Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are.
Gertrude Stein

Our application for a Major Grant from the Maryland Humanities Council is officially submitted! After weeks of working on it and securing two scholars and a hospitality professional in Maryland for planned interviews, it is all done.

This is a huge step in getting our long list of State Humanities Council applications on their way. We've got fifteen to call tomorrow and if the phone calls are encouraging, we've got fifteen applications to do ASAP.

Looking at the calendar, we realized we're only nine weeks away from hitting the road! We've sent our prospectus out to family and friends, planned a fundraising party in Colorado, and we've got an e-mail campaign about to hit cyberspace that emphasizes the kindness of strangers -- as in, if 100 strangers each donate 100 dollars, we've raised $10,000 which is about half of our budget.

Thanks for reading, and spread the word! This blog will be especially vital this summer while we're on the road, when we'll be posting almost every day and uploading weekly videos of our progress -- the more followers we have now, the better!

Here's our rough route, starting in New York then heading west to the Bears in Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Arkansas, and Delaware! We're still working out our professional interviews along the way, which will expand our route in a few other directions. You may have to click the map to bring up the full picture!

We have some scholars who have officially signed onto the film!
Pre interviews scheduled for May.

Today we submitted the Chicken and Egg application and we are on our way to finalizing our Maryland Grant.

So much is going on!

Today I called the nine state humanities councils along our northern route. Got very positive vibes from Iowa and South Dakota, but grants are so darn hard. I'm not really complaining -- it's pretty thrilling to think someone might give us money -- but there's so much going on, writing grants doesn't sound like the most fun thing to do. We've got the full Maryland Humanities Council grant to apply for too!

The prospectus is one page away from being finished. It now features beautiful pictures in the background of most pages, plus a page with our route and a map.

After spending several days in Colorado with Sarah, I'm feeling more excited than ever about the landscape of America. There is so much diversity in the land, and combined with the infinite intrigue of the people, our summer should be pretty fascinating. And yet, I've already made plans for the sequel, "Canadian Bear."

Welcome to Nate!

American Bear has finally found it's Director of Photography; Welcome to Nate Hurtsellers!  We are super excited, he will hopefully soon be posting on the blog as well.

Yay!

This week we are in Colorado for Spring Break but we've been working hard on the film. We have put together a new list of grant opportunities and been talking with Sarah's Mom about fundraising strategies. Today we shot a short film to advocate for our project. It will be edited and uploaded soon! We have revised our prospectus (Greg did it and it looks beautiful!); We are trying to come up with a new subtitle that feels more adventurous and exciting! Because that's what this film is going to be... ideas welcome.

Speaking of ideas --> If you have any ideas, comments, or questions that you don't feel like posting on the blog, please email us at beardocumentary@gmail.com. You could also just write us a letter; we like those.

As you have been reading about our film, if you are interested in donating - please click the link to the left - it goes directly to our page at Fractured Atlas - all donations are tax deductible.

Happy Spring!
Sarah and Greg

Arts on the Move grant submitted!

Next step: film commissions and humanities councils of all 25 states!

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.