Post Production - Week 42

Post Production - Week 42 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Coming home to find things like this is very touching, it keeps me going, it keeps me focused and ambitious. So thank you, Lori, for writing this.

I know my own journey will continue. I've not reached the Atlantic coast yet. I undoubtedly have thousands of miles to go. Every biweekly trip I make to Texas or California to visit my children or my wife brings immense fatigue to my body but resolve to my awakened spirit. With each milepost sign I pass, I find reasons to be thankful for this journey whether the desert basins are ablaze with sunshine or enshrouded with pregnant monsoon clouds.

I embrace the long hot black road now. God only knows what my final destination will be. There is no guarantee for success in my life. But like Mike, I "keep going, keep trying after failing, time, and time, and time again." Entire post here...

Post Production - Week 39

Post Production - Week 39 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

post production week 38

post production week 38 from amanda walker on Vimeo.

mike and i, hanging out, transcribing interviews and thanking ya'll for all your love concerning our hard drive dilemma :)

post production - week 31

Post Production - Week 31 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Holy crap. The day has finally come - as of tonight I have 100% of Pedal's footage logged and organized. Yay.

To celebrate I went to Ralph's and bough some Ben & Jerry's 'Half Baked' ice cream, although it's not my favorite :P but they were out of the brownie one. Anyways... I feel so relieved :)

post production - week 30

Post Production - Week 30 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Yay. Today I finished logging the 1st scratch disk of Pedal's footage, which is 1,700+ individual video clips. I'm moving on now to the 2nd (and last) scratch disk, which has about 250 clips on it. After that there are a several hundred miscellaneous clips from personal cameras that Larry had while riding, and that Amanda and I had during filming. Not *all* of them needed to be tagged for the film, but most need to be looked at for the episodes.

Post Production - Week 28

Post Production - Week 28 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Well... that's it... I just finished capturing the *last* tape for Pedal. Whew. I should do something to celebrate... :P

Post Production - Week 27

post production - week 27 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

post production - week 21

Post Production - Week 19

Post Production - Week 19 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Post Production - Week 18

Post Production - Week 18 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Post Production - Week 15

Post Production - Week 15 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Post Production - Week 13

Amanda and I have been running around on no-sleep the last week - I drove up with Mike Hedge, took us 35 hours and I still don't feel like I've totally recovered... my right is still twitchy, is that a bad thing?

Post Production - Week 11

Post Production - Week 9

I usually like to have written at least once post between each vlog update, but this week has been a bit much for me. I've been feeling swamped - sort of overwhelmed. My to-do list on RTM keeps growing, and growing. And I haven't been able to keep up.

But, I'm feeling better these last two days - the new Episode should be up by this Friday, short of any natural disasters.

Post Production - Week 8

So, first Amanda is doing a bad Sissy Spacek impersonation from 'Badlands', then suddenly she's acting out Keanu Reeves from 'Thumbsucker'... needless to say, we didn't get anything very constructive done this night. Hope everyone had a great super Tuesday.

Week 6 "slash" 7

Amanda and I recorded a vlog-update last weekend after working on some not-so-exciting (digital) paper-work stuff for 5 hours, and that vlog didn't quite make sense after watching it, so I did one tonight and tried to fill in the blanks of what we missed.

Thanks a lot for your questions and comments, I hope we did a decent job of answering some of them here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I just realized it's 3 in the morning, and not 1 (like I was thinking for some reason), and I'm exhausted. Long, long day.

Here's to Sleep

It's about 3 in the morning - I feel like I'm up way past my bedtime, but I've been filming footage for Episode 6 with the help of Amanda and Justin, and the last hour or so been recording some different voice-overs. Although I still need to clean up and tie together better the last two sections.

I hope this post make some sense - it does to me at the moment, but I feel completely out of it... this post might need an update when I wake up fully rested.

A&E Finishing Grant

A huge thanks to those of you have been participating in the workflow discussion from last week - I plan on touching on that subject again soon, including the great approaches and tips people have been suggesting.

This week I thought I'd share some news I got on Friday morning - and wish everyone a happy holidays and an awesome new year!

My Workflow

A few months back, Tiffany (TheFekGeek), suggested I start doing weekly vlog updates on Pedal. This post makes week one, I can't promise they won't be completely pointless from time to time, but I'll try to use them as a way to keep myself on track and focused.

I've been importing footage for the last two days - it's been incredibly exciting for me. I wanted to put my workflow out there, and let people suggest ways to improve it, or even completely change it.

If you want to check out the app' I'm using, it's called Punakea (anyone know how to properly pronounce it?). Again, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Episode Three: Casting Call (or: Hello, my name is...)

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Hopefully you've watched Episode Two, and have a basic understanding of "how" the relationship between bikers and crew will function.

Here's what we are looking for: A small group of bicyclists - already planning to ride coast to coast (west to east), preferably along Adventure Cycling's Northern Route, during the months June & July of this year.
The less money you have as a group: the better. The more you are fundamentally opposed to staying in hotels and hitching rides: the better.

So, how does this work? Easy - simply introduce yourself. You can do this by sending an email. You can write a blog post and leave a link in the comments of this site. You can use your friend's camera to post a video on Blip.tv, Revver or YouTube. Contact us through Pedal's mySpace.

Be creative. This process is simply an introduction. The more you include - the better for starting a conversation.

The deadline for introductions is May 1st.

(Note: I should make it clear that Pedal is not a safety net... meaning Pedal will not be financially involved or supportive in anyone's travels. We are merely searching for people who are comfortable in being tailed - as unobtrusively as possible, of course.)

Special thanks to Angela from BlackCatInc.blogspot.com & Tiff from TheFemGeek.com for their generous donations.

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

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

From the beginning: Episode one

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This vlog marks the beginning - the roots of Pedal's inspiration, and its upcoming monthly video-podcast. I treated this cut as if I were starting from scratch, I wanted to explain what this project means to me, what to expect during filming, as well as after, and what I hope to achieve in the end.

I'd love to hear your feedback, your questions, comments, confusions - they will greatly help me in shaping the next episode (and in not getting ahead of myself).

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