Nick and Tesla's Special Effects Spectacular

by Bob Pflugfelder

  “Three,” answered Silas.

  “Four,” said DeMarco.

  “Three,” repeated Silas.

  DeMarco shook his head.

  “Four.”

  Silas began counting them on his fingers. “Troubleshooter 5. Crash Course 3. Morphbots 2.”

  “And Street Race 6: Pedal to the Metal.”

  Silas furrowed his brow. “I don’t remember a dummy in a tree in …” he muttered. “Oooooh, yeah! When that one guy uses the ejector seat to squash that other guy against a giant redwood.” Silas stared up at the dummy for a moment and then said, “He really knows how to use a stunt dummy. It’s why he’s my favorite director. I wonder which kind of tree Cash Ashkinos prefers to put stunt dummies in?”

  “You can ask him yourself,” DeMarco replied from his perch, “because we’re going to meet him today.”

  Nick and Tesla exchanged the kind of look people give each other when they want to shake their heads and roll their eyes, but they don’t want anyone to see.

  “I saw that!” DeMarco yelled to them. “But believe me, we really are going to meet—”

  “Action!” Silas shouted, and then Elesha began her speech. “I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of your situation, Bald Eagle …”

  NICK AND TESLA’S

  SUPER-STABLE CAMERA-STEADY RIG

  (A.K.A. SILASCAM, A.K.A. NICKANDTESLACAM)

  THE STUFF

  • 1 piece of PVC pipe, 18 inches (46 cm) long (for this project, use pipe and connectors labeled ¾ inch wide; the opening should be just large enough for a penny to fit inside)

  • 2 pieces of PVC pipe, each 7 inches (18 cm) long

  • 2 pieces of PVC pipe, each 6 inches (15 cm) long

  • 1 piece of PVC pipe, 1½ inches (4 cm) long

  FOR USE WITH A CAMERA PHONE:

  • 2 clothespins

  • 2 or more rubber bands

  • 3 90-degree angle pieces

  • 2 T-connectors

  • 1 end cap

  • 1 Phillips head screwdriver

  • 1 kitchen sponge

  • Tape

  • Scissors

  • Lots of pennies (you may want to get a few rolls at the bank)

  FOR USE WITH A LIGHTWEIGHT VIDEO CAMERA:

  • ¼-inch bolt (or whichever size fits your camera’s tripod mount) and nut

  • Drill

  THE SETUP

  1. Arrange the pipes and connectors as shown in the illustration. Push the pipes into the connectors until they fit tightly; if needed, use a hammer to tap the pipes together. If the fit seems too loose, secure them with glue (use a type made for plastics).

  NOTE: If you’re going to use this stabilizer with a cell-phone camera, and you’re planning to glue the pieces together, it will be a little easier to place the clothespins and rubber bands (Final Step 1) before you attach the 90-degree angle piece to the top T-connector.

  2. Cut out a 1-inch-square (2.5 cm) piece of sponge.

  3. Push the sponge into the end cap so that it fits snugly and doesn’t fall out when the cap is turned upside down (if it falls out, cut a larger piece of sponge).

  4. Tape the end cap, open side (with the sponge) out, to the open end of the 90-degree angle piece at the top of the rig.

  5. Ball up some small pieces of paper or tissue; using a pencil or screwdriver, push them to the bottom of each of the 6-inch (15 cm) tubes.

  6. Fill the back 7-inch pipe (the one on the same side as the 90-degree angle piece and end cap) with pennies all the way to the top. Tape over the top of the pipe so that the pennies don’t fall out.

  7. Insert the head of the screwdriver into the center of the sponge, as shown, and hold the handle while allowing your camera steadier to hang freely. The sponge should keep the point of the screwdriver from slipping. Next, add pennies to the front pipe until the camera steadier hangs perfectly straight up and down. Tape the top of the pipe to keep the pennies in.

  THE FINAL STEPS

  1. For a smartphone camera, use rubber bands to attach a clothespin to either side of the top T-connector, as shown. The clips should hold the phone in place. (To protect your phone, you can use a screen protector or slip pieces of sponge between the clips and the screen.) To get the smoothest images, position the phone so that the camera lens is as close as possible to the center of the pipes.

