Pedal (Blog)

[Written on the 14th] Day 13 of filming. We crossed over from Idaho to Montana yesterday evening, the change was almost immediate: it's definitely big sky country. very beautiful here - we spent a lot of time at Kootenai Falls & the "Swinging Bridge".

Shooting is going good - we have more landscapes then we do conversations with people, but we're working to fix that, and find the right balance of time spent filming Larry's interactions and also just filming some of our own. In some cases we roll first and ask permission later, in other cases we approach a person and ask if it's okay to film them... and before they agree/disagree they say a bunch of great stuff we don't get on camera.

Larry is doing amazing - it's unbelievable how much road he covers in such a short amount of time. Yesterday we found him on Hwy 2, after Troy, he stopped a bit and talked to us about how good of a day he was having, and then he quickly took off. Not more than five minutes passed while we dug out the steadicam and set up a shot from the side of the car, and we drove for what seemed like forever before we caught up to him again.

[Written on the 16th] Larry took the day off in Libby yesterday to relax and do some fishing. I figured the crew was in desperate need of a brake also, so we did absolutely nothing all day. I have to admit - it was nice.

Amanda, myself and the crew went out to dinner at one of the only places still open past 6pm, besides all the dark and depressing casinos... 'The Antlers' restaurant. Just before our orders came out from the kitchen a guy walked up holding a folded newspaper and asked if we were from around here...

Long story short - we were up till 3 in the morning, hanging around the campfire with Brett, playing guitar, drinking beers, and talking about anything. And even though he was a vocal-creationist :) he was a really, really nice guy - very good singer/guitar-player... it's too bad Larry wasn't with us.

I know this post is all over the place - but I'm trying to go over the last few days, while thinking about the next few ahead of us. And I'm sorry I haven't been updating more often, the EVDO card we bought before leaving isn't exactly working too often in the mountains here. Which is a bit annoying, but we're hoping it picks up.

We killed the bicycle we brought with us for filming - backed it up into a tree and bend the frame 30-some degrees. The pedal is stuck in the rear spokes, more money we have to spent that wasn't budgeted out.

Speaking of the budget - I suppose this site wouldn't be a very "personal and behind the scenes look" if I wasn't honest about our financial situation. I always feel awkward about bringing it up, because I want to avoid sounding like a sympathy-case, but we are about 10 days away from being completely broke... with only a $300 credit card to get us back to LA, actually, scratch that, half of that is gone right now.

But fear not (fingers crossed), we have someone who is possibly going to see the project through with some funding. Yes, we are cutting it close, and yes, it's a bit stressful, but I'm sure if we just stay focused on the project that things will work out.

I have more footage to share, but, sadly, Whitefish has a very poor internet connection and I'm having a hell of time just checking my email - I don't think uploading entire movie files is going to happen. Maybe on the other side of Glacier Park. Till then.