I quickly whizzed back to unit base and Roland.
‘Got you the last bottle in existence,’ I said putting the bottle on the desk in front of him. ‘It’s your lucky day, mate.’
It was hysterical when I reported to him the next morning. He was looking at himself in the small mirror on the wall behind his desk. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Worth every penny, that stuff,’ he said. ‘And it smells amazing. You can always tell quality. I can see why everyone’s using it.’
I smiled back. ‘Yeah, right.’
He must have been really pleased with me because, for once, I wasn’t sent off to Plymouth or to the village on mad errands. Instead I was told to report up to the main house, where the crew were shooting a couple of scenes between Herbert Pocket and Pip.
‘Jenny, the continuity girl, has phoned in with food poisoning,’ said Roland, ‘and I can’t find anyone to cover. Now, do you know what continuity is?’
I nodded. Boy, did I know. The job of a continuity person is to keep track of how things look from scene to scene and make sure nothing has been changed unless it’s meant to have been. Sounds easy but the average film has over two hundred scenes in it and those scenes are often shot out of sequence then put together in the right order by the director and editor at the end. Mistakes often happen. They’re called bloopers and spotting them or reading about them is one of my favourite pastimes.
There are some brilliant web sites listing the famous ones. According to my favourite site, Titanic has one hundred and eighty five bloopers. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, there were one hundred and forty one. In Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, one hundred and nineteen. I have my personal favourites, like during the filming of Bonfire of the Vanities, Melanie Griffiths allegedly had a boob job. So, because they filmed out of sequence, her boobs go from normal to huge and back again all the way through the film. And probably the most famous movie mistake of all time occurs during the famous chariot race scene in Ben Hur, when you can clearly see that one of the charioteers is wearing a wrist watch. Not quite right for ancient times. I suppose I’m a bit of an anorak when it comes to collecting examples. So, yes, I know about continuity and bloopers but I wasn’t going to let on to Roland just how much, in case he thought I was being a smarmy know it all.
‘So, your job is to watch the props from scene to scene,’ said Roland. ‘In particular, to keep an eye on the food and drink levels. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘You can count on me. I know what to do,’ I said.
I raced up to the house and took my place at the back of the room, where the sound and lighting technicians were just finishing rigging everything up. I made a mental note of the set up. I looked over at the actors. Donny was there and some actor I didn’t recognise, who was playing Herbert. I looked at how they were dressed. I quickly scanned their wrists in case either of them had forgotten to remove a digital wrist watch – I didn’t reckon that they had them in Dickens’ time. Did either of them have a handkerchief protruding from a pocket or anything else that might get used or changed if there were any retakes? I studied the table where they were going to be eating: china cups – they would be OK as no one could see the level of liquid in them; a bowl of fruit including grapes and a couple of apples; slices of bread on a plate. Best keep a close eye on those items, I thought.
Charlie was busy on the other side of the room, talking to some of her crew and she looked over at me and waved. I waved back. It felt great to be there, at the heart of it all, a part of the action instead of running around getting people grocery supplies. This was what I’d signed up for.
‘Where’s the spare fruit and bread?’ I asked Sandra, as she hurried past. She pointed to a table behind the cameras. ‘There’s a whole load over there,’ she said. ‘Enough fresh fruit and bread to do seventy retakes.’
I gave her the thumbs up.
Charlie said ‘Action’ and the two actors went into their scene. Pip said his lines in between taking bites out of an apple then he had a bite of one of the pieces of bread. Herbert drank out of one of the cups and ate a few grapes. It was a short scene, only a couple of lines, and didn’t take long to do.
‘Let’s run that again,’ said Charlie, positioning herself to shoot the same scene from another angle.
‘Props,’ called Sandra.
I whizzed straight in and replaced the eaten apple with a new one, the bread with a new slice and the grapes with a bunch that hadn’t been touched.
Charlie shouted, ‘Action,’ again and the actors did their scene a second time.
‘OK, let’s move on,’ said Charlie when they’d finished.
The actors went into the next scene, where Herbert leaves the room and Pip is left alone. I was really enjoying watching. Charlie was a stickler for perfection and made the actors do scene after scene, again and again. She shot each scene from a few different angles so that later she could edit it so that the audience saw Pip’s reaction to Herbert, then Herbert’s reaction to Pip. She then announced that she wanted to redo the first scene again. I was about to dive in again with untouched fruit and bread when Roland appeared behind me.
