We just added the final working script under the film’s bonus features. This script is actually a scanned archive (notes and all) from Oct 2012, used during an 11 hour recording session of what would be the narration track you hear in the film.
As a special thank you, entering “SCRIPT” into the discount area saves you 30% when unlocking the film’s bonus features. Which we are always adding to. That’s one awesome thing about unlocking the bonus features now, anything added in the future is yours also! Speaking of, which features would you like to see added?
How long should a particular shot be on screen before cutting to the next? In his narrative-documentary hybrid about a cross-country bike trip, Mike Ambs pushes the viewer’s duration expectations of a shot of a man on a bicycle to spoketacular ends.
From attaching a crane to the top of a production car to working on a film for eight years and then releasing it for free, Mike sat down with No Film School to describe the making of the cinematic genre-bending epic For Thousands of Miles (which, powered by VHX, you can watch gratis here!)
Mike Ambs embarked on a 55-day trip on a bicycle with his best friend shortly after graduating high school to “get out and see things – it was as simple and as complicated as that.” Some years after the experience, which left him feeling both unfinished and nostalgic, Mike set out to film Larry McKurtis on a 4,200 cross-country bicycle trip and nearly eight years later, the result is For Thousands of Miles, which you can watch for free on the FTOM site. Have a watch and read about the process of making the film in our interview below.
Mike Ambs embarked on a 55-day trip on a bicycle with his best friend shortly after graduating high school to “get out and see things – it was as simple and as complicated as that.” Some years after the experience, which left him feeling both unfinished and nostalgic, Mike set out to film Larry McKurtis on a 4,200 cross-country bicycle trip and nearly eight years later, the result is For Thousands of Miles, which you can watch for free on the FTOM site. Have a watch and read about the process of making the film in our interview below.
NFS: There are some extremely long takes of your subject biking. Can you describe the filmmaking strategy behind this?
Mike Ambs: There are a few answers I could give. One answer would be that kind of longer, slower pacing felt like my memories of the road. That’s how I remembered them, not just visually, but emotionally they felt better represented in longer, slower takes.
I think, if I had cut that shot, say, 30 seconds in, that people would have seen a wide of Larry biking up a hill, they would have gathered all the immediate visual information in the frame and then moved on – I wanted to hold on Larry much longer than felt normal.
But, another answer, one that is more from a filmmaking approach, is I wanted to set a tone and pace for the film. As an example, the first shot is almost three minutes long. I wanted to give people time to look closer at what was going on with Larry as he struggled against the wind and up a steep hill. I think if I had cut that shot, say, 30 seconds in, that people would have seen a wide of Larry biking up a hill, they would have gathered all the immediate visual information in the frame and then moved on – I wanted to hold on Larry much longer than felt normal. I wanted people to begin to question if there was more to see, to study the frame for other things they might be missing. Which isn’t always something an audience is up for, but we’re okay with that range of response. I think it’s true to the idea of riding a bicycle across the country, or hiking the entire length of the Rocky Mountains. These things are not for everyone. It takes a certain kind of mindset and person to find those undertakings interesting or even rewarding.
For myself, those longer takes are the ones that draw me in the most.
We had everything we needed crammed into a van, with a homemade wooden box strapped to the roof that supported a 20-foot crane-arm.
NFS: What was production like on For Thousands of Miles?
Mike: Well, this was my first film, so every lesson I learned, I learned it the hardest, most embarrassing and expensive way possible. Even so, much like my first bicycle trip, my first experience of filming a feature was equal parts amazing and crushingly difficult. Emotional cost aside though, we kept production very light. We did start off with a crew of five, following two friends on a 4,000 mile trip, but when one of them wasn’t able to continue, the crew was eventually just myself and Amanda Walker. We had everything we needed crammed into a production van, with a homemade wooden box strapped to the roof that supported a 20-foot crane-arm. We got a lot of strange looks.
Larry had a pretty unique approach to his trip – he wasn’t up with the sun like a lot of other travelers we crossed paths with, he wasn’t rushed, but when he was one his bike, it turned out he was fast. Very fast. And in half the time other people would spend riding, he would cover just as much, if not more ground.
NFS: Am I seeing crane shots from a moving vehicle? Can you describe what’s behind this cinematography?
Mike: We did pack a crane with us, and at first it was quite an ordeal to set up, it took about 30 minutes to put together and tear down at best. But a little less than two week into the trip, when it became just the two of us following Larry, we ended up securing the crane on the roof of the production van permanently – well, at least until it caught a downed wire in New York state and snapped one of the tripod legs in half. But there were a few weeks there where I would spend hours up there on the roof, driving behind or up in-front of Larry, filming a bird’s eye view of the countryside, or sweeping around in a full 360 to get a sense of how isolating a trip like that can be.
