Day 17

The last post, which ended up not going through via crappy EVDO connection, was a bit scrambled and "ehh". So, I think it's time for a "proper" post.

[Update: I just found out it did get through before I lost single. But it was still is a crapy post, and I already wrote this one... so some things get covered twice.]

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but we've been jetting from mountain range to mountain rage, and have had little connection. Not sure if that's Sprint's fault, or if it would be just as bad with a Verizon network.

I'm in the van right now, listening to "Learning to Fly" off the iPod, we're heading back from Glacier Park towards Whitefish. "Why?" you ask: well, for a few unexpected reasons.

A) first off, we backed up the rental van into a good sized rock, and it almost took the bumper clean off the back. Which sucked. This on top of a shitty night's sleep in tents that didn't quite hold up in the downpour from hell. Okay, it wasn't quite *that* bad, but it was bad enough to wake up every hour with a new part of the bag being wet.

Seeing as there is no phone or cell connection at the base of the glaciers, we are heading back into town to take care of the whole insurance/rental situation. Fingers crossed that it works out okay.

B) I broke my bike frame... that's a different story for a different time, but it's extremely un-rideable. And the last bike shop for a while is back in Whitefish, there was a used bike shop near the school.

C) I feel a bit awkward about this "aspect" of the project, awkward in the sense that I don't like to talk about money. On one hand, I don't want to sound like a sympathy-case... and on the other, I don't want to pretend or hide the financial difficulties that exist in a low-budget project like Pedal. Or every low budget project for that matter.

But we are about 8 days away from being rock-bottom broke. Which can be a slight distraction when trying to stay focused on the task at hand. But, fear not, there is someone who has said they can fund the remainder of the trip. Yes, we are cutting it close... uncomfortably close, but we don't have much choice.

Some of you might be curious as to how someone can go from winning $25,000 to broke in three months time. Especially considering the budget on the site is only $9,000. Well, almost a full $10,000 of the 25k went to personal debts and expenses that needed to be taken care of. Then there is equipment that I never put into the budget because I was just not expecting to be able to make a film with anything but the dinky camera I already had. And to be honest, with only 9k, I'd probably be stuck without a crew.

But winning the Network2.tv video contest allowed me to make the project I really wanted to make, not the one I could just get by making. So, I was encouraged to buy a camera that matched the one 'The Black Sheep' were bringing, a Z1U. There's 5 grand. I purchased a cheap 12 foot crane, that was about $900. I bought a glidecam system, which was around $1,800. Four long-life batteries for filming long hours on the road. Camping gear. UV Filters. XLR cables. Headphones. $1,000 in microphones, $600 wind-jammer. $760 in miniDV tapes (60 hours). Shipping fees. I had to take a month off from work in order to squeeze all the last minute planning in, there's 3 months rent. 3 months utilities. A laptop for editing on the road. 3 round trip tickets from Belgium to LA. $2,500 to rent a van for two months. Wide angle lens for $350. My own personal plane ticket and rental car cost for visiting Larry & Jay before the trip. Food. More food. Gas... almost four times the amount originally budgeted because the van is overloaded and gets poor mpg, plus we have to drive back to LA when done. And, of course, there's always "et cetera". Now add in all the problems and extra money here and there. I won't even go into that.

Not to mention the thousands and thousands of dollars in equipment that the crew brought along. 16mm film stock. A fluid-head tripod. An army of SLR lens and filters. A 35 kit. You name it - that came loaded.

All in all, I'd say the budget it pushing the $200,000 area. So that's the dark side of the low budget project... it's fun stuff to tackle with no financial backing (sarcasm). Not to mention the fear of putting all this time, energy and money into something that, now that you've started, might not make see to the end. It's enough to make a person sick.

I have to finish this project. It's started - and there is no turning back. I don't know how - but there's no turning back now.


Whew. Okay, that felt good to get off my chest. And please, don't feel like I'm pressuring you for a handout. Like I said, someone has said they'd help us finish the project. It's just a part of the project that I've been meaning/wanting to share for a while. It never feels like the "right" time, so what the hell, right?


It's now 11:20 at night, Amanda has called the insurance people and they were great about it. We'll even be able to still get up at 5, like planned, and head back into Glacier to get a shot of the mountains against Lake McDonald.

Afterward we plan to follow Larry to the peak of Logan's Pass, it's closed after the top because a huge section of the 'Going to the Sun Road' was washed away by glacier run off (yay, global warming). But Larry, being the monster that he is, wants to go to the top and then turn around just to "get it under his belt". Love that guy.

We also ran into Galan, who reminds me a lot of Lyon. We ate breakfast this morning at the restaurant in Apgar and talked for 3 hours. Sadly, none of it was one tape, but he's great, we'll talk to him tomorrow before he heads too far north.

Other than all that - we plan on spending the next few days around the Glacier area, there's so much great stuff to get, and it's basically biker-central for all the cyclist. We're wanting to head back down the road and talk to 3 women we met a few days ago, I think they have a great perspective on their trip - it's rare to run into a women only group. And it shouldn't be.

Also, before I forget, I didn't have much time to go through footage while we were in Eureka, but I did dump a few random clips of Larry riding his bike (not the smoothest of shots we've taken, but I still like the look on Larry's face climbing up that hill).


And a very pretty long shot we took of a broken down house/cabin/pile-of-wood, there's cars and junk in the frame that, if I used it later, I'd snip out. But you get the idea.


We'd love to hear from you - see you on the other side (of Glacier Park).

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

Catching Up

[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.

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

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

Episode Two: Logistics

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The large majority of questions "slash" concerns (from people after watching Episode One) dealt with Pedal's exact process, and in relation to this; the exact results. 1) Who are we following? 2) Who are we interviewing? 3) Are we driving, or also riding bicycles? 4) How long will this take?

Which brings us to "episode two" - where I do my best to answer these questions as clearly as possible, while walking through what's to be expected during filming. As always I love to hear your feedback!

Special thanks to Len from LenEdgerly.com & Steve from SleeplessNights.com for their generous donations.

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