Friday, December 28, 2007

Life After Bit

Well, not really; there is no life after Bit. But there is life between bitting, which is what I'm doing at the moment. Getting lost in Brooklyn and the Bronx each night on photo missions. Catching up on long-lost writing. Reading, watching movies every night, getting my truck equipped with a deer bumper. I'll tell you what that means some other time.

And Meredith, from what I'm reading on the news wires and garnering from my sources in La Paz, Asuncion and Santiago, is brokering a global bad art non-proliferation treaty, doing rain forest research and putting out those damn fires in Tierra Del Fuego. Quite a handful, but not for a superbitter.

I am keeping the furnace stoked and the windows clean here at the House of Bit, and we resume operations in mid-January.

I must go now and take my shift at the watchpost in the Old Bit Tower.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

"Death by Pizza"

Oh my god, I think I'm going to die. This pizza made me sick. I think I'm going to need ten Tums.

Yes, this is the last day of "Food Month On The House of Bit."

One of us decided she wanted pizza tonight. One of us had already planned on getting pizza, so it seemed like the thing to do.

The pizza arrived - a medium pie from 2 Boots, half Tony Clifton and half Mild Margherita.

We ate with gusto, then resumed working. We were writing a scene tonight. Eventually, one of us seemed to feel sick, and declared it to be so. The night ended.

This will be the last food post for a while. Monday is our last day of work until mid-January.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

"Donuts have given me power..."

There are many other titles we could have used the past few days, but they were all too offensive or politically correct, so we are going with the latest twig that we just yanked from the stream of Bit consciousness.

A discussion on the relative caloric content and damage of certain foods - I arguing that pizza is light, Meredith arguing that donuts are good for you - has led to this "Donuts have given me power."

I do not doubt that, six and a half. I do not doubt that. But let me tell you, donuts can kill. I have seen it with my own eyes.

Anyway, here's an update:

Quesadilla, aka Not Blavatsky, is going really well. We pulled a fast one on a Turkish Grill owner the other day. Not really, but it sounds good, doesn't it? We had two great shoots the other day. Also, and this feels right, we are about halfway through shooting and are already thinking about our next project.

We are getting better by the second and are very excited, beyond very excited, about the next project, to be code named Nashville for reasons we will disclose one day. The Bithaus will be closing up shop for three weeks so that we can rest and rejuvenate, Meredith in the pampas and me in the hinterlands. Then we will reconvene in mid January, complete shooting The System, begin to edit and do the sound, then start writing the next great thing.

We also want to get going again with another doc. We may have some festival news soon on Lumia, too. More on that in January, hopefully.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

"Paul, you cannot judge the fear of dogs..."

I wanted to keep getting the process down here, on virtual paper for posterity, but we have been so busy that it has just been intermittent. I have left out the part about the Turkish Kebab place owners and their rapid acquience to our shooting request - more on that Tuesday; I have left out the part about the Israeli fabuloso store owner who took us into his heart and sold us his book, his CD, his DVD and his personalized line of towels; I have left out the part about the store owner on the Lower East Side who wanted to see our insurance. There is much I have left out, but I wanted to share today's process in the brief time I have before we have to set up the camera.

I was wondering whether or not the actor coming over was scared of dogs - we had one audition for us who was scared of Elko - and Meredith said she was not that one. I said, "but look at him..." and Meredith said "Paul, you cannot judge the fear of dogs..."

We have totally reconfigured this place for a shoot and it looks good. With time, anything is possible.

More later.

Friday, December 7, 2007

"I would be a much nicer person if I had not gone to summer camp."

I won't tell you which one of us said that - although I will admit that I never went to camp - but this is the kind of amazing nugget that comes up when you are deep in the zone.

We are doing a shot list for the next scene, the next shoot. It doesn't matter what shoot, it's *our* next shoot and it will be fabulous. We are working on shots, discussing, debating angles, what order we will shoot in, what happens during each take, what dialogue goes where and how much we get in each take. This is difficult, but actually very satisfying. It's, dare I be that trite, our roadmap.

Anyway, we are doing it now and just took a break to talk about things. One of us started to talk about time going faster the older one gets, and the other one was agreeing, leading to a story about "color wars" at camp. "Race wars?" "No, color wars."

Anyway, one thing leads to another and a story illustrates the point. And somewhere during the course of that story is the offhand comment about how "I would be a much nicer person had I not gone to summer camp." It's like life, you know? These little stories are all we have to share with each other on our pathtic, magnificent, brief fling upon the rapidly disintegrating planet. Shall I tell you about the Amazon?

Thursday, December 6, 2007

December - The Day Before Pearl Harbor Day

I am at school. I am "teaching." I am not slacking off because my students are working on their finals and I am typing this in between jumping up and helping them put out their fires. So I am doing this while on call. Had to get that out of the way first.

Meredith was waxing eloquent and philosophical the other day in a cab on the way to the shoot on Allen and Delancey. We had just consumed a whole Tony Clifton pizza between us from 2 Boots and I was talking about the horror of it all. She sincerely and vociferously defended pizza as a food, as a snack, as a cure-for-what-ails-you, and as a way of life. She meant it. She said some brilliant things, but I did not have time to transcribe them verbatim, a la Herodotus, so they are lost forever. No mind, the thought was enough, and I was privileged enough to have witnessed it.

The shoots are going well. The outdoor one was not perfect - it was very cold and the light was poor - but we can re-purpose that. The other ones have been going really well and we are excited as we begin to cobble together this, our first real narrative feature.

We are running ourselves to the bone. We are solving problems right and left - audio issues, post-production workflow issues, people issues and we are now in the tiring, but immensely satisfying shooting process. We feel grateful to be living the dream, as a little dog whispered the other day in front of the abandoned Gristedes.

More later. We love you all.