Now, when I think back to that summer, I see it from 40 feet above the ground, I can’t see my face anymore. I just see the landscape going on ahead for miles.
NFS: How did you come up with the structure of the film, and the other filmmaking strategies employed?
Mike: The approach changed quite a bit – it seems like documentary directors say that kind of thing a lot – but I went into this project with a very different idea of how it would work. I filmed a lot of interviews with other people on the road that will probably never be released, and we pulled them from the timeline not because they weren’t interesting, but because they weren’t reflective enough in their tone. Now, if I had been smart, I would have set aside funds to go interview many of the people we had met during Larry’s trip a year after they had returned, because we did start to get letters from people, and those letters had a strong sense of longing and nostalgia, which is what we wanted. Instead we just kept a lot of those conversations going as best we could – and some of the lines in the final film are actually directly quoting people’s emails and how they felt about coming home. So that is sort of how the narrative structure of the film came about, it really was out of necessity, a way for us to take all the different voices of people we had met, and bring them together into one perspective.
Visually speaking though, the film followed, as closely as I could capture it, the way in which I remember my own trip. I’ve spoken before about how when I first came home, all my memories were very first-person and immediate. But as time went by, my memories drifted higher and further away. Now, when I think back to that summer I see it from 40 feet above the ground; I can’t see my face anymore. I just see the landscape going on ahead for miles. But there is a mix of that in the film – some moments are fresher in Larry’s mind than others, and his recollection of his ride varies from very personal to very disconnected – like another version of himself.
It wasn’t until much later that I started coming across other documentary films that felt much more narrative, and - honestly, I wish I would have seen them sooner, they would have saved me a lot of self-doubt in the early editing stages.
NFS: What tools did you use to make the film? What did you shoot on?
Mike: The film has just about everything in it except for 35mm. We shot a lot of the trip on a Sony Z1u – we took a few roles of 16mm film, a handful of mp4 cameras – there is a mix of DSLR and even 8mm footage.
We did the first assembly in Final Cut 7, and during the post production process FCPX came out, and we actually, really out of curiosity, decided to make a copy of the timeline in X, and it all transferred perfectly and so we decided to finish the cut using X. Which turned out to be, despite all the initial controversy, quite a bit faster to work in compared to 7.
NFS: What was the creative process working with your composer Eluvium?
Mike: Working with Eluvium was a real dream of mine. It’s one of those things where the entire film was worth it, just for that experience of hearing his original score. We only spoke on the phone once – after that everything was done in writing. He would ask me what a certain moment should sound like, and I would send back notes saying it should sound like “breathing”, or another moment should feel “sad and hopeful” at the same time.
It was frightening at first. I don’t know much of anything about music – how to talk about it, how to read or write it, how to sometimes say how it makes me feel – still, he couldn’t have been a more inviting person when it came to helping me relax, and learning to embrace my naivety with simplistic one or two word descriptions. For all the time I had spent searching for just the right words in the narration, it was liberating to narrow down the meaning of a scene into just a single word. He would send a rough idea for a piece of music, and it instantly became that part of the film – as if it revealed something that had been there the whole time. It was such a rewarding and exciting experience, like getting to see my own film for the first time all over again.
The amount of time it has taken to finish the film was always a source of stress for me, [but] I realize how much we’ve done with a very limited budget - it takes time. Fast, Good, Cheap - you only get to pick two.
NFS: This is a film that might blur the lines a little between documentary and narrative, in that you might not know it’s a doc when you watch it. Is that something you set out to do?
Mike: I think we could have just as easily called the film a narrative, and just a somewhat eccentric approach to production. It wasn’t very much a conscious decision to really blur those lines, I just had a somewhat limited exposure to other documentary films, and the ones I had seen early on were films like Fog of War or Tarnation, and those films felt exciting. I just always saw the film through these very specific shots, but I knew I wanted them to be real, or of a real person’s actual trip, I should say.
It wasn’t until much later that I started coming across other documentary films that felt much more narrative, and honestly, I wish I would have seen them sooner, because they would have saved me a lot of self-doubt in the early editing stages. But I’m glad the film took the course it did, and the time that it did. I think that not only was I working through the issues of a first time filmmaker – “how do I go about this story in a way that is from my own voice” – but I was also working through some of my own trip, and this project was a way to sort of have those two separate things come full circle.
NFS: Do you think the blending of doc and fiction is something that should happen more?
Mike: I’m always for experimenting with story, both in terms of structure and style. Yes. I think if it comes from an honest place, if it feels right for the film, then just because you’re making something unusual when compared to other documentaries doesn’t mean you should abandon it. A film is really something that should be unique to you as a filmmaker. If anyone else could make the picture, then what’s the point?
