two down, one to go

It's all so surreal. Four years ago, I watched a short film called 'Marla', made by a team of Belgiums (who, at that time, called themselves "Another State of Mind") on a shoe-string budget. Using a homemade rig involving a GL2 and an old SLR Nikon they bought off eBay for cheap, they created a "mini35" (MiniDV meets 35mm film) look that was very impressive and different. I was an instant fan.

Fast forward to last night - driving in the rented mini van with Amanda down the 405, on our way to pick up Olivier (co-founder of ASOM) and Jeff from LAX.

We were late - because I didn't finish installing the rack on the van's roof soon enough - and not to mention traffic was backed up on a Tuesday night at 6:30. Add to this I only wrote on the back of my hand the flight number, and not the actual airline... yea, we were having issues.

First we park the van, run into terminal 2 looking at US Airlines and Delta - Amanda is on the phone with her sister trying to look up the airline, I'm at the baggage claim begging some guy to punch it in on his computer. They've been on the ground for 30 minutes. We find out it's in terminal 6 - which just happens to be about as far away from 2 as possible.

We run back to the parked van, go through the long exit line, do a loop to the other side, miss the parking structure for 6, drive another 400 feet to garage 7. Get out, race to terminal 6, realize that international flights get dumped off at 7. Turn back around, race to 7, at this point it's been 45 minutes since their flight has landed. The pick-up area is packed, I don't actually know what Olivier or Jeff look like... we forgot to make a "Black Sheep" sign.

I'm basically looking for two people who look like they are looking for people looking for them. When a tall guy to my left casually asked me, with a bit of a grin on his face, "are you looking for someone?". It was perfect.

And luckily, they had just picked up their bags moments before, so we didn't look like total assholes.

They are great - I couldn't be happier with things right now. It's all happening. Tomorrow we are going to be prepping the van, loading the equipment, finishing the rack on the roof, picking up the last of the camping gear, and 20 other little things. Friday night we pick up Olan, and Saturday morning we leave.

In the mean time - check out the short film that started all this craziness:


tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding, another state of mind, black sheep

The Party

It's always a bit nerve racking to throw a party - especially one that is announced/planned very last minute. I'll admit a few times I was quite worried that "no one was gonna' show".

But I am so, so happy with how everything turned out - on every level. Jimmy, the man behind 'Little Radio', was fantastic and extremely helpful and easy-going. Angela, from BlackCatInc, did an awesome, awesome job planning the event (and she also didn't kill me when I, like an ass, forgot to thank her during the speech... I was rushed and awkward'ish). 'A Faulty Chromosome' finished out the night great with a laid back acoustic show.

And most importantly: people came!! Lots more people then we realistically expected. We were praying for 50, and by the end of the night we are fairly positive we had a 100 people make an appearance.





So thank you to everyone who helped make the night very memorable! Thanks to all of you who made donations. To all you "secret santas" (as Jill would say) who donated cash, we're sorry we didn't have the foresight to set out pens by the table.

It was just a really, really great night. I tried very hard to say "hello" to everyone, I'm sorry for those of you I didn't get to speak with at all (or even those of you who I didn't get to speak with for more than only a few minutes).



And, of course, we wouldn't have been able to do any of this with out the help of our two sponsors: Next New Networks/Indy Mogul and Pando!

Check out all the great flickr pics from the night. And I have to share this video that my friend, Lan, put together using stills from his 20D, I love it:



tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Episode Five: May 26th

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Special thanks to Jeff Pulver, Kelly Russell, Tricia & Tim, Erica Hampton, Dawn Caron and Charmaine Ruppolt for their generous donations.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Pedal on Indy Mogul

Tim Shey, from Next New Networks, asked the lovely Micki Krimmel to do an IM interview with me about Project Pedal for NNN's recently launched indie-filmmaker-geared site: Indy Mogul.

