hello. my name is mike ambs.

Interviewer: Do you think people understand you?

Bresson: I don’t know if they understand me, but is the issue here the film or me? If its the film, I think - I’d rather people feel a film before understanding it. I’d rather feelings arise before intellect.

(via ftomfilm)

ftomfilm:

It’s been 3 months since we released the film’s trailer, alongside our plans of a Spring-release. In that time a lot has changed, and, at the same time, a lot has remained frustratingly static. Where to start. 

Let’s start with some of the good things: the Kickstarter campaign to get the special premiere-based posters and t-shirts went really well, and it’s been exciting to start getting those things into people’s hands ahead of release. I should give a really big thanks again to Kristen from Warpaint for all her amazing work and attention to detail. Also, working with Eluvium on the original score was an amazing experience… I really can’t find the words to describe how inspiring it was to first hear the early drafts of the film’s score. Now that the score is finished, the film has a truly unique and consistent feel. IFP introduced For Thousands of Miles to Robinson Devor, and his mentoring was incredibly, incredibly helpful / encouraging; his feedback helped me make a cut to the film that I’d been nervous about in the previous months, it was one of the weakest parts of the film, and I was lucky to have someone who understood the film so well, someone who was able to provide such helpful feedback. 

What was our plan? 

We still needed / need financial help with the film to pay for a sound mix and the licensing rights for the two pieces of non-original music, and we had very much hoped that one of two things would happen: 1) the film would be accepted at one of the festivals with a 1st-time filmmaker grant, specifically: Tribeca and Ann Arbor. Or, 2) the film would be accepted at a festival and an outside investor would help cover the last of remaining cost. This option was far less likely, as most investors are willing to put money into a film premiering at a festival on the agrement that when it is sold they will recoup their expenses, but I don’t have any plans to sell the film. Although rare, it might have been possible to find an investor willing to cover the relatively small remaining cost with plans to self-release the film. 

It happens that nearly everything that’s ever gone right for this film has been against initially unlikely odds, and this has bit-by-bit lead to my taking greater and greater risk… I’m not sure whether that is good or bad.

In any case, the film was / is very close to being 100% finished, it was close enough to take a chance 3 months ago; we applied to 20+ film festivals, launched a kickstarter, moved forward on partnerships with bicycling organizations, we put everything we had into motion, and then, piece by piece, each thing we had worked so hard to structure, fell apart. None of these things falling apart means the end of the world, setbacks are nothing new, but that’s not to downplay their affect, they are still setbacks and they do cause delays, scrambling, and frustration. But I am still very hopeful.

What is our new plan? 

To be honest, we had put nearly all of our plans into motion several months ago, and when all of them fell short, we were feeling at a loss of what steps to take next, that was until Nathan came along with a plan for self releasing the film in a way that was very close to my heart. He’s helped bring not only new eyes to this project, but new and talented people as well, I’m excited about what we’re planning and I’m anxious to talk more about the release plans as soon as we have them locked in.