I have great, great news! When we first started t.minus to encourage and simplify the voting process for 64 Days in the Babelgum film festival, it required people to create an account, download and install software, oftentimes people needed to restart their browsers or computers to finish the installation, etc. Basically, what I'm saying is that was a terribly high number of hoops to jump through just to start casting votes.

As of this morning - Babelgum has relaunched a new design of their site, and it appears to be from the ground up. No more software necessary to watch or vote! If any of you out there tried to vote before, and were one of the many who had issues or ran into bugs with the player, then this is just in time! And for everyone else who's been voting once a day, well, now it's much easier.

We're really getting down to the wire in this contest - from what we can tell, we're very, very close to the top 10 position (possibly 15th place in the Documentary category, though it's hard to tell). And with 12 days left, we're gonna have to push this very hard to make sure we a) don't get bumped back on the list, and b) manage to move up in the top 5 positions.

I know I've mentioned it on this blog before - but doing well in this contest could secure us the finishing funds towards For Thousands of Miles. It would greatly speed up post-production and give us a head start on promotional funding, and allow us to hire help that we desperately, desperately need. Thank you so much! We can do this.

Labels: Babelgum, FToM, Post-Production, t.minus

Amanda and I weren't able to go to SXSW this year - which had less to do with 64 Days not being accepted, and more with money and timing issues - but if one of us had gone to Austin we might have caught a panel discussion with several big doc' directors including Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), and Gary Hustwit (Helvetica).

During the panel they debated digital distribution options and had some disagreements on it's value. Spurlock said, "The reason numbers aren't released (for digital distribution revenues) is because the numbers are pathetic."

And, from what I could tell, another comment, from Steve Savage, of New Video, was somewhat in line with Spurlock's, "It's good to be agnostic, and I think it's a good way to put everything out there and see what sticks but there's also other ways to do it," he asserted, "to be really strategic, to find where the money is."

I know it's important for distributors to crunch the numbers and track current and emerging trends, I know it's important for them to chase after the biggest pool of money - but I don't agree with Spurlock at all about online numbers for indie-films being "pathetic".

Keep in mind the numbers these higher-profile filmmakers and distributors are calling pathetic aren't compared from the perspective of marketing-resources. Sure the online numbers aren't very impressive when side by side to the theatrical numbers for Super Size Me - but how many marketing dollars were behind that film? When you take an indie-film with a promotional budget in the $10,000 range (basically whatever they can swing on a credit card)? Then the internet is, dollar for dollar, far more powerful. And is getting more so very quickly.

I watched a video recently that briefly went into the time it took different technologies to reach it's first market audience of 50 million. Radio: 38 years, TV: 13 years, Internet: 4 years. The tables turn a lot faster online then they do anywhere else.

I haven't heard the entire panel discussion yet, only bits and pieces, so I'm not saying that anyone on it feels the internet is a waste of time for indie-filmmakers. But I am saying that focusing so confidently on where the "money is", is missing the point. I'm curious how long any of you reading think it will be before a majority of modern theaters have a high-end equivalent to AppleTV, or Roku running off an internet database of high-quality films that can be torrented or streamed on demand? 2 years? 4 years even?

The filmmakers currently tapping into the internet to distribute and push their films might not be rolling in it, they might not even be able to "pay their rent", as Spurlock mentioned, they might not be the talk of town during Sundance and Cannes - but they will be the pioneers that shape the very near future of online-film-distribution.

Labels: Post-Production

Post Production - Week 65 from mike ambs ☂ on Vimeo.

Big announcement this week - it's been a few weeks in the making but we're finally ready to release the new design of the For Thousands of Miles site! I worked till 4 or 6 in the morning for about two weeks straight getting all this coded correctly and set up. We're really proud of the new site and we hope it adds a lot more interaction to FToM! We could use a lot of help in spreading the word about the new site - if you're up for blogging about it we'd be flattered.

There's a few more little additions I'd like to make over the next few weeks - but they weren't critical enough to push back the release. So stay tuned for those and be sure to leave us any comments or questions you have about the new site. If you think something is missing we'll try to include it.

There's 19 days left to vote for 64 Days on Babelgum - again, this contest could fund our entire post-production process! If you enjoy the 64 Days episodes, or Pedal on a whole, please take the 60 seconds each day to vote for us. It really means a lot to us. The t.minus website lays out quickly and clearly the steps you can take to get involved.

Labels: Babelgum, FToM, Post-Production, t.minus

I've been thinking about this for several weeks - and I've been hesitant to write about it, hesitant to ask people about it, hesitant to really admit that it's a problem. But we desperately need help with this film. Not in all areas, but there are goals I have that, it is becoming more and more apparent, will fail if it's just Amanda and I.

I can handle the editing. I can handle the writing. I can handle keeping myself on schedule - not that I don't fall behind, but it's more a matter of too much to do and too little time (or not enough help).

And because of this I am always falling behind in one area of the project as a whole - I am always falling behind on emails, falling behind on blog post, on vlog updates, on reaching out to new people, on making advances with the script, on encouraging write ups and interviews to get our name out there. The weight of these un-marked to-dos has been growing the further into post-production I get.

An example; we have goals of planning multi-state screening events of 64 Days to build more awareness and practice DIY distribution (for when FToM is released). This is something I could take on myself - the managing of localized people who are helping to book venues, RSVP guest, handle equipment needs, etc. But I could not do this while at the same time writing as much as I need to, and editing the film. So I feel stuck - I know it's something the project would benefit greatly from, but how do I pull it off without more help? How do we find more help when we have no budget?


I suppose this post is simply a feeler - I'm curious about people's thoughts on this. What people's ideas and suggestions are on the possible trade-offs for people joining our team. We have a long road ahead of us... there's a lot of work left to be done... and it's a lot to ask of people. Is it crazy to pull outside people into this mess?

Labels: FToM, Post-Production

Post Production - Week 64 from mike ambs ☂ on Vimeo.

A quick update on what I've been keeping myself extremely busy with the last week - keep checking back at FToM - it won't be long before we launch the new site. I've worked very hard on it, so I hope everyone will find it much more useful and engaging.

Also don't forget there's still 28 days left of voting for 64 Days in the Babelgum film fest! Winning would give us all the money needed for post-production! Greatly speeding up our schedule.

Labels: FToM, Post-Production, Vlog, Weekly Update