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".