The Coconut Sucked

Did we mention that already? I did not re-read the last post. Either way, that coconut milk was practically poisonous and the meat left a taste in my mouth for hours.

But that was over a week ago. Why should I even dwell on it further?

We were in L.A. for two days, interviewing a couple of amazing collectors - one who collects antique flashlights, the other skateboards.

We did a couple of Q&A sessions for "Lumia" and "Video Out" at USC and the Echo Park Film Center. We drove in traffic a lot. We drove some more. We saw the Pacific Ocean. We ate. We kept driving. Then we flew home and it took two days to recover.

We have been working ever since. Meredith is now typing one of her philosophical diatribe/discourse posts on her Montagenik blog, so I'm just hanging out here, making sure young Otto doesn't go pee in my bed. He and Elko, the alpha dog in this household, are each doing their thing.

Fall is outside. We are about to start working.

"I bruised my stomach with spaghetti..."

Meredith did not say exactly that, but it's what she said in essence.

I think she is trying to dis our new 13BIT fooderie, Cafe Minerva.

Anyway, things are going well. We are cranking out the interviews, doing the ecopocalypse cartoon, getting ready for the Robot Parade, working on the iPad app, planning our next swing through the southwest to collect more collectors, and having civil arguments about modern literature every day.

And we are eating.

In addition to Minerva, a new place opened. We have not gone there yet, but we may go there soon to celebrate this renaissance of high-priced new coffee joints in the increasingly bougie west village.

We may also explore moving operations to Brooklyn. Today, we held consultations with our Persian brethren at Bettertex and learned that they, too, are contemplating a similar move. "Half of our clients no longer want to come into the city," the old man said.

A taxi driver complained to me about the new bus lanes on broadway. All signs point east. They also point west. What are we to do?

Tune in soon for more answers, questions, and head-scratching.

A Reflection

This is a bit more of a personal post than the usual 13BIT post, but some of it is about the 13BIT juggernaut and, since Big Mer is away and I am holding down the fort, some of it is in the long tradition of me posting maudlin stuff while she is gone.

This is the last day of my 40's. Tomorrow, universe-willing, I turn 50. So, what has happened to me during the last ten years?

I started out my 40's with a cat and am ending them with a dog, both dear, sweet special creatures.

I began my 40's with both parents and they are now both gone. I was lucky to have had them.

Ten years ago, I had a gas-guzzling Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Now I have a gas-guzzling Ford Econoline, all via an economical Toyota Tacoma, all three of which I used and the last of which I continue to use to explore the U.S. and camp in the desert.

Ten years ago, I was shooting mainly film, along with some very expensive, low-resolution digital cameras. Now, it's pretty much all digital with some occasional film, which costs a lot to develop.

In my forties, I became a filmmaker and won a bunch of awards, made four features and co-founded 13BIT Productions with Meredith.

Ten years ago, I was vegan. Now I will eat cheese and eggs, although still no flesh.

Got a bunch of tattoos over the last ten years. They have not done much for my single status, either, so that's another myth put to rest.

Ten years ago, I - and everyone else - had to use portable CD and cassette players to listen to music on the go. Now, aside from iPods, I have a phone that acts as my stereo, TV, computer, shopping mall, road atlas, and about thirty other functions.

I started out my 40's on Barrow Street and am ending up on Bank Street, where I started out my 30's.

The Yankees were in first place then and are in first place now.

Still a Mac guy. Still weigh the same. Still ride my bike a lot. Still read a lot.

It's been an interesting decade. Not always easy, but always interesting.

I'm still grateful for another day.

Here's to yesterday, today and tomorrow!

Another day, another bit

Best line of code overheard muttered at the compound today:

"If blah blah blah..."

Yes, Meredith is up to her old tricks again, this time working on the asset upload for our super secret, beyond cool iPad app that concerns "Video Out," our first award-winning feature.

We are closing down shop again very soon, after having closed it down a few days ago for my aborted trip out west, and this time we will most likely stay shut down for a few weeks, barring emergency phone calls from collectors or hollywood agents.

