Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Honoree: A two-year-old Australian boy, identified only as Seth, who lives in the town of Bendingo

  Notable Achievement: His curiosity killed a commode

  True Story: When Seth finishes his baths, he likes to stick his fingers down the drain to feel the suction of the water as it drains away. Most of the time, the results are unremarkable, but one afternoon in July 2008 was different—Seth got two fingers stuck in the drain, and his parents couldn’t get them out. They called paramedics, but every time they tried to free Seth’s fingers, he cried out in pain. The only solution: remove the pipe from the tub. The only problem: To do that, they had to rip out the tub (and the wall) to get at the underside of the pipe. It took six hours, a hacksaw, a trip to the emergency room, and a set of hydraulic spreaders, but in the end the kid escaped mostly unscathed (unlike his parents’ bathroom), with no cuts or bruises and just one blister.

  POP CULTURE QUIZ

  Q: Who is the only movie character to appear on the American Film Institute’s “50 Greatest Heroes” and “50 Greatest Villains” lists?

  A: The Terminator.

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  THE MAGNA CARTA

  Most people have heard of it—maybe in a ninth-grade history class or on Jeopardy! last week. But what is it? Answer: a piece of writing that has helped shaped governments for 800 years.

  BACKGROUND

  When asked to name the most important documents in Western civilization, historians almost always include the Magna Carta. What’s so important about it? Many people assume that this landmark document, written in 1215, helped advance human rights and led directly to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Not quite. The Magna Carta actually wasn’t intended to help the common man, but it did mark the first time in history that written law challenged the absolute power of a monarch, and the first time that governments, even kings, could be held accountable for their actions. Without that, modern democracy would not exist.

  STRUGGLE FOR THE THRONE

  In 1002 Ethelred II, the Anglo-Saxon king of England, married Emma, the daughter of the duke of Normandy (now a region of northern France). The marriage created a blood alliance between these two kingdoms, designed to unite them against invasion by the Vikings. In 1066 the next king of England, Edward the Confessor (an Anglo-Saxon) died, leaving no heirs. That left the door open for the Norman bloodline (the one descended from Emma) to make a claim for the throne of England. William, the duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England.

  When William (known today as William the Conqueror) officially became king of England, he installed a feudal system. Norman troops who had fought on William’s side were given English lands as a reward for their loyalty, and they became barons. According to the feudal system, anyone who lived within the baron’s jurisdiction was obliged to pay taxes to the baron and serve in his militia. The barons, in turn, paid taxes to the king.

  England operated that way until 1199, when King Richard the Lionheart died and his brother, John, claimed the throne. John, the youngest son in the royal family, actually ranked beneath his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, in the order of succession. So how did he become king? Arthur disappeared and John took the throne by force. This enraged the barons, but what could they do? They couldn’t fight the king of England…or could they?

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  FOOL’S PARADISE

  Two incidents ultimately drove the barons to challenge the king. Royal Error #1: In 1207 John appointed the Bishop of Norwich, John de Gray, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Catholic Church’s highest representative in England. Traditionally, the king consulted with the bishops of England before making that appointment… but John didn’t do that. The bishops protested to Pope Innocent III, who then put his own man, Stephen Langton, in the position. Infuriated that his power had been usurped, King John banished the council of bishops from England. In retaliation, Pope Innocent III excommunicated John (and, by extension, all of England) from the Church. The barons urged John to make amends, which he did…sort of. The Pope agreed to reinstate King John (and England). His price: England itself. The Church would own England and John would be little more than a local governor. In addition, the Church levied a huge tax on England. Where would John get the money? From the barons.

  Royal error #2: In 1206 French forces seized the region of Normandy. Because it was their ancestral homeland, the barons demanded John send troops to reclaim it. He delayed for eight years before finally leading the English army into the occupied territories himself. England lost; France kept the land.

  REBELLION

  Upon hearing of the defeat, the barons became furious. They banded together in 1215 (while John was traveling back from France) and decided it was time to take action against the king. Using as a basis the “Charter of Liberties,” a ceremonial document issued by King Henry I at his coronation in 1100, they created a new document—one that would be legally binding. Its essence: The king’s power would no longer be absolute. He would be accountable for his actions, and the barons would have a say in decision-making.

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  John returned to London that June to find that the barons had taken control of the city. There was only one way for the king to get his country back: submit to the barons’ 63 written demands. In return, the barons offered to sign a pledge of loyalty to King John. The resultant document—all of it in Latin—was called the “Great Charter,” or Magna Carta.

  THE DOCUMENT

  Most of those 63 demands relate very specifically to life in 13th-century England. One, for example, repealed a tax on loans inherited by minors; another opened up royal hunting lands to barons. But two sections had a much broader impact.

