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 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.

"I'm feeling very choppy choppy lately..."

It's a technical editing term that we use - one that we were taught in the film school that we never attended. It's called "choppy choppy," and it's about the art of the chop, or the use of cuts that don't necessarily mirror reality as it happened. "Reality as it happened," though, is a really meaningless term when it comes to motion pictures. Isn't that the whole point, anyway? I mean, isn't it more fun when reality is plastic, when you can mess around with it, when you can alter it to your own best viewpoint? When you can engage in the black art of the choppy-chop?

Anyway, this technical term came up today when we were moving from one scene to the other in "Gaming the System," and we realized that it could also very well be state of mind: [deep British accent] "I'm feeling very choppy choppy today..."

Anyway, that's the idea. I must get back to the cutting because Meredith is trying to do some choppy choppy without my consent here.

Later

Are you titling that post?

Today big Paul is taking the editing wheel and I am back seat editing. Today we are tackling a particularly thorny scene, but I think it is coming together quite well.

When Paul edits he likes to de-link the audio from the video when we replace the audio with a better audio clip. I just mute the audio channel that we are replacing. The de-linking makes me very nervous. And now I think Paul does it just to drive me insane.

Paul says "in english we san unlink not de-link."

Paul's theory is that we are both mentally disabled in different ways and together we form a third way of being mentally disabled.

Another thing you should know out there in blog land is that paul and I insult each other by calling each other by the name of famous directors. Paul is now calling me Alfred - Implying that I am a fat, bald Englishman.

Also I dont understand the reference televisionland - like "Hello to everyone out there in televisionland." Shouldn't the people "out there" be in the real world, while the people on tv are in television land?

As a final note: You can't get Gonorreah from swimming in the Gowanus canal, but you can get polio, from swimming that is.
That is a reference from Quesadilla.

P.S. Gonorreah is the one word that Paul can't spell. I, personally, confuse all STDs with the sea monsters from the Odyssey.

Everything Kills You

I just made the mistake of mentioning to Meredith the latest scare study that I saw, the one that came out from an "award-winning" cancer specialist that says cell phone usage is more dangerous than smoking or asbestos, that says it will give you brain tumors in ten to twenty years.

Meredith is almost as much of a hypochondriac as I am, which is saying a lot, so she instantly latched onto it. She's already been worried about her multiple imaginary fatal illnesses, something she'll probably be doing well into her nineties, so this is just another straw, not the one that breaks the camel's back, but one that bends it just a little bit further.

Anyway, we are digging being in the timeline again. The editing is going really well. Some festival action on Lumia and a Miracle Quesadilla is on the way over as I type. Life is good.

Women Do Not Sleep With Guys in Reggae Bands

Meredith was just telling me that I should start playing out with my band. We are ready to play out, but we haven't yet and that's another story. How did we end up on this topic? I was talking about maybe dating again, but wondering where you meet somebody in NYC, the eternal question, I know.

So she said we should play out, to which I responded "I played out a lot with the reggae band in the late 90's. We toured around, I played at S.O.B.'s. I never met anbody." She said that women do not go with guys in reggae bands. They don't have groupies. Tell that to Bob Marley. Oh, "unless you're Bob Marley," she chimes in.

Anyway, that is something up to the universe. How does this relate to "The System," aka Project Quesadilla, aka Project HH NOT Blavatsky? Well, it means that we have the time to talk shit while we're going through outtakes, and THAT means that we're in the timeline, and THAT means that we're editing, which is a good thing. We love to edit. Anyway, that's the deal. Shooting is almost finished. We are editing like fiends for the next 6 weeks, taking a short break, then editing and doing music - in conjunction with our celebrity guest super band, and we should be done with this killa flick by 9/1, which is my birthday, which is also, by coincidence, the day that WWII started.

How to focus on an imaginary object

Paul posed this question as we were creating our shot list for the next shoot in quesadilla. We cant elaborate on why we need to focus on an imaginary object, but doesn't it pique your interest?? Don't you want to go and see Quesadilla??? After returning refreshed from our winter hiatus, 13Bit has been hard at work since wednesday preparing for the remainding Quesadilla shoots. Paul needs to watch Boccaccio70. I have never heard about it - but its supposed to be brilliant. So I am going to watch it too.

We also need to tie up some lumia loose ends.

I need to go now because paul is distracting me with questions.

How many "No's?"

There should be two nos - no three nos - no two nos. no no no. no no. This is a very important discussion paul and I were having as we were editing the script for Quesedilla.

Then we had another debate concerning three nos versus four nos. no no no no, no no no. The devil is in the details.

As I am writing this post, paul thinks that he can go and edit the script without me. But I see what he is doing, and I'm on to him.

Next to my mouse is my totemic advil. This week I was able to make a trip to the American Museum of Natural History, I've not been there since 95. I went to one of my favorite rooms - the room with the totem polls - I think it is called the Indians of the North Western US. I dont know - something like that. There is also a massive canoe in the adjacent room (go listen to m14a podcast #3 to learn more about the m14a planned podcast on canoes).

Anyway totem polls. What would the thirteen bit totem poll look like? Who is the 13 bit totem animal? Would paul and I have different totem animals and then 13 bit would also have a totem animal? These are all questions for the 13bit creation story which has not yet been posted.

Back to quesadilla.

The Elevator of Doom

"My ego is being permanently damaged."

"Oh my God..."

"I want to kill this girl."

"I hate it here."

Okay, faithful readers. Guess what these quotes refer to. No hints, either, except to say that they have nothing to do with 13Bit, Project Quesadilla, or Lumia.