‘You’re needed outside,’ he said. ‘I’ll take over here.’
‘But . . .’ I pointed at the breakfast table.
‘Next scenes we’re shooting are exteriors. I need you at the bottom of the drive. Make sure that there are no cars or motorbikes ready to motor in and ruin the film.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘But Charlie wants to redo the first scene and the fruit needs replacing. Oh, and one slice of bread.’
Roland gave me a disdainful look. ‘I do know how it works,’ he said.
‘Wasn’t saying you didn’t,’ I said. ‘Just thought you’d like to know where we’re up to.’
‘Just get your butt outside and clear the area,’ he said.
So much for team spirit, I thought, but no problem. I went outside. One of the production assistants who was busy getting things in motion showed me where to go. She pointed down the driveway and I went and stood guard at the end of the road leading to the location where the next scene was to take place. The lighting technicians were hard at it again and the production assistants were busy running round ensuring that everything was in its proper place. It’s amazing how many people are needed to make a movie, I thought, as I watched the crew buzz about doing their various tasks. Seeing them all in action, it was obvious that every one of the people on that long list of names that you see at the end of a film was needed.
A few stray cars tried to drive up as I stood at my post but most people were only too happy to drive back or take another route, so my job was relatively easy. Then a red Fiesta drove up.
‘Oi, you, the ugly git with the spiky hair,’ shouted the man at the wheel. ‘What you filming?’
I grinned as I recognised my cousin Roger. Ever since we were little, we’ve acted mad with each other, slagging each other off and seeing who could come up with the best insult. I indicated a group of extras standing waiting at the far end of the drive, all of whom were in period costume ready for the next scene. ‘Clearly nothing that needs a red Fiesta in the background, you dingbat,’ I called back to him. ‘Now get lost and don’t come back.’
Roger made a rude gesture, so I made one back. Then he reversed his car and drove away. It was then that I noticed that Roland and Sandra had come out of the main house and were standing a short distance to my left. Roland had a face like thunder.
‘Don’t you ever speak to a member of the public like that again,’ he shouted.
‘But . . . he’s my cousin,’ I explained. ‘My cousin Roger. We were having a laugh.’ Sadly, Roland didn’t see it that way.
‘Your behaviour was totally unprofessional,’ he said as Sandra looked on. ‘Other people around don’t know that he’s your cousin and that would have been seen as a display of appalling rudeness.’
‘But there’s nobody around,’ I objected. ‘Not within hearing
distance, only you and Sandra.’
Sandra looked embarrassed for me. I felt embarrassed for me. Why did he have to give me a dressing down in front of her? It made me look stupid. So much for the shampoo, I thought. Getting on his good side was obviously a waste of time. It hadn’t taken very long for him to turn on me again.
‘I’ll take over here – you’re obviously incompetent,’ said Roland dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
‘So what should I do next?’ I asked.
Just at that moment, Charlie came out on to the steps of the house. ‘Hold on the exteriors,’ she said, looking up at the sky, which was beginning to darken. ‘Damn, I hope it’s not going to rain.’
‘What’s the problem?’ I heard Sandra ask.
Charlie looked over at me. ‘Props. We need to redo the first scenes. The fruit doesn’t match the later scenes on one of the retakes – it’s already been eaten – so the continuity’s all wrong. God, I hate it when this happens. It wastes so much time.’ She glanced up at the sky again. ‘I just pray this dry weather will last another hour.’
Roland looked over at me accusingly.
I wasn’t having it. ‘It wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘I watched every scene, every mouthful that was eaten and drunk. It was all in the right place. For that first scene, I made sure that the food looked untouched every time.’
‘Well it wasn’t me,’ said Roland.
Charlie gave us both a weary look then went back inside.
I felt angry. I knew it was him that had blown it and he wasn’t big enough to admit it. I knew that I’d matched each piece of fruit, every slice of bread for every scene.
‘So what do you want me to do?’ I asked.
‘What do you think you can do without getting it wrong? I don’t know. Go and get a weather forecast, then report back.’
It was pretty obvious that the outlook didn’t look good, but I got out of there fast. I felt ready to hit him.
It didn’t take a moment to do as he’d asked, I simply rang the twenty-four-hour weather line. It said that there would be rain later.
‘You go and tell Charlie,’ said Roland. ‘Seeing as it was you who held her up.’
