
· 2 x strong PC Laptops + external hard-disks (for file transfer, tapes log files,...)
· Fluid-Head Manfrotto tripod 516/508

The following was the first time the crew [mid-December] took a look at an early version of the budget; I will try to include my response to each topic, to make things a little easier on the eyes; I’ll italicize my comments:

+ Crane: It seems quite complex to build such a huge crane. It would be easier to buy a crane like the Super Jib (269$ at www.habbycam.com) and then build a support to attach it to the car/van. A 20ft crane would be way too much and risky because it will move a lot because of the wind and would be really hard to manipulate. The Super Jib would also work really well on our Manfrotto tripod, so we could also use it to make nice crane shots from the road.

* Crane: I agree that it would be far easier to buy a crane rather thanbuild one, I looked at the Jib you left a link for and I really liked what I saw, I've already added into the new budget outline.

Earlier when I mentioned a 20ft "crane" - I didn't really mean a "crane", I should have explained better, [I've attached a rough-sketch of something closer to what I had in mind] it would more or less be a very simple "arm" that would have a heavy mounted brace at it's base. The "arm" would reach out 15-20 ft at a forward angle of 70 - 80 degrees [I'm hoping this will limit the direction of sway while driving], then I was hoping to attach a rope at the very end of the pole, that would loosely hang down and could be held onto, which would help steady it by applying tension / slack as needed.



I still need to test it, and see just how crazy of an idea it is, but let me know what you think about it all the same. And don't worry; you wouldn't be the first person to tell me it doesn't sound like the best idea in the world.

You might also be wondering what would the point of both a crane and a 15 ft arm be? I guess I'm just not sure if the crane would have the 'birds-eye' look I'm hoping to capture. Also, I would hope to use the arm not only for "high-up" shots but also for "off-road" shots [see pg.2 of the storyboards to see what I'm talking about]...

+ Steadycam: The steadycam you listed on your budget is really great but you can't improvise yourself a steadycam operator. It's really hard to configure it well and it takes a lot of practice to make nice shots using it, plus in such a small budget, it's a quite expensive item. Personally, I can't operate this steadycam. I don't think it would be that useful on this documentary. We do have a more simple steadycam called the Glidecam 2000 Pro. It works really well with the Sony HDR-FX1, easier to configure and manipulate. I did quite a few shots using it and with that kind of camera, you can't tell the difference with a big steadycam. Another item would be really useful: a shoulder support. We've searched on the web for cheap shoulder support for the cameras. We'll need to be able to shoot fast if something happens and it should be stable and comfortable to use. Here are some options: SuperDV Shoulder Brace (289$ at www.habbycam.com) or the DVRig Pro (629$ at www.varizoom.com). The first one seems to great for the price and way good enough.

* SteadyCam: If your "Glidecam 2000 Pro Steadycam + Body Pod" works just as well as a heavy duty SteadyCam would with the Sony, then that's good enough for me.

* Shoulder Support: the SuperDV S.B. looks great to me, especially for
it's price, I've added it into the new budget outline.

+ Watertight Casing: It seems possible at first to build one but we'll have to be sure it works because if it don't we'll kill the camera at the first problem that will occur, so it's risky. We've checked your storyboard ideas, we really do like to shot where the camera jumps with the camera into the water. That shot is far to risky with a homemade water-tight casing. It seems possible with a ready-made professional one because it's made to support a lot of pressure and has a aerodynamic design. It all depends of what kind of shot you want but it's risky.

* Watertight Casing: For this one I'll have to see what the budget allows... my Dad knows people who could make a very nice casing out of PVC and plexi-glass, and I would be completely comfortable using it in heavy rain and for [shallow] underwater shots... but yes, to use it to jump into a lake from 10-15 feet up would be far too risky. So if the budget allows for an actual casing; then we could get that shot, if not, I'll have to go with the homemade housing and just stick to 'gentler' use.