  • Clause 61 called for a committee of barons that could meet at any time to overrule the king’s actions, by force if necessary.

  • Clause 39—the only part of the Magna Carta that could be applied to a commoner (it prevented the king from jailing anyone or seizing property without proper cause or a fair trial, also known as habeas corpus—translation: “you must have the body”).

  John wasn’t about to surrender authority, even with armed barons breathing down his neck. He signed the Magna Carta just to satisfy them. (The ceremony took place on June 15, 1215, under a tree in Runnymede, a meadow in London not far from Buckingham Palace.) But as soon as the barons relinquished control of England and left London, he renounced the document and then appealed to Pope Innocent III, who technically still ruled England. The Pope declared the Magna Carta null and void.

  A NEW HOPE

  When the barons learned of John’s treachery, they declared civil war. But the conflict was brief: King John died in 1216 and was replaced by his nine-year-old son, Henry III. The barons called a truce when the Magna Carta was reissued under Henry’s name, although with sections removed, notably Clause 61, the “committee of barons” rule. In 1225 Henry (now 18 years old) pared it down to only 37 clauses. But since he respected the basics of the charter—staying out of Church and baronial affairs—the relationship between the crown and the barons remained smooth. Over Henry’s 56-year reign, the document’s principles became part of England’s legal tradition, an accepted system of assumed rights and laws commonly referred to as “English common law.”

  COMING TO AMERICA

  In 1765 England needed money to pay for the troops that protected its American colonies. Parliament decided that the colonies should foot the bill, so it passed the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on written materials sold in the colonies, including newspapers, pamphlets, contracts, licenses, and playing cards. Colonists objected to being taxed by an assembly thousands of miles away in which they didn’t even have a representative.

  The Massachusetts Assembly declared that taxation without representation vi
olated “the natural rights of Englishmen,” by which it meant the Magna Carta, the document which had guided the moral code of governing for more than 500 years. That was the first of several colonial challenges to the throne (culminating in the American Revolution), fueled by the Magna Carta’s thesis that leaders are not above the law.

  In addition to its philosophical influence, a few clauses of the Magna Carta actually became part of American government. Clause 39, or habeas corpus, providing that arrests and trials of citizens must have merit, is found in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. And Clause 61, which called for a committee of barons to oversee the king’s actions, inspired the “checks and balances” system by which various branches of U.S. government—executive, judicial, and legislative—have oversight of each other to ensure that none of them becomes too powerful.

  LASTING IMPACT

  What became of the actual physical document? There never was one “master” Magna Carta—42 copies were made and signed, one for each of the barons and two for the king. Amazingly, four of those 42 copies still exist. One is on display at the Houses of Parliament, one is in the British Library, and one is in a cathedral in Salisbury, England. The fourth copy is usually housed at Lincoln Cathedral in Lincolnshire, but is occasionally loaned out. It was shown at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and in 2007 at the 400th anniversary celebration of Jamestown, the first English colony in North America, where it was presented as a link between the old world of England and the new world of America.

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  MAKING A MOVIE, PT. IV:

  PHOTOGRAPHY

  Our big-budget motion picture is finally ready to begin filming. Here are but a few of the hundreds of people who make it happen. (Part III is on page 330.)

  THE VISUAL STORYTELLERS

  Filming is actually the quickest aspect of movie-making, usually taking only one to three months of the entire process. Adhering to a strict schedule of “get the shot done and move on to the next,” the filmmakers assemble the many pieces that will be put together and cleaned up in postproduction. Yet many successful movies—ones that appeal to both viewers and critics—will report having had a close-knit crew. The actors say that this production was “different” and “special.” Everyone talks about how much fun it was to shoot. Well, for that to happen, it all starts with the single most important person on any movie set.

  THE DIRECTOR

  Responsible for the tone, pacing, and overall vision of the film, the director has the job of taking what’s in the script and translating it to the screen. While his or her primary duty is assisting the actors in their delivery of lines, the director is also usually the last person to sign off on every aspect of the production, from preproduction to the final sound mix. In many cases, especially within the studio system, the producer or the studio can usurp the director’s power in an attempt to make the finished product more marketable and more appealing to a mass audience, which is why many experienced directors prefer to take on the producing duties as well. Still, it is the director—not the producers—whom the actors and crew rely on to keep them all on the same page.