NFS: How long did it take you to make this film?
Mike: Principal shooting began in April of 2007 and continued through August 2007. This was Larry’s cross-country trip. The next 2 years or so was spent importing and organizing footage (most was on miniHDV tapes), writing, working on the BTS series and working a 9 to 5 job. In the spring of 2010 I made a trip up to Truckee with Karen Abad (DP) to shoot all the scenes you see of Larry at home. In 2012 we were part of the IFP Documentary Film Labs, and the years following our experience were spent applying to festivals, finishing grants and anything else we could be a part of to get more eyes on the film. We also used our personal savings to finance the original score and sound design. While the amount of time it has taken to finish the film was always a source of stress for me, I realize how much we’ve done with a very limited budget – it takes time. Fast, Good, Cheap: you only get to pick two of those! Finally, in May of this year we released the film online, with the option to purchase bonus features like commentary and the sound track. So, I guess the short answer to that question is 8 years.
Go here to watch all five parts of Mike’s behind-the-scenes production series for the film on Vimeo called 64 Days, a Making of.
NFS: Why did you decide to release the film for free?
Mike: Releasing the film for free was actually the idea from very early on. You [Oakley] and I were in the same IFP Labs program, and that was the plan even back then. I remember having to stand up in front of everyone, and suddenly feel very silly for being the only person there with plans that seemed very naive. We heard a lot of encouragement to pursue other distributions plans, which we followed for a long time. But eventually, it just felt right to put the film out there for free, like we had always intended on doing.
I don’t have plans to always do that with films I’ve made. It’s actually funny, because I also was a co-director on a project at Disney. Well, it was really a small little studio in Burbank that Disney bought. It didn’t have a whole lot of the Disney HQ influence at the time, but we made a stop-motion film that was also, at the last minute, given away for free through Google. So, right now I’m two for two. We’ll see what happens with the next one.
Thank you, Mike!
Check out the free stream of For Thousands of Miles for yourself. It’s a steal. Warning: it may make you want to take off on a cross-country road trip to experience and/or start experimenting with long takes on your next project!
Have you played with the duration of a shot to achieve a particular effect in a project of your own? What do you think about long takes?
Eluvium has just released a sneak peek of the film’s soundtrack, and to celebrate, I wanted to speak about an aspect of the film that I often get asked about, the story behind the film’s original score.
The Role that Music Plays in ‘For Thousands of Miles’
Not many documentaries are known for their beautiful original scores – at least when compared to the long list of narrative film scores – a few personal favorites that come to mind are ‘Fog of War’, and ‘Thin Blue Line’ (both of which were done by Philip Glass), there’s also the 2004 documentary ‘Tarnation’, which has an amazing theme written by Max Avery Lichtenstein.
I knew long before production ever began, that this film would rely heavily on music, if not for any other reason than the main idea behind the film boiled down to two simple but opposing things: 1) the wide, birds eye view of a biker alone on the open road, and 2) the “sound” of missing that experience long after it’s over.
Whatever that sound was, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you at the time, but I knew the way I felt about missing my own cross country bicycle experience, that feeling of nostalgia was musical in a way that I could never place.
The Song in His Headphones Would Finish, and He Would Play it Again
The musical tone within For Thousands of Miles really began to take shape during the early writing process - only months after returning from principal photography, I would sit at my typewriter and search for music…
I would search through my iTunes library, hoping to find a song that took me away from all the crushing debt I had built up over 64 days of filming on the road; something that took the hundred-plus hours of (seemingly random) footage and helped to simplify it, bring it together.
There was one piece in particular that I had come across, and I found myself playing it on repeat night after night - it never grew old, never lost its charm, even as the months turned to years. If anything it created a kind of signal, always returning me to zero no matter what else was happening in my life; that was a song called ‘Zerthis Was A Shivering Human Image’ by Eluvium, from his 2003 album Lambent Material.
Deep Breath. Hit Send.
The writing and editing process both had a lot of overlap during post-production, I would sketch out an idea for a piece of narration on the back of a Taco Bell napkin while sitting in traffic on the 405, and then I would come home and dig for footage that helped support that idea. One would often inspire the other, a long night of editing and logging footage would sometimes lead to a burst of script pages.
It only made sense that the one piece of music I kept coming back to while writing, made its way into the edit of the film as a temp track. Temp tracks can be a dangerous thing for filmmakers, often times you can get hung up on a piece of music you either can’t afford or find impossible to replace, but I’ll speak about that more later.
For years the opening of the film made heavy use of Zerthis, and I began to daydream about writing Eluvium and asking him to create an original score for the film. The idea always seemed like a pipe-dream… but, like many pipe-dreams, if you find yourself heavily deprived of sleep, you might just be wired enough to go for it all the same.
