The DP hunt is narrowing down.

So is the funding, unfortunately: Arizona Humanities Council determined that our production expenses weren't applicable to their funds, but they were very interested in our idea to have a screening tour in the states we shoot in, with Q&As and such.

But it's not all unfortunate! We still have plenty of ideas for funding. Plenty of film commissions to contact, private investors teeming with money, a couple grants we haven't heard back from, Sarah's meeting with the Bronfman Center tomorrow, and a forthcoming Kickstarter.com account.

Every now and then one of us looks at the other and just says, "This summer is going to be amazing." And it sure will be.

Today I went uptown to W58th St and 6th Avenue to pitch our doc to the lovely people at Starry Night Entertainment.

Totally a positive experience. Didnt really use my notecards (which I had prepared just in case I got too nervous), but I had a really productive conversation with Neika and Michael about the film.

That conversation and one later in the day made me really excited at the prospect of purchasing (or perhaps someone will donate) a Canon 7D and a shoulder mount. We want our film to look amazing. So! Time to change our budget! Maybe I can convince the folks at Canon to donate one. Or I'll just get the people at RED to donate a Scarlet (pre-released of course). But seriously.

So the search for funding continues...

Today had such good energy.

Good energy in the air for American Bear!

Letter of Inquiry to the Playboy Foundation is going through approval from Fractured Atlas. On Friday, Sarah and I impulsively called the offices of Robert Kenner and Doug Pray, directors of "Food Inc." and "Big Rig," respectively, seeking advice, mentorship, support, who knows? I recently saw "Food Inc." and its messages and images have stuck in my mind more than just about any movie I've seen in a long time. "Big Rig" is a documentary we recently watched the follows a number of long-haul truck drivers around the United States and presents their stories in an intimate way. We are looking to present the lives of Americans in a similar portrait style in our film.

Coming up on our to-do list: calling our scholarly and professional contacts to organize planned interviews along the road. I'm especially excited to contact Nanette Sawyer, a pastor at the Wicker Park Grace faith community in Chicago, whose book Hospitality the Sacred Art: Discovering the Hidden Spiritual Power of Invitation and Welcome examines hospitality from a Christian viewpoint, bringing people closer to God and each other.

To our new Followers, thank you so much! We're very excited to have your virtual support, and hopefully we'll keep things interesting and moving and shaking here on the American Bear blog.

Things are always moving and shaking though, so we're not too worried about that. I got some good news and some bad news today. The bad news is that the Jerome Foundation, an organization whose grant sounded right up our alley, does not accept grant applications from full-time students. One down, plenty more to go, I suppose. But the good news is that Breathe Owl Breathe, the wonderful band from Michigan, said they were very interested in our project and would love to discuss further after their current tour is over. So music is on hold for a few weeks, but we've got a lot of positive energy waiting for us.

I just spent the morning doing distribution and marketing research.

I am a little excited and intimidated.

Maryland Humanities Council

I sent our official and approved letter of inquiry into the MDHC today!

Tomorrow morning: calls to other granters and organizations.

I am feeling super excited about our film! There is so much to learn about the country and so many different little notes and facets that our experiment has the potential to hit upon.

E-mail out to Breathe Owl Breathe. Letter on the way to Great Grandma. Letter of Inquiry for the Playboy Foundation and application for the Jerome Foundation in the next round of business.

Sarah and I had some solid creative discussion about our approaches to shooting and safety -- out of context, that sounds particularly smart, but our shooting isn't as unsafe as the sentence suggests. Rather, we talked about what kind of structure we want to have during production as it relates to the structure that will come together in editing. We're both very excited for a fairly free-form documentary that doesn't consistently follow our journey chronologically or geographically but instead is guided by the questions we ask people and the themes we're exploring.

While discussing safety, I recommended that we have something noisy on top of our equipment in the room that we're sleeping in, so that if someone sneaks into our room at night to steal our equipment, they would have to move this very noisy object and so we would foil their heist. However, there aren't a lot of items that make enough noise inadvertently to wake people up. Yet another problem to solve.

Hooray! But we can't have a conversation in front of people, you goofball.

I am now also a follower!

Cute.

Also, we have a Flickr page with photos from our previous road trip(s) -- more photos will be on the way soon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/americanbear/

Also, I accidentally made myself a Follower of my own Blog. I guess it's appropriate. But mostly ridiculous. Hopefully Sarah will help me fix that.

Printing out the 11-page prospectus to mail to my great grandma!

Tonight we'll be sending an e-mail to the Michigan-based band Breathe Owl Breathe. Sarah and I have been in love with this group for a while and discussed how their music would make an amazing film score, and with "American Bear," I think we've got the perfect project. American, folksy, beautiful, fun -- sounds good to me. Check their music out at www.breatheowlbreathe.com or on youtube. We're crossing our fingers that they're interested.

Today is an important day. It may very well be the day that we send out our first Letter of Inquiry for the project.

After last nights late work session, I am feeling exhausted but super excited about getting our first letter off and out into the world.

Let's hope all of the paperwork and logistics work out so Maryland will receive our submission on time.