What is the food situation lately in Bitland? Not really dire, but in need of a change. We have been doing Integral Yoga smoothies, the old standby, but we still miss Miracle Grill, Rue Bourbon and a few other local joints that are now gone.

A promising-looking place is supposed to open soon on Charles and Hudson - "Dolci by Donna," or something like that. In the meantime, though, our current standbys are Barbuto, Keste, Taim and Bonbonnierre. Now, I am advocating a return to Westville, after having OD'ed on their pesto mashed potatoes the other night, but Meredith is resisting. I will wear her down, though, at some point in the long slog ahead of us once we start logging all the footage we are now collecting.

And what are we collecting? Did we talk about the collectors documentary yet? If not, we will soon.

Suffice to say that we are collecting collectors, and there are some fascinating ones out there.

Now I'm hungry.

"The Quiet Room" has finally started going out to festivals and we have high hopes for it.

Onward!

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.

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!

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.

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.

BLOG ALWAYS

Meredith is currently airborne, on the way to Hong Kong, probably somewhere over the polar cap as I type. I have been airborne for a long time. Well, not really. In fact, I was stranded in the muck for a long time. Another story, though.

I am heading out on Sunday. The shop is shuttered for the time-being, although there is a slight chance we will get some writing done in HK. Since she is about to get married, though, I don't think she'll really have time.

And I may be too busy photographing random stuff in HK to write, as well, so there.

Still, it seems awfully quiet around here. Thank god Elko is doing the caretaker shift while we're both gone. Meredith won't get back till February 1st, as well, so Project Venezuela will not be completed for a while.

All that aside, the script is going very well. A few plot points to hammer out, but we're getting there. Then we cast, then we shoot, then we edit, then we finish, etc. It's nice not having to answer to anybody but ourselves.

2008 has been quite a year. I will be glad to see it gone. And 2009, of course, promises to be an economic bloodbath, with the associated welter of crap that goes along with that. Well, one day at a time, right? That's the only way it can happen.

I will be glad to get on the plane. I will also be glad when cheap, solid state memory replaces hard drivess. One day at a time, right?

Okay, I clearly have nothing else to say.

Later.

Signing In From The Home Base

No blogging for a while - very bad. My punishment? I am blogging.

Actually, I like to blog. "Project Venezuela" is going well. We are in the creating-something-from-nothing phase, as Meredith puts it. I call it screenwriting, but her description is accurate, as well. It is not difficult for us, and we are grateful for that, but it does consume energy. Unlike most other aspects, even the creative ones such as shooting and editing. Certainly unlike color correction and sound, you cannot just gut it out, lower your head and keep churning through it. With the writing, when we run out of gas, we run of gas for the day and must knock off. We seem to be good for about 2 to three hours each day, which is about one or two scenes, depending on what happens. If I am making this sound dire, it is not. That's actually pretty good. At this rate, we should be in good shape to finish the first draft by late January, taking a 4 or 5 week break for Meredith's wedding. Then, a couple of re-writes while we cast. Then, location-scouting and prep work. Then shooting. Then...oh, hell, I can't give away all the secrets, can I?

Anyway, it's going well. In other news, Elko is asleep on the couch. It's 20 degrees out in Old Gotham. I seem to be the only one in my immediate circle who thinks the Yankees can still take first place.

And I could go on with this exciting litany. I won't, though. I'll just pull out a DVD, maybe, or keep reading "The Fate of Africa," by Martin Meredith, then trek on into the Land of Nod.

Woof.

Like a breath of clean, Manhattan air...

It's blog posts such as the one directly below that make me proud and grateful to have Big Mer as my business and creative partner in 13BIT Productions.

There's a lot going on in that dream and, while we don't have a medical plan yet, and certainly not one that covers psychotherapy, I am earnestly looking forward to:

1. Explaining and explicating everything in that dream for you over our next cup of coffee and a muffin from S'nice.

2. Plotting how to mine as much of that dream's material as possible for loading into the Superbitter mill.

3. Getting back to bitting.

I am back in the compound and, whether the fever and phlegm have actually abated or not - and it was truly a blow-your-nose-every-five-minutes kind of plane ride, it is SO GOOD to be back home that I feel better anyway.

