by Parnell Hall
MacAullif shook his head. “That ain’t right.”
“What?”
“That’s a police lock on that door. No way he gets in with that shit.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. Any cop sees that’ll laugh his ass off.”
“Well,” I said, “you’re the technical advisor.”
MacAullif looked at me. “Damned if I ain’t.” He turned and walked over to the other side of the set, where Sidney Garfellow was conferring with the DP.
He was back a minute later.
“Well?” I said.
“Well, I told him.”
“And what did he say?”
“I think his exact words were, Who gives a flying fuck?”
“Just like that?”
“Well, not that abrupt. But he said, who’s gonna care but cops like me, and the moviegoing public likes to see guys pick locks.”
“Aha,” I said.
Sidney’s response was absolutely typical. It was also an out-and-out contradiction of what he told me in rehearsal. So, the moviegoing public likes to see people pick locks, Sidney? I thought we were going to cut this scene out in the edit.
I was not in the best of moods twenty minutes later when the scene began to shoot. Even so, I had to admit it was exciting. First off, you got all your crew members standing around watching. Plus you got lights on tripods all over the place, illuminating the scene. Then you got your camera dolly in place, with DP aboard and two grips ready to roll it sideways during the shot to reveal the lock. Then you got crotchety sound man Murky Doyle sitting at his laundry hamper with his earphones on, ready to record the sound. And the boom man standing near the edge of the set, trying to sneak the boom mike in just above the top of the door jamb. Then you got Sidney Garfellow overlooking all this like a proud papa,, and nerdy twerp superstar standing by ready to pick the door lock with two strips of metal MacAullif assured me couldn’t open a cigar box.
And finally it happened. The attractive AD said, “Lock it up.” At his laundry hamper, Murky Doyle pressed a button, and a sound like a loud doorbell rang three times. We were now what was referred to in the industry as being on bells, that is, locked up, dead quiet, ready to shoot.
From her position next to the camera the assistant director yelled, “Roll it!” which is the way every shooting sequence began. Next, Murky Doyle would shout, “Speed!” to indicate the tape was rolling and tell the assistant cameraman he could slate the scene. Then he would say, “Scene one thirty-seven, take one,” and clack the slate. And Sidney would say, “Action!”
Not this time.
The AD said, “Roll it!” all right. But before Murky Doyle could say, “Speed!” there came a sound like the crackle of lightning, and Murky Doyle’s boom man flipped in the air, dropped the boom, and crashed to the floor in a heap.
12.
“IT’S SABOTAGE.”
“Yeah, sure, Murky,” Jake Decker said. “It’s a personal vendetta.”
“Damn it, someone screwed with the machine.”
“Why would they do that?”
“How the hell should I know? Maybe someone’s got it in for me.
“I’m sure they do, Murky, but I don’t think they’d take it out on your equipment.”
“Yeah, well, someone did. I’m going to take this apart and find out.”
“On your own time, Murky. Right now we gotta shoot.”
I should explain, the reason for Jake Decker’s cavalier attitude was that the boom man wasn’t seriously hurt. He’d had a minor shock and a major scare, which left him shaken but unharmed. Which meant the show must go on.
“Come on, Murky,” Jake said. “Break out the backup machine and let’s go.”
“I want to know what went wrong,” Murky insisted.
“We all do, Murky. But right now we got a crew standing around and we’re already behind schedule because of the rain delay. So either break out the backup machine, or I’m going to go ahead and shoot this MOS.”
“That would be a violation,” Murky said.
“File a grievance,” Jake snapped.
Cursing, Murky unplugged his Nagra, took it off the top of the laundry hamper, opened it up, and took out another.
MacAullif and I, who had been watching, moved away.
“What do you make of that?” I said.
MacAullif shrugged. “Frankly, the man does not inspire confidence.”
“No shit.”
“On the other hand, that’s an expensive piece of equipment, why should it just short out?”
“Maybe it got wet in the rain.”
“I thought the sound crew wasn’t out this morning.”
“Good point. But the equipment was.”
“How’s that?”
“The sound equipment’s on the camera truck. So it was on location. When it started raining and they had to load up the truck, the sound hamper’s in the way and they had to lift it down off the truck to get the camera dolly on.”
“Did that happen?”
“How the hell should I know? We hopped in your car and took off. I’m just saying that’s how it could have happened.”
“Yeah, maybe,” MacAullif said.
Son of a bitch. MacAullif suspected foul play.
I didn’t. I’d seen enough of Murky Doyle over the past two weeks, I’d have been surprised if the sound hadn’t fucked up.
Anyway, after stalling as much as possible, Murky finally got his act together and we started filming again. This time, the scene of picking the lock went off without a hitch. Sidney shot the master four times in rapid succession, then moved in for the close-up of the picks being inserted into the lock. We grabbed that shot and broke for lunch with minutes to spare—if we’d gone over, we’d have had to pay the crew meal penalty. As it was, we fed them in the nick of time.
Lunch was served right there on the set by the caterers, an older couple everyone called Mama and Papa and a young girl assistant. The three of them had set up folding tables and chairs from the truck and now stood behind a row of steam trays ready to serve a hot buffet.