  2. For a lightweight video camera with camera mount, ask an adult to drill a 5/16-inch hole in the top angle piece. Use a nut and bolt (usually ¼ inch) to attach the camera. Secure the camera with the nut from below.

  3. Now you’re ready to look like a professional Hollywood camera operator! Remember: this stabilizer is designed for lightweight cameras. Just like the pros, you’ll need to practice—experiment until you get the hang of it. Some tips:

  • Take small, smooth steps as you move the camera.

  • Avoid suddenly speeding up or slowing down.

  • Your camera may sway as you move; use your free hand to gently guide or nudge it to face the desired direction.

  • It’s tempting to look at the screen, but keep your eyes on the front pipe of the camera rig. You’ll be better able to judge if the steadier is, well, steady!

  1 They found out this information in their earlier mystery, Nick and Tesla’s Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove.—The authors

  2 This information wasn’t in Nick and Tesla’s Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove. It’s just true.—The authors

  “Come over here and look at this,” Silas said to Monique.

  The younger girl was touching up her older sister’s alien makeup while the rest of the crew—Silas, DeMarco, Tesla, and Nick—crowded around the camera.

  “Why?” Monique asked, eyeing Silas suspiciously.

  He gestured toward the camera’s view screen. On it, Lady Evilika could be seen blasting the dummy Bald Eagle out of the tree. The scene played out in smooth, swooping shots, courtesy of the Silascam.

  “I want to see if this scene makes you throw up, like the last time,” Silas said.

  Monique just glared at him a moment before returning to dab more green paint on Elesha’s face.

  “Don’t worry,” DeMarco said. “No one’ll throw up looking at this.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. It’s perfect,” Silas said. “It looks totally slick. Totally classy. Now, let’s set up for the scene where Bald Eagle rips Lady Evilika’s arms off.”

  “Totally classy,” Nick muttered.

  Silas overheard him. “Hey, it is!” he shot back defensively. “It’s not like we’re showing a person getting her arms ripped off. It’s just her.” He pointed at his sister.

  “What did you say?” Elesha said.

  She’d been sitting on the edge of a big sandbox in DeMarco’s backyard, but now she rose and took a step toward Silas.

  “An undead alien, I meant! Lady Evilika!” Silas said in a squeaky voice.

  Elesha sat down again.

  “Man,” Silas said under his breath, “the movie business is stressful.”

  “If we’re doing the arms sequence, we’ll need to get the Bald Eagle costume off Michael so you can put it on,” Tesla said. (Silas wasn’t just the screenwriter, director, and executive producer of Bald Eagle: The Legend Takes Flight. He was also the star.)

  “Right,” Silas said. “You guys do that while I plan how I’m going to shoot this scene.”

  He picked up the notebook and pen he’d left next to a tree and wandered off toward the woods behind the Davisons’ yard. “Now,” he said, as if to himself, “how would Cash Ashkinos do this scene?”

  Tesla and DeMarco walked over to the dummy lying facedown on the ground. Getting the figure into the bulky, cumbersome owl costume hadn’t been easy. Getting it out again probably wouldn’t be easy, either. Which no doubt explained why Silas was meandering around the yard instead of helping.

  Nick wasn’t hurrying to lend a hand, either. Tesla noticed he was staring into the cloudless summer sky, a blank look on his face.

  “
You’re trying to think of a way to get the computer back on, aren’t you?” Tesla said.

  “No,” Nick said. But then he sighed. “Not anymore, anyway. I give up.”

  He trudged over to the dummy and glumly began tugging at one of its boots.

  Tesla sifted through the feathers on the superhero costume, found the zipper that ran down the front, and unzipped it. She started pulling one of the dummy’s stuffed arms out of the sleeve while DeMarco worked on the other.

  “So, DeMarco,” Tesla said, “did you notice the time? It’s almost—”

  “She’s coming,” DeMarco said.

  “Sure, she is,” Tesla said. “It’s just that she was supposed to come yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that …”

  “She’s coming.”

  The boot Nick was pulling on popped off, and he turned his attention to the one still stuck on the dummy’s other foot.

  “It’s not that we don’t believe you about your aunt being a movie producer who’s working with Cash Ashkinos,” Nick said.