Now, I must get to bed with Elko.

Onward!

Madame Chang

"It's not about dialogue," Madame Grand Dame Finkelchang says in her most imperious tone...

13 Bit Runs on Sugar

Maybe we already posted that once, but it's worth repeating. 13 Bit runs on sugar.

We have not posted in almost a month. No excuse, but we have been busy. "Game Theory" is out, out of the nomenclature closet, as well - we can officially say that Quesadilla, aka "Not Blavatsky," aka "The System," aka "The Rules of Make-Believe" is now done and has started to enter festival land, where the rules of make-believe really apply. We have high hopes and crossed fingers.

I can hear Meredith over at the other steam-turbine operated workstation, putting her back into the control levers as she paws into the "Lesser Evil" chocolate kettle corn, which leads me to the title of today's post. We have tried for a few days to cut back on cupcakes and other essential fuels of creativity. It is all in vain, though. We need sugar to sustain the flow, Columbia River-like in its majesty, of creativity coming from the mighty industrial-strength dynamos of the Bit Generators. Nothing else gets those massive engines running like a high dose of refined or unrefined sucrose.

We have begun working on - and are both thrilled by - Project Venezuela, aka "Notadoca," aka Empanada, aka Baguette. Finished outlining it, found a cool little web app and are writing the script now.

We are going to have to shut down shop for 4 to 5 weeks soon. I am going out west and Meredith is going east in order to save the western world from financial ruin. We may try video conferencing, but we probably won't be able to write that way. Arguing over dialogue just doesn't have the same impact and resonance via video conference. Either way, we'll brainstorm over phone, Big Mer from Hong Kong and I from Hanksville, Utah, and we will plot out a series of 15 movies that we'll each watch over the month.

I'd like to say we'll blog, and I may blog, but I'll bet that she doesn't. She'll get mad when she reads this, but I don't care - I'm at the keyboard now.

In the short long term? We need to replace one of these old steam turbines, which is getting long in the tooth, and are waiting for them to announce a new model.

Elko says "woof."

"I'm in the rat park..."

And with that phrase, I always know that another Bitting session is about to begin.

"I don't think we need those middle dots there..."

So, we're doing sound, if you hadn't guessed already. And we learned something about sound from our awesome new sound guy. He taught us the word "diegetic" and also taught us the proper name of a technique that we've been using for a while: automating sound levels.

We have always called it "dotting," for reasons left unsaid, but all too obvious to anyone who has ever worked in a timeline interface.

Anyway, we are really loving Quesadilla, aka "not Blavatsky," previously called "The System," also called "Gaming the System," briefly known as "The Rules of Make-Believe" or "People Playing Games" and now, finally, officially calle {drum roll}

"Game Theory"

We love you all.

We Do Our Best Work In Two Hours or Less

From mashup re-edits to complete musical compositions to whole scenes scripted from the ether to monumental, world-beating tour-de-force brainstorms, we do it all, and we often do our best work in two hours or less. Sometimes five minutes or less.

Not to say there is no effort. Those two hours are built upon decades of pain, work and suffering...

That's right.

Just Because It's Bad Doesn't Mean It's Bad

Or, today's lesson in musical aesthetics.

"Just because it's bad doesn't mean it's bad."

"True, it's an aesthetic."

"Then again, maybe it really is bad."

This is how we work

You Can't Eat It

So, it turns out that Meredith and each have this fantasy - one of my many backup plans to living in the desert in a concrete bunker and raising goats with Elko while I am waiting for my mail order bride to arrive - we each have this fantasy of becoming an organic food farmer upstate.

I know, I know, how banal can you get. What kind of sheep are we? Who's reading the New Yorker lately? Yes, I know, but it's a pleasant, escapist thought while enduring the rocks and horrors of life in Manhattan sometimes.

Anyway, I was just mentioning this and Meredith said "It's honest work, at least." in its defense. I countered with "So is what we do," meaning the business of 13Bit. To which she replied, "Yes, but you can't eat it."

Get it?

Anyway, maybe we can go upstate and grow organic films.

Note to selves: A Russian morality play titled "Everybody In My Family Dies of Heart Attacks."