And The Elevator of Doom doesn't figure into it, either; it's where Meredith just was on her way from Mandarin lesson.

This is just an aside. We are taking the night off. I have work to do. She has to recover from her day, and 13Bit reconvenes on Friday evening, then all day and night, all weekend.

Can you say "burnt like a potato chip?"

Talent

What is talent? My friend Alyssa says talent is a hot guy at a bar. "How is the talent there?" She asks. But we at 13Bit are interested in a different kind of talent. The creative kind and or the acting kind.

It is amazing how easy it is to spot acting talent when people read lines. But it not just about talent, but how they will mesh with the rest of the cast, what part will they play. Needless to say, we have been floored by how many talented people we have been able to audition.

Another reason why its good to be in NYC - lots of actors.

I need to stop posting now, we have another actor coming in to audition now.

Casting for Quesadilla

13Bit has not been posting recently. Paul was hot springing in the west, and I - well I have been licking the man's boots. In between, we have been going through head shots and resumes for "The System" code name Quesadilla. Tomorrow we start auditions, and refining the screen play. I am tasked with becoming a master sound recordist. So I am going to engage in some boom exercises ... I am really looking forward to building some dollies.

Now I 13bit is separating I am going sailing and paul is going to practice with his band.
We will rejoin later or tomorrow

We Need A Midget

PAUL "I don't think it's going to be so easy to get a midget for this part. I think we may have to put up a separate ad."

MEREDITH "We'll get a midget."

PAUL "I don't think it's going to be that easy."

MEREDITH "We'll get a midget."

PAUL "Midgets aren't that easy to find. And we need the *right* midget. We need someone who fits the part."

MEREDITH "I'll get the midget."

PAUL "You'll get the midget?"

MEREDITH "I'll get the midget."

PAUL "I don't think it's going to be that easy."

MEREDITH "I'll get the midget."

PAUL "Okay."

So that's how another day at the compound starts. We need a midget - is there no politically-correct term for a very short person, a dwarf? It sounds derogatory, but maybe only because of usage, not meaning. It *is* a diminutive, after all, perhaps the mother of all diminutives. Anyway, we do need a real actor for this part, a middle aged guy with the right face and great acting ability. I don't think it's going to be so easy to find. The pool of talented tiny actors is very small.

I will trust Meredith, just for today, but I think we'll have to luck out.

Is There No History?

That's what I was mumbling as I was working on the latest mini script for our new project, aka QUESADILLA, also aka "HH, Not Blavatsky."

Anyway, I had found something useful on that compendium of useless things, the world wide web, and then the window/page had gotten closed in the flurry of activity involving the script, as well as further research involving our subtitling adventures for "Lumia," which revolved around searches for XML and XSTL stuff - I cannot even articulate it, Meredith was telling me what to do. She discovered that there is no spec for something that Apple claimed there was a spec for....shoot, I am completely rambling and foaming at the mouth here, she can explain it in a few lines further down.

The point is that I could not find this page and I went to the history in Firefox and found that this version of it on this machine on this day in this lifetime on this planet has no history. So I said "Is there no history?" and Meredith said "That's a deep thought." And I realized that, yes, it *is* a deep thought, but I hadn't uttered it as a deep thought. Then I thought about what a deep thought it was. Still is, in fact, and that's why it takes more than just 6 and a half bits to make a movie.

She can explain more.

I (meredith) wanted to write a profound post about Paul's musing "Is There No History?" However, paul was logged in under 13bit and I was logged under meredith and since only 13bit has authorial priviledge - Paul decided that he was going to post first - since he was logged in.

that is all i can add because now paul must go back and "find that thing he couldn't find"

Does blogger have spell checking?

Some nights there are two posts

Paul wanted to title this post "We are soo good." This is our mantra. We are very self-satisfied after writing another scene for project quesadilla. Project Quesadilla was originally going to take a month, but it looks like we are going to extend it to six weeks. I really do not have anything profound to add to this post, all of my creative mojo has been spent in the service of the GREAT QUESADILLA. Paul is still worried about lyme disease.
paul asks if i am writing the gulag archipelago - i could not have spelled that without the aid of paul. I am spelling impared.

i am not writing the gulag archipelago - fyi

"This is New York, there are a lot of (fill in the blank)

We are getting ready to cast our first characters for Project X, code name "Quesadilla," and NOT "HH, not Blavatsky."

Anyway, we need some specialty characters. I don't think that naming what kind of people they are, or what kind of physique or other attributes they have, is really offensive, but Meredith tells me we have to exhibit the sensitivity we are famous for, so I will just say (Fill in the blank) and you will all see.

This *is* New York, though, and there are lots of everything here.

Still working on Lumia, incredibly enough.

Iron Goddess of Mercy

Today we are drinking iron goddess of mercy - tikuanyin. It is oolong tea - the finest in the world. I really like it - paul says he likes it, but it is not convincing. Paul likes black tea but is not drinking it for medical reasons. He has enough free radicals - or not enough - are free radicals bad or good. Paul and I are going to make a movie one day about free radicals and quantum entanglement - it will be a suspense thriller with lots of nudity. Just you wait

we are doing a little side movie before beginning HH (not blavatsky) we will code the name the side project Quesadilla. Paul and I were doing word associations and came up with that one after american flag, apple pie.

Paul just gave me a lovely little book called "Novels in three lines" by Felix Feneon:
Here is a novel:

"Severely burned -- her skirt cought on fire -- Leonie Lefevre, 10, of Saint-Maur, died in Trousseau."

back to project quesadilla