The interview is being posted in two parts - here's a few paragraphs:

Micki Krimmel: Project Pedal is the videoblog/documentary project by filmmaker Mike Ambs. On June 2, Mike and his crew will embark on a cross-country journey to document two cyclists as they bike their way from Washington to Maine along the Adventure Cycling Trail, culminating in a feature length documentary tentatively titled "Pedal." Since October of 2004, Mike has been sharing his experience with the project on his blog, posting well-produced video episodes along the way. As with any first time film project, Mike has seen his share of ups and downs while trying to pull it all together. Now, he's just two weeks away from production and Next New Networks has stepped up to help send him off in style by hosting the "Pedal Push Party" this weekend in Los Angeles.

I chatted with Mike over IM about the film and the community of supporters he's been building through his videoblog.

MK: What the heck is Project pedal? Is it a film or a videoblog? I'm so confused!

Mike Ambs: Ha. Well, it's a bit of both... When I first started the project three years ago, it was just going to be a documentary. Then I got all swept up in the videoblogging scene and started thinking about how much happier I would be with the project if I could mesh my two favorite things: documentaries and vlogs. We're going to continue posting videos during production and post. We'll post lots of updates from the road, episodes when I get back talking about how things are going, etc. The finished product will be a feature length doc.

Continue reading the interview here - and don't forget to check back on Indy Modul for the second half. Hope to see you at the party this Saturday! In the mean time, for the next 3 days, I'm locking myself away in a friend's cabin to clear my head.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding

Pedal Push Party! :)

It's been over 3 years since this project started - it's been a long, trying process... but as I said in my first post on project pedal: "Strangely enough... I wouldn't want it any other way."

We've had a lot of help over the years, everyone from fellow videobloggers and even, by strange strokes of luck, Hollywood producers.

I know I wouldn't have gotten far without their/your support. Because of this - we want to do something special before we begin production on June 2nd: we want to throw a party!

Giving us an opportunity to get most of these people, who have been involved in one way or another with the project, together in one place at the same time, and see, in a very real sense, the results of their involvement. And hopefully raise the last bit of funds we need to make it coast to coast.

Our friend Angela has been helping organize and detail the event - which will start at 6pm on the 26th at 'Little Radio'. It's $5 at the door and we'll be accepting more donations inside if people would like to help out even more. Lots of free food & drinks!

The 26th, oddly enough, is the 6 year reunion of my first bike trip.

It's very strange for me to think back on how the words, "hey, we should ride our bikes across the country" have had such a long term effect on my life. What was supposed to be a two month journey has evolved into something much, much more.

We're planning on playing the episodes on the projector screen - and if you have anything: vlogs, video footage, etc that you'd love to share with the rest of class, just contact me and let me know. We're really just interested in getting people together and having a chance to talk and celebrate all of the great work that people are doing out here.

I really hope many of you reading this will be able to come.

We're collecting RSVPs in two locations, choose which ever you already have an account for below (if you don't have an account for either, I'd pick upcoming, they're great).

upcoming.org | myspace.com

[Event Sponsorship info coming soon...]

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, funding, little radio, party

a huge thanks to pando!

Recently, Pando, a kick ass file sharing app, featured Pedal in their newsletter - rumored to have around 80,000 subscribers!

A few months ago, while I was San Jose for the spring 2007 VON (Video on the Net) conference - I met Yaron (in the men's bathroom, while washing my hands, of all places), the founder of Pando. He asked if I was the person who won 1st place in the Network2.tv contest, I said that I was, and he introduced himself and asked if I had ever heard of Pando. I responded with something like, "psh, yea, Pando rocks".

A few weeks later they wrote me and said they loved the project and that Daniel, their Marketing Associate, had taken a bike trip himself all over Europe. Long story short, here's a screengrab of the newsletter they wrote up.


I have to say it was a very flattering intro and I'm excited about the new traffic and interest it's driving to the site. Subscribe to the Pando newsletter here.

tags: pedal, documentary, indie, vlog, blog, bicycle, coast-to-coast, community, pando