MacAullif and I went through the lunch line and found ourselves at a table with the attractive AD and Clarity, whether by accident or design, I don’t know. Anyway, to my surprise, I found MacAullif actually making small talk with the young ladies.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the black-plastic object hanging from Clarity’s neck.
She lifted it up, turned it around where he could see. “Stopwatch,” she said. “For timing the scenes.”
“That’s part of your job?”
“Sure. I record the length of each take in my script notes.”
“Then what do you do with it?”
“Log it, and type it up at the end of the day. We need to know what we shot, what we printed, how many takes we have, and how long they were.”
“That’s very interesting,” MacAullif said.
The attractive AD, who had been looking at MacAullif, said abruptly, “You’re a cop?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why are you here?”
“Sidney hired me.”
She frowned. “Oh? What for?”
“As a technical advisor. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Sidney forgets to mention things,” the AD said.
It was a particularly barbed comment. None of us wanted to touch it.
After a pause, she said, “Then you’re not still investigating the murder?”
“No.”
“Is it solved, then?”
“It happens to be one of those killings that is likely to go unsolved. Particularly common in the case of street people. Which is what this man apparently was.”
“You never even identified him?”
“No,” MacAullif said. “How could we?”
“Fingerprints, of course.”
MacAullif smiled. “You watch too many movies.”
The AD gave him a look, said, “Yeah,” took her plate, got up and walked off.
“What for?” MacAullif said.
Clarity shrugged. “The usual. Sidney gave her a big rush, now he’s making a play for the girl playing Blaire.”
“Oh.”
“So don’t take it personally.” She smiled. “Wait till we start shooting the scene this afternoon. You’ll see.”
Indeed we did. The way Sidney fondled Blaire while directing her in the scene of unlocking her door with the bag of groceries was enough to make you sick.
But it was nothing compared to the next scene. The scene where Blaire enters and finds young hero Rick sitting on the couch. It was the first dialogue scene to be shot, as well as the first scene of any length. It was also the first scene requiring a complicated camera move. In the final cut, Blaire would walk in, register surprise, and then we would cut to a shot of Rick sitting on the couch. In the master—the continuous shot of the whole scene that the other shots are to be cut into—the plan called for the camera to pull back from the shot of Blaire, and dolly around to include a two-shot of her and Rick.
During the rehearsal of this camera move, MacAullif nudged me with his elbow and whispered, “She’s not very good, is she?”
“No, she’s not,” I said. “But it’s not entirely her fault.”
“Oh?”
“No actress is going to look good saying those lines.”
“You didn’t write that?”
“I should hope not.”
“Wanna show me what you wrote sometime?”
I suddenly realized MacAullif was one hell of a good guy.
“In her case it probably wouldn’t help,” I said. “But what she’s saying is particularly stupid.”
“He’s not so bad, though,” MacAullif said.
I suddenly realized MacAullif wasn’t that great a guy after all.
But, damn it, he was right. Jason Clairemont, nerdy twerp superstar, despite his many failings, still came across pretty well, even saying his stupid lines.
Which really wasn’t fair. The guy was making me look bad—he should look bad too.
But, no, the kid could act. Even with the bad material he’d provided himself with. He had a way of presenting it that was going to get by. Leaving everyone else decimated in his wake.
It went that way for the rest of the afternoon. Take after rotten take. This being a long dialogue scene with a camera move, when we shot it they managed to screw up somewhere seven times running. If the camera move was right, they’d blow the lines. And if they got the lines, the sound would be off. If the sound was right, the lighting would be wrong. Once, so help me, everything was going right except someone farted and the actors broke up. For all that, they were damn lucky to get it on the eighth try.
They got it again on the twelfth. I think they would have gone again, but Jake Decker stepped in, whispered something in Sidney’s ear. The next announcement was a new setup and a camera move to shoot close-ups for the same scene, which they did for the rest of the afternoon.
Imagine, if you will, your own private hell. You’ve written something you think is good. A moron has changed it to something you think is bad. And you’re forced to watch this new version repeated again and again and again, all day long.
As I rode the subway home, the only consoling thought was, it couldn’t get any worse.
Wrong again.
13.
TUESDAY MORNING WAS MORE OF the same. The rain did not let up, and we were once again on the cover set. Not wanting to be totally drenched, I arrived at the warehouse by cab and sprinted in the door. In the office I found the script supervisor and Sidney’s secretary manning the Xerox machine, which was spewing out a seemingly endless succession of pink pages.
“What’s this?” I said.
“The scenes for today,” Clarity said. “And I think Sidney’s got some more for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Here he is.”
I looked around as Sidney came walking in.
“Oh, Stanley, there you are,” he said. He detached two pages from his clipboard, handed them to me.
I saw they were script pages with new lines penciled in. “What’s this?” I said.
“Please revise this for Grace and Clarity,” Sidney said. “Revisions for the Veronica scene. If it rains, it’s tomorrow’s cover set. Type it up so the girls can run it off.”
“Sidney,” I said. “You didn’t even rehearse that scene.”
