t.minus 55 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

Strange and redacted teasers are coming and going on t.minus - each one is a clue that ties into the finished film.

Labels: Post-Production, t.minus, Vimeo

Two nights ago I purchased Amanda's plane ticket from Los Angeles to Reno - we'll be filming during the 5th to the 15th in May. I still have to purchase a plane ticket for myself, but I'll most likely be flying back to NY and not MI, so I have some details to work out first. It's all very exciting - May is approaching fast (58 days from now) and I've been loosing sleep trying to make sure nothing has been left unplanned.

As for the script; it currently stands at about 98% complete (I'm sure it's been at 99% in the past, but come back down due to rewrites). I've been struggling with the right way to wrap up the film's very last paragraph. So much so actually that I'll be putting the script down for the time being and re-focusing my efforts on the rough cut of the film (with intercut storyboards and all). My hope is that I'll be able to get more work done on the script when not staring at the same two pages day-in day-out.

The wonderful Karen Abad and I will be going over - via Skype - what I have storyboarded so-far as well as what still needs to be added to our May shot list. I'm nervous because time-wise, as well as budget-wise; we have 10 days to get every last shot needed involving Larry. There's some other work that requires an old 8mm camera and two college-aged girls during the 40s... but that's a different shoot for a different time.

Also, one quick Kickstarter update before I sign off - I just received the first KSR-edition of our 64 Days Production Journals in the mail and everything looks great! So for those of you who have been waiting very patiently for those, I'll be getting them out very shortly.

I apologize for the post feeling so short and scattered - but that's very much how I'm feeling currently - perhaps I should force myself to bed before 3 am tonight. I think I'll do that...

Labels: 64 Days, Crew, p52, Post-Production, t.minus, Writing

Earlier this week I read a tip on The 99 Percent site, titled, The Beta Principle: Skip Perfection & Launch Early - the post made a strong argument for start-ups to avoid the drag of over-refining and take to advantage of early user-feedback. But, when reading, I couldn't help but see how this "launch early" argument applied perfectly to filmmaking.

In the last few years, since running this production blog, I've talked many, many, many times to other filmmakers who want to wait till after they raise funds / after they cast actors / after they finalize the script / after they location scout / after they finish principle photography / after they finish their film's first rough cut... all *before* worrying about a website.

There's an impulse to get everything as close-to-perfect before putting it out there infront of people - now, I'm not making a case for releasing the roughest parts of your feature film, I wouldn't know how to go about such a thing in a constructive way - but it's important to put as much of your project out in the open as early as you can.

One point I found interesting in the post was this: "On a psychological level, a team thinks differently once the first version of a product is up and running. Rather than working for a hypothetical group of customers, everything you do affects real people. Your team will become more expedient and start to think of the project in smaller chunks rather than as an insurmountable giant."

Amanda and I released the 1st five episodes relating to Pedal before many components of the film were "ready". The episodes themselves are rough and are sometimes hard for me to watch without being overly critical. But they shifted the mindset we were working in dramatically.

Labels: advice, p52, Post-Production

I've spent the entire week writing and re-writing and scribbling notes on script print-outs and combing paragraphs with highlighters. Which has meant two things; first, I've made a lot of progress with the film's narration and structure and story... and second, that I've fallen behind on everything else in my life.

I have a pile of dozens of emails that I need to reply to, I have phone calls to make that I kept postponing, I have t-shirt orders to package up and drop off at the post office, I have a mix CD to finish up for all our Kickstarter supporters... Storyboards to edit into the timeline, voice-over to place and, of course, dishes are piling up in the kitchen.

I plan to force myself to step away from the script over the weekend and do some serious catching up - but I do feel really good about the last week. Not to say I haven't been struggling with certain parts of writing... I have, as far as I can tell now, two areas of the script, totaling no more than a page, that need to be written or finished. Those areas are; one, the very last line of the film, and two, the bridge in story after Larry McKurtis has returned home but before he had seriously committed to his upcoming 16,000 mile adventure.

Amanda and I had a Skype call with Larry on Thursday and talked about the fast-approaching trip to Northern California to film additional scenes of the film. I'm really excited about running around the Sierra Buttes and seeing Larry and Jay again - it's been too long.

Labels: FToM, Kickstarter, p52, Post-Production, Writing

I was going through my unread Instapaper list tonight - cleaning things up, watching videos I had saved for later, etc - and I came across a post by Ted Hope, from his blog, Truly Free Film, titled: 50* Ways You Can Do Something Different On This Production.

There were a few points that I particularly liked - that got me thinking about ways in which I could change the way we're doing things on Pedal. I thought I'd write about them here and get people's feedback.

#2: Do something stylistically just because you like it. Allow something to be "outside" the film, something that doesn't fit so right and is only there because you dig it. Why does it always have to fit?

This is one of those suggestions that seems like it would come naturally - but I have found that there is an incredible amount of self-sensorship or filtering with ideas during the creative process.

I try to write everything down that comes to mind - and find ways of working it in, or at least discussing it with Amanda as an option. But many ideas get dumped too quickly because they don't "fit", and what does that really mean? Doesn't fit how? Doesn't fit with things I've seen done before?

Reading this suggestion helped remind me that there is a difference - albeit a fine lined one - between something not "fitting" and something not "working". As the story of FToM gets closer and closer to being locked down - I need to add in ideas that really feel creative and new... maybe they'll only make the deleted-scenes in a DVD extra... but at least I'll have tried hard to make them work.

#9: What would be a different business model? Could you give it away? Free it? Never plan to screen it theatrically? What if the movie was not the main event, but something else was?

Although we do have solid plans to release FToM freely - I want to think more about the idea of the film not being the main-event. What could we structure around the film that would give it more meaning... more interaction... more momentum?

I don't have an answer for this yet - but it's something I want to revisit often as we work through post-production.

#12: What if you built your audience base prior to shooting? And maintained significant communication with them throughout the process? How might that change your final work?

I feel like I've tried very hard to do this during every step of Pedal. Sometimes I've not done as good a job as I would like... I let things get in the way of being open and keeping a conversion going around the project - or around storytelling in general.

But I like how Ted ask, "How might that change your final work?", because this blog has lead to a back-and-forth that has dramatically changed the project itself and the final film. So much so I'm not quite sure I would even know where to start... I feel very fortunate for this site and the people that it's helped introduced me with.

I now know that, for me, storytelling will always be a very empty undertaking without this kind of community from day-one.

#13: Innovate. Try some new equipment on every production. Improve a simple process. Isn't production about the communication of information in the service of art, as efficiently, economically, and aesthetically as possible?

I wanted to mention this idea for one specific reason - when the crew, The Black Sheep, flew from Belgium to Los Angeles, they brought a handful of different equipment with them to use on the road. They packed their main camera of course, an Fx1 with a SGpro 35kit, a 16mm hand-crank camera - but also several small mp4 cameras. These small low-quality cameras turned out to be incredibly helpful for both the 64 Days series as well as FToM. The jump in quality and frame-size really helps add another layer to the story... the footage feels personal in a way that the HD footage does not.

When Amanda, Karen and I leave for Northern California to film additional scenes with Larry, I intend to have a camera in my hands at all times filming little details.

I've been working hard to storyboards specific shots and have been busy editing those into a timeline with temporary voice-over tracks - and these shots will be the main focus, they'll be scheduled out and planned in detail. But there's so much I could miss if don't take the time to step back and record things the way I see them in the moment without the filter of "how is this going to fit into the film".

Labels: Black Sheep, Ideas, p52, Post-Production