[About our guest blogger: Micki Krimmel is an indy mogul in her own right, having played key roles at Participant Productions, where she launched the web strategy behind An Inconvenient Truth (and appeared in the film!), and at the pioneering online video company Revver. Micki's currently a regular blogger at Mickipedia and WorldChanging, and is working on a bunch of cool new projects we hope to hear more about soon.]

Micki Krimmel: Project Pedal is the videoblog/documentary project by filmmaker Mike Ambs. On June 2, Mike and his crew will embark on a cross-country journey to document two cyclists as they bike their way from Washington to Maine along the Adventure Cycling Trail, culminating in a feature length documentary tentatively titled "Pedal." Since October of 2004, Mike has been sharing his experience with the project on his blog, posting well-produced video episodes along the way. As with any first time film project, Mike has seen his share of ups and downs while trying to pull it all together. Now, he's just two weeks away from production and Next New Networks has stepped up to help send him off in style by hosting the "Pedal Push Party" this weekend in Los Angeles.

I chatted with Mike over IM about the film and the community of supporters he's been building through his videoblog.

MK: What the heck is Project pedal? Is it a film or a videoblog? I'm so confused!

Mike Ambs: Ha. Well, it's a bit of both... When I first started the project three years ago, it was just going to be a documentary. Then I got all swept up in the videoblogging scene and started thinking about how much happier I would be with the project if I could mesh my two favorite things: documentaries and vlogs. We're going to continue posting videos during production and post. We'll post lots of updates from the road, episodes when I get back talking about how things are going, etc. The finished product will be a feature length doc.

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MK: So how is the shoot going to work exactly? What are you trying to capture?

MA: Well, there's 5 people in the crew (including myself) and we are all cramming ourselves into a rental van and tagging along with the two guys who are biking: Larry and Jay. We'll be focusing a lot on b-roll, capturing the environment in the way you kind of see things when you're on a bike - things slow down, you seem to spot things you don't normally spot. And every few days, when Larry and Jay happen to cross paths with another biker/traveler, we'll jump into interview mode and really try to get to the bottom of why these people are traveling, what they want to take away, what they left behind, everything. I'm really interested in the effects of a bike trip on someone's head. I think it has a huge effect - exhausting yourself that many days in a row, sleeping under the stars that many days in row - it's very... inspiring. It really wakes a person up... on many levels

MK: So this was all inspired by your own experience biking long distances?

MA: Yes, it was - all this craziness started because when I was 19 I took a bicycle trip from Onsted, MI to Oregon to San Francisco. I met people on my own trip that were walking, train hopping, and some who weren't traveling at all - but who had, or had always wanted to - and the things they said really stuck with me.

MK: Who's in the cast? How did you find them?

MA: The "cast" which sounds funny, is two guys - Larry and Jay, and they found me really. I put out an episode (episode 3) that explained what I was looking for and really tried to push it on all the biking sites I could find. I got a decent amount of responses from a lot of fantastic people. It was hard to filter them out to find who would work best for what we were doing. But Larry and Jay are great - they are very involved and always keep me updated on how they are doing. I feel really lucky to have found these two for the project. I'm working on the "Larry and Jay" episode which I hope to post to introduce them before we leave.

MK: How planned out is the trip? Are you focusing on certain locations or stories are you just going to see what happens?

MA: Well, certain things - like the route, are planned out turn for turn the whole way across. As for stories - it's all chance encounters, we don't know who we'll be meeting or when. We know what we want to focus on when we do meet these people - but until then - that's one of the scary/exciting parts. It's not anything I can control or plan.

MK: I imagine that makes it tough to get funding. A documentary that can't be planned...

MA: Well it is a risk. It's helped a lot since I started doing episodes - people have been able to get a better idea as to what I'm trying to say. It actually helped out *a lot* I highly recommend it.