+ Tapes: We will shoot HDV and DV. Basically the tapes are Mini-DV tapes but for HDV you need high quality tapes (preferably Sony HDV tapes). The dropouts in HDV are way more visible than in DV, so it's important to get good quality tapes (at least Sony Premium tapes, HDV tapes would be better). About the quantity, 224 hours of HDV/DV material represent 2688gb of data once captured on a computer. That's huge. Sure you can choose to not capture all the rushes but you'll still need at least 1000gb of hard-disk to start the editing. We really do need to consider this tape stock as a kind of film stock that's in certain ways limited. That will force us to really think about what we're shooting. So we don't think 2.5 hours of tapes a day is needed if we prepare more the shots and better know what the goal of each shot is. We'll keep a precise log file for the tape, so we'll know exactly where the shots are, what's the purpose of each one, comments, date,...

* Tapes: Ouch. It took a big bite out of the budget, but you're right about the drop-outs, I would hate to have an amazing shot and then 'blurpp' right in the middle of it the picture jumps half-a-second. So I've done some looking around the internet looking for bulk-purchasing of Sony HD DVC tapes and so far my best deal is $1,950 for 147 hours of tape, which turns out to be around 1.6 hrs per day over a 90 day period... but 90 days is really dragging ass, I doubt it will take that long. I just doubled checked the pace, and if we rode 4,500 miles over the course of 90 days, it would equal 50 miles per day… and that’s really, really slow.

* 2688gb: Yes, the nightmare of importing and storing hundreds of hours of HD footage is something I'm not looking forward to... well I am... but I'm a little unsure still of "how" I'm going to do so. I've been looking at the LaCie Extreme 1TB Firewire hard-drive [http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10504], it's $999. I personally have an 80 & 200 GB...

+ Generator: If you can get a generator it will help a lot. We'll probably need to stop sometimes to charge all the batteries. In case of "emergency", it would be great if we could charge the batteries on the generator (a 2KWA is enough). We'll try our best to bring some lights that we can use on the car battery (car-lighter adapter,...) but it won't work forever. If we want to use lights, the only solution would be a generator. We'll also need a lot of electric cables.

* Generator: I found a Coleman 2500 Watt portable generator for $300-some. Somehow the 2500 was cheaper than the 2000... beats me. Let me know if you come across anything better.

+ Microphones: You'll have to check with the sound person to see what you exactly need. It would be so much easier if the sound person could bring his equipment. We don't know much about sound but you'll probably need at least one directional mic + boom stick, two lavalieres, one omni-directional mic, a DAT and a mixer.

* Microphones: I am hoping that I won't have to buy a DAT recorder, DAT tapes, or a mixer... [without sacrificing sound quality] I'm still looking for a sound person, but if they say that feeding everything into the camera [using wireless mics’, boom-mics’, so on] will work – then I'll go with that, if not, then I'll have to re-think the budget. Of course I don't want to use the camera's mic to capture sound... that would be suicide for the documentary - eh, it's a whole thing I'm looking into at the moment, I have a friend going to Cal-Arts right now, she's taking a handful of film classes and I have her searching for a great sound person for me... I'll keep you posted.

+ Gas: We'll a lot of gas because the car/van will be heavily charged and we'll probably won't be driving very fast.

* Gas: I also upped the gas allowance to $600 - which should be fine considering we probably won't drive further than 120 miles in one day considering some back-tracking.

+ 16mm: If the budget allows it, it would be really amazing to shoot some 16mm. It would intercut nicely and offer another kind of look/feeling to these sequences. We would shoot in color (b/w can still be achieved in post anyway) using a standard negative film like a 200D or even a 400D (a bit grainier with nice texture). We would probably only shoot during the day outdoors. We can still choose to take some 800T film with us just in case. If we want to shoot 16mm, we'll need to really choose what and when we shoot. We should keep it for the really wonderful moments and try to do a kind of in-camera editing of these sequences so we will use the film stock in a smart way (plus those white/burn transitions between the shots are really nice in a kind of old-school organic way). To choose the actual filmstock we'll need to know more about the road,...and what you want those sequences to look like. We thought about a real natural filmlook that will contrast well with the HDV color-corrected look, a bit like the movie Gerry but a bit more oldschool (because of the 16mm and not 35mm). We've searched on the web for a good film deal. The best we did find was at www.pro8mm.com .To make it short, for 10 rolls of 100ft 16mm film (30minutes of rushes) + processing + prep/clean + telecine to miniDV, it'll cost about 800$. Now, the best would be to have a Uncompressed HD telecine of those sequences. Therefore, the best is www.bonofilm.com (film + processing) and www.bonolabs.com (HD telecine to Hard-Disk).

