Jackets Required

We do all our editing in formal wear.

Actually, not, but it was the english phrase that just happened to be in the air just now, so I plucked it out.

Yesterday we went to Bethlehem, PA to interview Greta Browne for the new doc. Today, we go uptown to interview Manny Kirchheimer for Low Budget Legends.

Next week, we go abroad to interview the water footprint people. Poor little Elko will be guarding the fort. Luckily, Karla will be staying here with him.

Now, we are about to edit Lakshmi for a couple of hours.

AND, on top of all that, we have some really cool ideas for upcoming narratives.

Anyway, we must work.

It's Not All About Food

But...since some of our stalwart food standbys have closed lately - Miracle Grill, Rue Bourbon, etc. - we have need to expand our horizons, to coin a brand new phrase.

Hence Westville and now, possibly some new place called Path Cafe.

13BIT must run on something, after all.

In other news, we are back editing Lakshmi, heading to Europe to interview people for the eco/water/metrics doc, and have other interesting plans, including a top secret neo apocalyptic adventure.

More will be revealed.

Long time no blog

It has been a long time since we have last blogged ... but a lot has been going on
1) We finished writing, casting and preproduction on "The Quiet Room/Lakshmi Saves/The Book of Lakshmi/..."
2) We started shooting "The Quiet Room/Lakshmi Saves/The Book of Lakshmi/..."
3) We started another blog - low budget legends
4) We started to use twitter
5) We had a web server migration
6) We wrote an iphone app that was rejected because of unsuitable content.
7) We interviewed Lloyd for low budget legends

We will try and post more

Mix Up All The Colors To Make Brown

We are making another blog. Did I mention that already? I think I did.

This other blog is looking really cool. We have been hard at work, in the trenches, pickaxes in hand, hardhats on heads, rivets hanging in a pail from our necks...you name it, we're working it. Mixing those metaphors just enough to make you sick.

Anyway, we are getting ready to launch. Did the colors today and we really like the way they look. Made a header brown, hence the title of this post.

I clearly have nothing of value to say, so I'll just say this: TO THE TOPS!

Happy Presidents Day

I fear that I will not be able to live up to Paul's last post. Today we are starting early at the compound. Paul and I are moving our servers over to other servers and all the servers have just gone down! So we are having some drama. Next on the agenda is eating! We are going to get some yummy grits and a hole in my bread from Bourbon street.

Then we will embark on the final 10 pages of Venezuela! Yes, you heard right, we are almost done with v1 of the script. I think we have 7 scenes left. Maybe we can knock two off today.

At 4 Paul has a dentist appointment, and I will finish my last attempt to speed up my prescient netflix script - converting everything to matrix calculations via gsl. (GSL is not as good as PDL sadly) .

At 6 Paul will return , and I will go to Kung Fu (since I have recovered from the avian flu) and the cycle then begins again tomorrow (although at 6)


Paul says big blocks of text are hard to scan.

I was told to blog.

Meredith commanded me to blog something. I think she is worried about our public profile, wants to make sure that we are putting the best face forward or something. I am not sure, and I really don't know why my blogging would be the best thing to do for our public profile. Either way, she told me to blog, so here I am.

Let me fill you in a little bit on what we're up to.

Today, we created four Facebook groups, one for each of our films so far - aside from the one we're now writing - and one for the actual company, 13BIT Productions LLC, from which comes the noble name "House of Bit." We are so abysmal at self-promoting, yet so adept at web, geeky, online stuff that this seems like a really nice way to conduct our PR. We are hoping to use the current mania for Facebook as a way to keep people current on what we do, provide a small presence in the social networking world, and simply to plant a flag on Mount Facebook. So that was something we did today. It was exhilarating and somewhat scary. Exhilarating because we actually did a small bit of publicity and that made us happy. Scary because it felt like we were spamming our friends. Meredith, especially, almost had a complete breakdown over intruding in the lives of her friends. She thought they would hate her for sending these invites. I tried to explain that, if they are really her friends, they would welcome these developments. If they are not her friends, they won't care. I felt the same way, though, so I had to put up a brave front while I was telling her all this.