  “And it’s totally believable that they’re shooting a scene of the new Metalman movie here in Half Moon Bay,” added Tesla.

  “And it’s great that she offered to take us all to the movie set to meet the stars,” Nick continued. “But—”

  “She’s coming,” DeMarco snapped. “I don’t know what’s been going on with her this week, but the crew is in town, and my aunt is a movie producer, and she will take us to the set!”

  “Right, fine, of course,” Tesla said.

  “Absolutely, positively, whatever you say,” said Nick.

  “She! Is! Coming!” DeMarco retorted.

  For a moment, there was only silence, punctuated by the tweeting of backyard birds and the hissing of the neighbors’ lawn sprinklers. The three friends tugged at the stunt dummy, with nobody sure what to say next.

  Then a woman’s voice called out: “DeMarco!”

  Everyone turned to look up the long, sloping yard to the house at the top. They could see Mrs. Davison—DeMarco and Elesha and Monique’s mother—standing on the back porch.

  “DeMarco!” she repeated. “Elesha! Monique! Come up to the house! Your Aunt Zoe is here!”

  DeMarco hopped to his feet and began dancing around Nick and Tesla (and Michael-slash-Bald Eagle).

  “I tooooooold ya, but ya didn’t belieeeeeeve me,” he sang. “I tooooooold ya, but ya didn’t belieeeeeeve me.”

  “Yes, we did,” Tesla said.

  “Well, I didn’t,” said Nick.

  Silas came tromping out of the woods like a charging rhino. “She’s here! She’s here!” he shouted. “Quick! Help me pack up all the props!”

  “What? Why?” Tesla asked.

  “So we can show ’em to Cash Ashkinos, of course! He loves real old-school effects! He’s always saying in interviews that they’re better than CGI—that’s computer-generated imagery. Even if my movie’s not done, at least I can show him how I’m going to make it.”

  Tesla started to object. “He won’t have time to look at—” But before she could finish, she had to jump out of the way as Silas skidded to a stop right in front of her.

  “Grab the props!” he blurted out. Then he snatched up the half-naked stunt dummy, threw it over his shoulder, and lumbered off toward the house.

  “Who’s ready for some movie magic?”

  Aunt Zoe was looking at DeMarco, her nephew, seated next to her in the front of her Prius. But it was Silas, who was directly behind DeMarco, who quickly answered, “I am! I am!” He bounced in his seat so much that his box of movie props nearly fell off his lap and onto Nick, who was sitting next to him. Which caused Nick to nearly clunk heads with Tesla, who was sitting next to him. (The backseat was a tight fit for three people if one of them was Silas.) Luckily, Elesha and Monique were in a different car, driven by their mom; they planned to stop at the Li’l Darlin’ Beauty Center because the girls wanted to look their best if they were going to be on a movie set and maybe get discovered by a casting agent. Also luckily, they had all convinced Silas to leave behind Michael the stunt dummy, carefully leaning against a tree in DeMarco’s yard.

  “So, DeMarco,” Aunt Zoe said, “how’s your summer been go—?”

  “Great, wonderful, he’s having the time of his life,” Silas said, interrupting her. “You know what I love about Cash Ashkinos movies?”

  “Uhh, what?” Aunt Zoe said.

  “Cash doesn’t fake everything with computers. He does it. For real. If two guys are fighting on top of a runaway train about to go off a bridge, then two guys actually fight on top of a runaway train about to go off a bridge.”

  “Off the Rails 2,” Nick said. He wasn’t a movie freak like Silas, or a wannabe stuntman like DeMarco, but he was an eleven-year-old boy, which meant he’d seen his fair share of action flicks.

  “If a guy on a burning hang-glider is chased by a helicopter through a tunnel, then a guy on a burning hang-glider is chased by a helicopter through a tunnel,” Silas continued.

  “Cut to the Chase 4,” said Nick.

  Tesla groaned and rolled her eyes. She was too polite to say so in front of Aunt Zoe, who’d worked on Cash Ashkinos’s last five or six movies, but the truth was, she couldn’t stand action flicks. Every one of them ignored the laws of physics—and Tesla took the laws of physics very, very seriously.