* 16mm: How much is the film-stock all by itself, before the processing + prep/clean + telecine to miniDV? I'm pretty sure I can fit it in the budget - I'll have to, I think it would be great to have 16mm to inter-cut in the film.

I do think a more "natural" filmlook would be best - I wouldn't want to go to the effort of buying actual filmstock and then wash it out or some other look that could be easily achieved with DV in post - the more it stands out as “film” and unique from the rest of the documentary – the better.

Have you actually seen Gerry? I'm surprised... it's pretty unheard of and unpopular from what I've read, but I'm a sucker for those amazing long-tracking shots.

+ Bike: One of the best way to shoot people riding a bike is to shoot from a bike. Its way easier to keep the same speed, distance, FOV,... We'll build many camera supports to fix the camera to the bike in many different positions but having a additional bike for the cameraman would open many new angles. It wouldn't cost anything in gas and we're all ready to ride the bike. The absolute best thing would be a bike for two persons so the first could focus on the road and the other on the framing.

* Bike: Would you rather have a two-person bike or a bike with a wagon on the back of it? I was thinking with a little low-to-the-ground wagon you would have more freedom to shoot at different heights and be able to turn from side to side if needed... let me know what you would prefer though.

I gotta' say I'm really, really glad you're willing to do something like ride a bike to get a shot, I was hoping I could talk you and the rest of the crew into it but for you to just come out and suggest it - is more than great. I'm incredibly thankful I have a crew willing to sweat a little to get a great shot.

+ Food: Regarding your budget, it seems that the budget allocated to food and housing is really low. We know it's not easy to feed a crew but food is the crew's fuel. In our humble opinion it's really different to make such a travel alone and making it with a crew. A lot of food and drinks will be needed. The crew will have long days of work no matter how much is planned, it will be hard, especially for three months.

* Food: Yeah the budget outline for the food has always, from day one, concerned me, I knew it would eventually have to be raised, now is as good a time as any. I've moved it from $4 to $8 per day [still over 90 days]. That’s just for food - I've still got to set aside money for other crew related expenses: hotels, etc...

I'm thinking about buying a Coleman mini-stove, it might help a lot... allowing the crew to make things like Mac & Cheese for dinner... But let me know if that's still not enough, and be honest because I don't want my crew starving half to death.

I'm also thinking about different ways to raise food without a whole lot of money, maybe getting my family to save canned-foods, pasta, jarred fruit, so on... things that could be boxed up and mailed to us on the road. I met a group of 6 bicyclers from Pittsburgh that worked out their food that way, and they managed to get a lot of bang for their buck.

+ Housing: In your budget, you didn't talk about the housing. It's no problem for us to sleep in tents or in the van but we'll have to take showers, be able to clean our clothes, charge the different batteries, clean the equipment and check it,.... so, it may be a good idea to include some nights at cheap motels once on a while during the three months. A good night on a real, even bad, bed will also help to cheer up the hard working crew.

* Housing: Yes... the housing... I know I'll be taking a lot of showers in the "sink" at local libraries but I don't expect you to have to do the same. As for the clothes - we'll stop at laundry mats all the time, every several days. But if you feel like a night under an actual roof every once in a while will greatly lift the crew's spirits [which I'm sure it would] then that's more than fine with me. I'll make it happen.



Well, if anyone is still with me - this turned out to be a much longer post than I originally expected… but all the same, I hope it gave some of you a much deeper look at how things have branched off into different directions over the last several months.