My first email to Eluvium was more personal than it was professional, I figured honesty about the film being independent and self-driven was more important than anything.
…For as long as I can remember, I’ve listened to your music to help lock myself into a tone. Especially the song Zerthis Was A Shivering Human Image.
I have such strong memories of when I used to take the bus to work every morning, this was back in 2007, and I would sit down, and I put on Zerthis, and it was all I could hear the entire bus ride (the bus ride lasted about 10 minutes), and I would think about the film that *entire* bus ride with that *one* song on - day after day, after day.
I told him I had written nearly every word of the film while listening to his music… I hit send, and I waited.
On Working with Eluvium
We only spoke on the phone once - after that everything was done in writing. He would ask me what a certain moment should sound like, and I would send back notes saying, it should sound like “breathing”, or another moment should feel “sad and hopeful” at the same time.
It was frightening at first, I don’t know much of anything about music – how to talk about it, how to read or write it, how to sometimes say how it makes me feel – still, he couldn’t have been a more inviting person when it came to helping me relax, and learning to embrace my naivety with simplistic one or two word descriptions. For all the time I had spent searching for just the right words in the narration, it was liberating to narrow down the meaning of a scene into just a single word.
90% of Directing
At this stage, I had been cutting to temp music for three years, and going in, there was a worry that I would have a difficult time letting go of the old music for the new music.
Elia Kazan is famous for saying that “90 percent of directing is casting”, I learned on this film that selecting the right person to create your film’s score is much like selecting the right actor for a role – it doesn’t matter how you wrote the scene, or how many times you imagined the dialogue being performed a certain way, when the right person comes in and does something all their own, suddenly you couldn’t imagine it any other way.
Eluvium would send a rough idea for a piece of music, and it instantly became that part of the film… as if it revealed something that had been there the whole time. It was such a rewarding and exciting experience - like getting to see my own film for the first time all over again.
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I hope you enjoy this preview of the film’s score - this track is one of my favorites.
For those of you living near Bend, Oregon - our first bike shop screening event is coming up May 21st (9PM) at the McMenamins Old St. Francis School theater, an old pub and theater just down the street from Henry at Pine Mountain Sports, who helped organize this special event. Also! Everyone who attends will be helping to raise funds for the Central Oregon Trail Alliance.
Some details about that date - the release will start on VHX (with Kickstarter backers and people who pre-ordered the film gaining early access), with the film then going live on BitTorrent, Vimeo, YouTube, Gumroad, and others to follow. It will be a DRM, world-wide release, and (which brings me to)…
The second announcement: the film will be free. Free to share, free to download, free to re-mix. Free.
Why!? How?
This film could not have happened without so many people’s unending support – that is in no way hyperbole – the film (only) got off the ground in the first place through outside support; not investments, but support - the kind that never happens; the kind where people expect nothing in return but the finished film, and the excitement of being part of a production - even if that production is a very independent one. So… it’s yours already. I am forever in people’s debt for their kindness, for their patience, for their advice and feedback. In that sense, this film isn’t much, but it is a start. A way to say thank you.
Will there be any way to support the film going forward?
Yes. The film itself is free, but there will be a handful of different extras (commentary track, original script, interviews, etc) set up via a pay-what-you-want model. But!, and this is important, and cannot be stressed enough, more valuable than money is our relationship to those of you who like (even love) the kinds of stories we make.
This film will go on to have a life of its own, but as for us, the people who made it, we’ll go on to our next project, and knowing that you’re out there and excited about our next big undertaking, that’s important in a way that is almost impossible to measure. So, if you haven’t already, join our mailing list (we send one about every two months) and say “hello”.
This marks the last part to the film’s Making-of series, it is a look back on the film overall, and what I’ve learned after years and years of fighting to finish FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES.
For some of you, 64 Days was your first introduction to FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES ; “64 Days” being the nickname given to the feature-film’s making-of series. The series is set apart from many other films’ behind-the-scenes footage by the narrative approach to sharing the experience of a first-time filmmaker.
Sixty-four was the exact number of days spent on the road during principal photography; there was a time when that number, 64, dominated the life of this project, filming a nearly 5,000 mile bicycle journey was a massive undertaking, but when compared to the struggles of post-production that soon followed the road, it was a breeze.
When 64 Days was first released, the story within it was still unfolding - and what I thought 64 Days would mean when I started this, and what it came to mean by the time the film was finished, are two very different things.
All of which was very fitting, considering the film itself was originally intended to be something very different in style and in structure - but, like any documentary , the story is likely to shift under your feet.
Both projects, FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES as well as 64 Days, were incredible learning experiences - both had quite an impact on the other, in terms of lessons, structure, tone, and process. Hope you enjoy.
