The holidays during High School for me always used to bring considerable stress - I ran Cross Country for four years and anything that interfered with my daily training felt like a major distraction and derailment. I always felt incredibly guilty and lazy if I wasn't able to, at the very least, put in three miles. Perhaps I was a strange teenager.

I bring it up because I find it funny that now, I don't get anywhere near the exercise I used to, but I do feel a great deal of stress when holidays come around because it's nearly impossible to work on Pedal my normal 5-6 days out of the week.

I'm sure the occasional easing-up is probably good for my sanity - but still, I always feel so awkward and derailed when a week goes by and I haven't spent most of it on the film.

That's not to say I haven't touched Pedal in any capacity for the last week - I've been very busy finishing up some of the Kickstarter rewards for all the amazing people who helped backed our last campaign. Normally my time would be spent doing KSR work half the time, and the other half I'd be writing or story-boarding. It's just this month has been half KSR and half getting ready for Christmas.

Anyway - last week I dropped off all the files for the new FToM t-shirts and stickers we're ordering from the awesome, local, indie-friendly VGkids in Ypsi. Two weeks ago we ordered 500 new, hand-made-with-love Project Pedal buttons from the wonderful Karen Abad. In the next few days we'll put the final-final touches on the 64 Days production journal (which was supposed to be 160 pages, but has ended up being 180 pages) that we're making with Blurb.

After that - the very real and pressing deadline of Feburary is coming up, in which all the film's writing needs to be done. Or at least done enough to film from. Any changes made will need to be small enough to work with what we have. All story-boarding and logistical planning needs to be complete by April - in which we also need to have nearly all the temporary voice-overs recorded and placed in sequence with the drawings of needed shots.

Larry will be leaving near the end of June or early July for his 16,000 mile adventure and sustainability efforts for Expedition to Endure. All of FToM's additional filming needs to happen between April and June or else Larry will be out of town for the next year.

It's a lot to finalize and I'm excited to do so. I can't wait to pull off some of the shots that we've been working on - much of the film tells the two-sides of coming home, and we're working hard to be sure the visuals of the film match those mirror opposites of someone's post-trip experiences.

Labels: Editing, Kickstarter, Post-Production

Post Production - Week 88 from mike ambs on Vimeo.

I was up late last night working - and decided a video update was long, long overdue. I've been finished up on a huge step of post-production for almost two weeks now, and I've been waiting to make that announcement on video.

Also - and more importantly, I need people's input on what the next step for me should be.

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

I kept putting off updating the blog this last week - I was hoping I would be done piecing together all the elements I need for the next t.minus campaign, and that I could write a post announcing it was up and ready for people to look at. But... I've been running into some problems with that, and I needed to step away from it until I figure out how to fix them.

I realize that's not the most the exciting update - but the last few weeks have been incredibly routine. A lot of repetitive editing, repetitive tasks that I need to stay on top of: updating cycling forums about Stockpile, emails, newsletters, et cetera.

To be honest it's been a bit emotionally draining. I know some might argue that I need to keep a reasonable positive spin on my updates and what I say publicly, you never know who's reading or paying attention to your project. But I think all filmmakers go through different funks during each stage of production. It's hard not to - and it's even harder when you're going through it alone.

I guess I would just love nothing more lately than to focus on editing - to be able to pass off all the areas of responsibility to someone else. But I know everyone reading this could use an extra hand and 8 more hours during the day.

Some of you reading might already be aware that currently Amanda is currently volunteering in Thailand with under-privileged children. So... perhaps I'm just feeling more on-my-own than I normally do.


I can say that music has been a huge, huge help recently, I've been able to catch up on a lot of the suggestions from our ♬ suggestion page. As always, if you've heard any great music recently that you think would be a perfect fit in For Thousands of Miles, be sure to drop us a comment in our Disqus thread.

We do listen to all of your suggestions - almost all of them are added to an iTunes playlist that I try to keep current and use as a source of inspiration when writing and working.

Labels: Editing, FToM, Music, Post-Production, t.minus