“I know. But Jason had a few changes to suggest.”
I looked at the first page. “Sidney, he’s not even in this scene.”
“Yes. He’s in the next one.”
“Is he going to rewrite the whole damn movie?”
“Stanley,” Sidney said. “You think these words are set in stone. You ever see a movie they didn’t rewrite every day? Clarity, you ever on a picture you didn’t have a rainbow script?”
Clarity either didn’t hear or pretended not to, just went on working the Xerox.
Sidney couldn’t have cared. I’d learned by now most of his questions were rhetorical anyway.
“Just work it up,” Sidney said. “You can use that typewriter there.”
And with a nod and a grin he was gone.
What the hell. I pulled up a chair and proceeded to type.
It was bad, as expected. I typed it anyway. And as I did, it dawned on me, Jason Clairemont wasn’t in this scene. He wouldn’t be around, making at least some of the bad lines seem good. If the other actors couldn’t, it was going to seem bloody awful. Well. Not my problem.
“What are you grinning about?” Clarity said.
I looked up. I hadn’t realized I was grinning. It occurred to me what a strange profession I was in. Here I was, making my script bad and being thrilled by the prospect people might notice.
I was still typing when Murky Doyle and Jake Decker breezed in, arguing about the accident. Which struck me as funny. It was the same argument they’d been having yesterday, which made it seem as if the conversation was continuous, as if they’d been arguing all night.
“It was deliberate,” Murky said. “Someone took the Nagra apart and crossed the wires.”
“You mean a wire came loose,” Jake Decker said.
“No, a wire didn’t come loose. Someone crossed them.”
“So a wire came loose and they got crossed.”
Murky shook his head. “Couldn’t have happened.”
“Happens all the time.”
“No way. Someone unscrewed the case and crossed the wires.”
“Why?”
“To be a prick, that’s why. You think people don’t do things just to be a prick?”
“Are you saying the Nagra’s fixed?” Jake said.
“Fixed? It wasn’t broken. Someone crossed the wires.”
“But the point is, it’s functioning now?”
“Of course.”
“So we can shoot today. I’m pleased to hear it.”
They went out again, still arguing.
I finished typing, gave the pages to Clarity, and went out to check out the set.
MacAullif was—where else?—hanging out by the catering truck. I told him what Murky said about someone taking the Nagra apart and crossing the wires.
MacAullif wasn’t impressed. “The guy’s got a couple of wires crossed himself.”
“I know that,” I said. “That still doesn’t make him wrong.”
“Right, right. Paranoid people have enemies too. I am on the set, ever vigilant.”
“Right,” I said.
It occurred to me when he said that, maybe that was why Sidney Garfellow had really hired him.
At any rate, shooting today was uneventful. Not to mention dull and painful. More Jason Clairemont and the bimbo scenes, each more scintillating than the last. By the end of the day, I had really had enough.
Only it wasn’t over.
Instant replay. Tod
ay we had the dailies. All the footage we shot yesterday had to be viewed. Every excruciating, agonizing moment from yesterday had to be relived.
I could have just gone home. But that would have been so ignominious. I mean, this was my picture, damn it. At least, it used to be. This was the first footage from my first movie and, come hell or high water, I was going to see it.
I did.
And I suffered. The torments of the damned.
We screened the dailies right there in the warehouse. Screening room time was expensive, it was cheaper to rent a machine. The dailies were shown on a thirty-five-millimeter interlock projector, where the film reels and sound reels were threaded up and synchronized by the multitalented gofer, Dan. Since there was only one projector, we had to wait while he threaded up each reel, which made the dailies last forever. Or maybe it just seemed that way.
At any rate, MacAullif, who’d stayed because it was a novelty for him, left after the first reel.
I stayed till the bitter end.
As I watched take after sickening take, it occurred to me that this would never end, because tomorrow night I’d get to watch the garbage we shot today. Like hell, I told myself. Tomorrow I won’t stay.
Only I knew I would.
Because some part of me wouldn’t let go. Wouldn’t let me admit to myself what I knew for certain, that what I was watching was bad. Every now and then a faint glimmer of hope would flash through. That maybe Sidney was right—that the dialogue and plot didn’t matter. That all that mattered was that we were making a Jason Clairemont flick. That what we were doing was good, and everything would be all right.
These moments, fueled by desperate hope, though fleeting, were nonetheless there. Needless to say, they did nothing to cheer me. Just the opposite. If anything, they turned me into a paranoid schizophrenic. As I watched the dailies I kept thinking: It’s garbage. No, it’s all right. What are you, nuts? You call that all right? Relax, they’ll fix it in the mix.You can’t fix bad dialogue. No one cares about dialogue—screenplays are structure. He’s fucked with the structure. Nothing you can’t fix, and his performance is good. Just what the reviews will say—a good performance despite a rotten script. It doesn’t matter you’ll get work from this. Are you kidding? Who would hire me? It’s the end of my career. It’s the beginning of your career. It’s both, and you know it. Oh, good god, where did he get her? It’s like he put a casting call in Back Stage—“Big Tits, Can’t Act.” Damn it, I am not staying tomorrow.