We also are still doing technical work to prepare our next project, a true blog about low budget filmmaking, which will cover the gamut: from philosophical issues to technical stuff and everything in-between. There will be no real overlap between that blog and this one. While we truly love this blog and, if nothing else, it lets us see what we have been eating for the past few years, we wanted to make one that focuses more on the filmmaking. We will continue to post here for both of our readers, but we wanted to make something more accessible to anybody making a film. We promise that we won't post about junk food to the new blog. Unless it's related to filmmaking, of course.

The last tidbit is that we are closing in on finishing the first version of Project Venezuela. We are very excited about this. We will probably be putting up casting notices soon.

Very, very excited.

And, for the record, we have been ordering from Taim lately. REALLY good falafel and sabich.

Over and out.

Pushing Off

When I take long road trips, the kind where I drone on for 12 hours a day through long stretches of prairie or desert, I often feel that I'm in a plane - a C47 or an Electra - and making long runs from one isolated place to another. We get dusty, my co-pilot Elko and I, the plane gets dirty, we drone on, and eventually we come to a stop for the night, then crank it up again the next day. There are more details to it, but I'll leave it there for now.

I feel a similar analogy now regarding 13BIT, but it's more water-based. If we think of the company as a small boat which has been sitting on the shore, or moored for a month and a half now, that's more like it. The crew has just re-assembled and we have laid out our plans, discussed the charts, the routes, the shoals ahead, the places we may need to take on more crew. We are ready to push off and navigate the waters ahead. It's more accurate than the flying idea, as well, because it's a longer, slower journey, and the expanses are even greater. We are shooting for a spot that we are not even sure exists, or that we certainly don't know the path to at the moment, but we shoving off nonetheless.

Anyway, I'll shut up before I get any more silly than I already am. I have a wedding to go to this evening in Tribecaton.

Nee Hao Ma

6.5 bits here - writing again from Hong Kong. I have returned from the wilds of Niseko - and I'm still burning from the sulfuric waters of the onsens. And my limbs are burning from tumbling down the mountain on a board. Ok that makes no sense. It is because I am in 13Bit withdrawl - and I am having problems functioning. I am looking forward to finishing the script for Venezuela and for the other new 13bit projects - and for forming a compound and for the recession that will make NY gritty. In asia it is the year of the OX, but globally it is the year of the Bit!

Quick Update

For all two of our readers.

It's 10 degrees farenheit here at the headquarters compound. Indoors, it's not much more. Elko is snoring under the comforter, waiting to go out. We are leaving soon to a remote location in Brooklyn, site of the Guitar and Amp Wellness Center, which is one of those rare places that will actually service a transistor amp. They did good work on my tube amps; let's see what they can do with this one. Transistor amps have a bad rep, but I predict that they will soon become sought-after and desirable, both for their sonic attributes and for the collectibility. After Great Depression II, at least. For now, they are the abandoned step-children of the amplification world. And I say this as a Fender valve snob.

Anyway, that's what's happening here. Meredith, apparently, is in "the Alaska part of Japan, having a romantic honeymoon, sliding down the mountain on my ass" while snowboarding. That's a fairly accurate paraphrase/quotation. It sounds cool, Big Mer. Don't break your wrist or I'll have to finish typing the script all by myself.

Still no word on her return, but the Command Center should get a signal soon, we believe. In the meantime, we are monitoring the skies and all the usual frequencies.

On another exciting front, we have wooed Cindy J. in from across the pond to collaborate with us on the next, non-movie related project, to be code-named either "Sven" or "Shrunken Viking," depending on what mood Meredith is in when she returns. We are very excited about this, something we have been talking about for two years in those quiet moments between edits. We had a high-stakes meeting at the Cute Mei vegetarian restaurant in Hong Kong and Ms. J jumped on board. We are thrilled.

More as we find out.

13BIT HOLIDAY

We haven't worked much in a while, even though I like to think that the *possibilty* of work is always there. Today, though, is an official 13BIT holiday.

We are in Hong Kong and today Meredith and Lian get married, so there's no way we're going to get anything done, even though I'd like to think that all life events are potential grist for the mill, and this one may be no different. Who knows, perhaps the next great idea will come to one of us up on the Peak at some point after the ceremony. Maybe that bird circling overhead is the 13BIT muse.

Either way, it's an exciting day and has been an exciting time so far here. Since this blog is devoted to the 13BIT process, there's not much more to say, except "stay tuned."

We officially hope to start up again by February 1st at the latest.