not just for looks

mike has been getting the same question a lot lately, and actually we both think it's kinda funny. but i guess i should clear things up a bit.

"You don't really write on a typewriter do you?"

yes, he does actually write on a typewriter. it's a vintage smith-corona that his brother, nick, got him for christmas a few years ago when we were visiting in michigan. i believe he bought it at a garage sale or something of that nature, but neither mike nor i can remember for sure. nick showed it to me before giving it to mike and i remember thinking "mike is going to LOVE this.." followed by "how in the hell are we going to get this thing home!?" it was extremely heavy, but we took our chances and placed it in our checked luggage, carefully wrapped-up in our clothes.

mike has said of his typewriter, "I fell in love with it. I actually write on it all the time, I like the sound of the keys* hitting the paper... helps me think."

i think it's the simplistic nature of staring down at your fingers over letters that helps mike. there is no world wide web to distract him. there is nothing "just a click away" except what's in his imagination.

i have to say it's pretty fun showing up at his place to work on an episode and getting handed a pile of typo filled papers with all sorts of scribbled notes along the margins. i like taking the pages and switching their order around.. figuring out how best to present what's been written.

mike recently went out and bought a newer sears electric 12 portable typewriter. here is what he had to say about it:

"I'm going to start writing a lot more than usual, and the manual typewriter can get to my hands after a few days of heavy usage :P

So I found an electric typewriter at the Goodwill to help me write a lot more while not making the tops of my hands ache. It's nice to have both :)"


*you can hear those "keys hitting the paper" in episode 8 as i'm crying and he turns to his typewriter to write what i'm saying.

"Pedal's PR special lady friend"

I'm in Vegas for the night with Justin and his brother, we woke up this morning around 5 and just finished walking up and down the strip from the Stratosphere... my feet have no skin left on them.

But that's not why I'm posting, last Wednesday night, after I left work, I met with Amanda and Angela at our favorite cafe', Solar De Cahuenga, and we talked about all the areas of Pedal that needed to be kick-started again after a long two week break. As of a few weeks ago, Amanda and I asked Angela to help us with aspects of the project that we just aren't that good at... and especially lately just aspects we haven't been able to focus on.

She's started submitting 64 days episodes to several film festivals, and is even preparing a 'For Thousands of Miles' press kit. I just wanted to officially announce her addition to the Pedal team, but really she's been helping out since as long as we've known her. She's awesome.

Okay, I'm falling asleep at my laptop, I am completely exhausted right now.

It's been 10 days...

Okay, okay... wow, 10 days without a new blog post or even a quick vlog... is there anyone still out there? No? I suck.

Like I mentioned in my last blog post, I was in Michigan for a few days, then as soon as I got back into LA, my Mom flew in on Tue' - it's her first time out in California, tomorrows her last day here, it's been fun, and crazy, my Mom is wearing me out, I need a nap after all this sight-seeing "slash" shopping.

I've been up early early every day this week and out late either touring the Queen Mary in Long Beach, walking Hollywood Blvd, wandering around the Getty, avoiding the crazies in Venice - I've been begging Amanda to update the blog with a quick blog post, I'm sure most of you out there would rather look at her then my scruffy face. But seeing as how today is already the 18th, I couldn't let another night go by without at least explaining my laziness.

I promise starting Wed' I'll be back to two blog post a week and one vlog update on the weekends. Till then, goodnight... I'm sleepy.

feedback is the coolest :P

I've been in Michigan the last week, enjoying the August weather and mid-west sunsets - so I haven't been update as often as I like to on the blog. Amanda and I are so, so flattered and thankful for all the great reactions people have had to the announcement of 'For Thousands of Miles'. It was very nerve racking to finally put that out there for everyone to see. Some of your feedback has been good, some has been unsure, and it makes me happy that we have so many people out there who are open and wiling to tell us what they really think.

I think it's so important in helping us shape the film. We rely on people's feedback a lot for things that have to do with almost every aspect of the project, and I think if people stopped sharing their thoughts with us we'd be lost.

There's a lot to be done in the next few weeks, we need to finish writing the next episode, and sit down and begin piecing together the scenes that we have rough-cuts of in our heads. There's website work to be done, film festivals to submit to, finishing grants to apply for (which we've never done, if anyone has any tips, we'd love to hear them), and so on.


On a side note, I'm excited because today the last large video file (45+ minutes) finished it's SmoothCam analysis in Final Cut today. All that's left are smaller clips that take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours to analyze.

I'm also kind of dorked out because I've been using an app' called Hazel to watch for new SmoothCam reference files (which are basically tiny little text-like documents) and to copy those files into a folder on my MacBook Pro. The reason I'm having it do this is because the SmoothCam files are created where the source file is - which, in this case, are two separate 1TB external drives, which are only backed up as often as I remember to do so. So by having Hazel automatically copy those files to my computer, Time Machine backs them by the hour. Those files are very important considering some of them took 40 hours to create.

Okay, I know this is not much of an update - but I just wanted to check in and let people know we've been really excited at all the love people have been showing us this last week.

for thousands of miles

So, deep breath, Amanda and I have, many times, talked about when to announce the title of the actual film, and we agreed that after all the footage had been logged we would start distinguishing the parts of the project more clearly.


post production - week 33 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

I feel all butterfly'ish in my stomach - I've been waiting a long, long time to put the title out there, I'm anxious to hear people's reactions... I've already gotten a few emails, some of them positive reactions, some of them not-so-much, I'm sure it's going to take some time for it to settle in and really feel like it's own aspect of the project. I feel though that it fairly represents the mood of the film (or at least what I hope and want the film to represent).

Also a huge, huge, huge thanks to Patrick Moberg, who was so great about letting us use his artwork on the 'For Thousands of Miles' website, he even did the designing of the site itself!