  “If a half-man, half-robot superhero flies around with a jet pack and fires rockets out of his hands, then a half-man, half-robot superhero flies around with a jet pack and fires rockets out of his hands,” Silas said.

  “Hmm,” said Nick. “That’s in a Cash Ashkinos movie?”

  Tesla gave him a look as if to say, “Duh.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “The one he’s shooting right now.”

  “Oh! Of course! The Stupefying Metalman!”

  “That’s how I know this Metalman movie is gonna be the best ever,” Silas said, leaning so far forward that he was practically talking right in Aunt Zoe’s ear. “The ones they made before, with Richard Johns-Ford III as Metalman, were okay, but they were all wall-to-wall CGI. Every big action scene was just cartoons fighting cartoons. But Cash Ashkinos, he’s finally gonna give us a real Metalman, am I right?”

  Aunt Zoe glanced over at DeMarco with wide eyes. “Is he always like this?” she asked.

  DeMarco nodded.

  Silas nodded, too.

  “Well, Cash is going to try,” she said. “You have to understand. The movies Cash and I have been making up to now are what they used to call B-pictures. You have less money to work with, but more freedom. This is our biggest project yet—it could finally get Cash onto the A list—but a budget this large means that you have to … make compromises.”

  “What kinds of compromises?” Silas asked.

  Aunt Zoe brought the car to a stop at a red light. On the other side of a busy road—the famous Pacific Coast Highway that runs up and down the western edge of California—was downtown Half Moon Bay. It was a small, cute, quaint town that catered to tourists and surfers. It had been a pretty quiet and laid-back place, at least until Nick and Tesla showed up.

  “I grew up here, you know,” Aunt Zoe said. “Every Saturday, I’d ride my bike downtown and watch whatever movie was playing at the Veranda Theater. It was a tiny cinema in a tiny town, and everything up on the screen seemed so much bigger than the world I knew. I wanted to be a part of that. My senior year of high school, they closed the Veranda, but I never forgot what it was like to sit in that little boxy dark theater and dream. And now I’m back, and we’ve opened up the Veranda again and are using it as a location in a movie that I’m producing. At the end of the day, we even use the screening room to watch the raw footage we shot. My dreams have come true.”

  What followed was a long, thoughtful silence.

  Just as Nick was about to say “That was really inspiring,” Silas spoke up.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

  Tesla leaned forward to
see past Nick and glare at her clueless friend.

  “What?” Silas said. “She didn’t.”

  The light turned green, and Aunt Zoe hit the gas. The Prius shot across the highway into downtown Half Moon Bay.

  “Cash is a visionary,” Aunt Zoe said. “But if you’re interested in making movies, Silas, you have to learn that filmmaking is a collaborative art. It requires the creative input of dozens of people. There has to be give-and-take. There has to be flexibility. There have to be compromises. That’s just how it works.”

  Another thoughtful silence.

  Which Silas once again broke.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but what compromises?”

  Nick, Tesla, and DeMarco groaned.

  “The ones you have to make to keep the right people happy,” Aunt Zoe said, sounding as if she’d finally lost her patience. But then she added, more softly, “Because when the wrong people aren’t happy—what the … ?”

  The car had turned off Main Street and onto Correas Street, not far from the old abandoned Veranda Theater. Halfway up the block, the street was closed off, with traffic cones and sawhorses and, just beyond them, an assortment of trucks and trailers and generators and equipment.

  Clearly, this was where Cash Ashkinos and his crew were filming The Stupefying Metalman. But just in case there’d been any doubt, a group of a half dozen or so people, some wearing costumes, was standing across the street from the blocked-off area. “Looks like some fans of Metalman are here,” Tesla said. But then she noticed the signs they were waving. They read:

  “METALMAN, GO HOME!!!”

  There were NO PARKING signs taped to the meters up and down the block, but Aunt Zoe parked next to one anyway. As everyone got out of the car, she put a slip of pink paper on the dashboard. Most of the area around the movie theater was blocked off by trailers, sawhorses, temporary fences, and traffic cones. A man in a security guard uniform waved to Aunt Zoe, then gestured at the protestors across the street and shrugged miserably.

  The protestors waved their signs more vigorously and started chanting something.