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  DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

  Often the director’s closest collaborator, the DP is responsible for the film’s composition (how everything appears in the frame), its color palette, and how light or dark each scene is. Some directors are very specific about how they want the film to look, meaning that the DP simply executes their orders, while other directors are more focused on the acting and give the DP creative license. Either way, DPs are in charge of making sure that the cameras, lenses, and film stock are available and in working order, and see to it that the film is processed after every scene so that the director can review the dailies. (Two terms that are often intertwined are the director of photography and the cinematographer. If both are listed in a movie’s credits, it is usually the DP who oversees the camera crew and the cinematographer who is in charge of the composition and camera moves for each shot.)

  Reel-Life Example: Wanting their 2000 comedy, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, to look like a “fable,” directors Joel and Ethan Coen charged DP Roger Deakins with the task of creating a sepia-toned look, complete with yellow trees and amber skies. One big problem: they were filming in Mississippi during the summer, when the trees were green and the skies blue. After trying various photo-chemical processes—including bleaching the film—Deakins realized that the look couldn’t be achieved through conventional means. Result: O Brother marked the first time that an entire film was digitally colored. The process took two months to complete.

  Did it work? Yes. Critics and audiences loved the quirky film; Deakins was nominated for an Oscar. More praise: Robert Allen of the International Cinematographers Guild wrote that “historians will look back on O Brother, Where Art Thou? as a milestone.”

  MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

  Movie sets are chaotic—hundreds of workers, each in charge of a specific task, work on different scenes simultaneously, often out of sequence, most not even aware of the storyline. Here are those whose job it is to keep the chaos in order.

  • Assistant Director. If you were to visit a movie set, you might mistake the AD for the director—they’re usually the loudest, barking orders and yelling “roll” and “cut” while the director sits quietly in a chair looking at a monitor. That’s the AD’s job—to let the director stay focused on the story being told. The AD must always stay one step ahead, so when the time comes for the cameras to roll, everyone and everything is ready to go. The AD sets the day’s schedule and prepares call sheets, a list of which actors are needed for the scenes being shot. In addition, the AD relays instructions from the director to the other department heads, including the 1st AD and 2nd AD, who do the same thing for the AD that the AD does for the director. Their most important job is setting up and directing the extras.

  • Production Coordinator. Responsible for maintaining the schedule and making sure the cast and crew are fed and have accommodations while on location.

  • Location Manager. When a huge film crew takes over a location such as a small town, a city street, or a tourist attraction, the location manager obtains all required permits, heads up the security department, and keeps the locals happy. (On some productions, the location scout stays on as the location manager; on others a separate person is hired.)

  • Script Supervisor. Responsible for continuity, the script supervisor views every single take of a scene—which can begin on location and continue weeks later on a soundstage—to ensure that the lighting, props, hair, makeup, and costumes don’t change drastically between takes. The script supervisor also notes when what’s been filmed differs from what’s in the script.

  • Costume Supervisor. In charge of the costumers, who see to it that the actors’ clothes are always in the desired condition. This sometimes requires “aging” a new garment so it looks worn in. Along with the hairstylist and makeup supervisor, the costumers are in nearly constant contact with the actors—from seconds before the cameras roll to seconds after they cut. On special effects films that require prosthetics, this can be a very large department with many skilled craftspeople working around the clock.

  • Production Assistant. Basically, they’re gofers, ready to do anything that needs to be done. They may run a broken doorknob back to the prop department, or make sure the producer gets his half-decaf double latté with two sugars and no foam. On big-budget movies, each of the principal cast and crew members gets their own PA.

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  THE TECHNICAL CREW

  This group must work together as if they are a single person, because it only takes one little goof to cause the entire scene to be re-set (extras and all) and the shot done over.

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  • Clapper-loader. Loads the film stock into the camera and also claps the slate (or clapboard) before each take (on larger productions, separate people are hired for these jobs). The original use of the slate was to sync up the audio and visual for editing, but with digital technology this is no longer necessary. Still, the slate remains, mostly as tradition, but it does contain necessary information—the scene and take numbers and the date and time.

  • Camera Operator. Whether following the action on foot with a steady-cam or perched up in a crane zooming out for a wide shot, the camera operator must have not only extensive technical knowledge of the cameras and lenses but a creative eye as well. Larger productions have multiple camera operators.

  • Focus Puller. Because a movie is designed to be projected on a very large screen, it is essential that the lenses are focused perfectly. The focus puller sits beside the camera and adjusts the focus, based on predetermined calculations. Along with the AD, they arrive on set early to rehearse the upcoming scene, or block it, with stand-ins to determine focus and camera movements.

  • Grips. Led by the key grip and including the dolly grips, this crew of strong backs is in charge of setting up and breaking down all of the production equipment, including the cameras, cranes, and dollies (small train tracks for shots that require the camera to follow the action). Grips also set up the lighting system, which includes the lights, huge diffusers and reflectors, and heavy fabric used to tent out windows to keep out extraneous light.