‘Was not,’ I said. But I went back into the house to find Charlie and give her the news. I waited to one side as she was busy shooting the retakes, then I told her about the weather. It might have been my imagination but she wasn’t as friendly to me as she normally was. I felt rotten. Maybe she didn’t believe that it wasn’t me who’d messed things up. But at least there would be no damage done. She’d spotted the incontinuity and had reshot. She might just be able to regain the time lost.
The retakes took another twenty minutes, then the action moved outside. Roland was down at the end of the location and didn’t seem in a hurry to give me my next job, so I decided to hang around and watch what was going on. It looked as though the light might hold, so everything might turn out all right. I hoped that it would.
Things got going and the scene was in full swing when the second disaster happened. The location looked great. The light was great. The costumes looked fabulous. The actors were delivering their lines brilliantly. The extras were milling around busily in the background. Charlie was filming away happily and it looked like everything was back on track.
Then there was the most almighty roar. Everyone looked up to see a formation of jets fly overhead. Not quite the right effect for the turn of the century!
‘Noooooo,’ I heard Charlie cry in exasperation.
Everything came to a standstill as we waited for the sound to subside as the jets disappeared into the distance.
‘Right, we’re going to have to go again,’ said Charlie. ‘Damn, and we almost had it in the bag. Roland, we knew that these air displays happen down here from time to time. I asked you to research where and when. How did this one escape your attention? It would have been advertised, surely?’
Roland sighed and pointed to me. ‘I am sorry, Charlie. I asked that kid you hired to do it.’
This time I saw red. ‘No way. You never did, Roland. That’s a blatant lie!’
‘See,’ said Roland. ‘This is what I’ve had to deal with from day one. I didn’t want to bother you with it, but he’s really not up to the job, Charlie. And now it’s having an effect on the movie . . .’
‘So deal with it,’ said Charlie impatiently. ‘I haven’t got time for petty disagreements; we’re running over schedule. OK, places everyone. Let’s go again.’
I felt outraged as people began to look at me with disdain. They obviously believed Roland and thought I’d ruined the continuity in the breakfast scene and now I was responsible for an eight-jet flyover. I opened my mouth to protest again but Charlie had started filming.
And then the third disaster happened: another roar came from the sky, but this time it wasn’t jet planes. It was thunder. Then there was a flash of lightning and the skies opened. A downpour of torrential rain which soaked the set in seconds. Cameramen desperately covered their cameras, the actors and the rest of the crew ran to shelter in the porch of the house. Suddenly the location was empty.
No doubt I’m going to be blamed for the deluge as well, I thought, as I took shelter under a tree with the rain soaking through my T-shirt. Well, at least things can’t get any worse, I thought as I turned away and trudged down the drive, away from the action and the angry glances of the cast and crew.
I WAS AWOKEN the next morning by a loud shriek coming from downstairs. I leaped out of bed to go and see what was going on and a quick glance at my watch told me that I had overslept. Oh no, I thought, as I grabbed my jeans from the floor and staggered into them. It was ten minutes past eight and I was supposed to have been on site at eight. Roland would kill me. I got out into the hall at the same time as Dad and Will appeared from their bedrooms.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Dad, poking his head over the banister.
‘This,’ said Mum waving the morning paper in the air. She got her glasses out of her dressing gown pocket for a closer look. ‘Our Squidge is on the front cover!’
Dad, Will and I charged downstairs and stood over her as she read out the headline: Local boy in celebrity love fest.
‘Wahey,’ said Will gawking at the photo of Savannah and I in her trailer, mid-snog. ‘You never said you’d got off with her!’
‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘We were rehearsing . . .’
‘That’s a good one,’ chuckled Dad. ‘Not heard that before.’
‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘Oh God, Lia.’
‘Bit late to be thinking of Lia by the looks of it,’ said Dad, as he attempted to read over Mum’s shoulder.
‘What does it say?’ I asked.
Mum pushed her glasses up her nose and read from the paper. ‘Pipped at the post. Celebrity actress, Savannah (17), finds love amongst the locals. Savannah, who is currently starring in the production of Great Expectations being filmed at Mount Edgecumbe, was seen with local boy, Jack Squires, in the seaside resort of Fowey. They were later spotted in Savannah’s trailer getting up close and personal. Savannah’s management were unavailable for comment but local girls say that Jack, known as Squidge, has always been popular with the girls and has a reputation as a love rat.’
I had to laugh at that. Me, a love rat? I’ve only ever kissed three girls: Cat, Lia, and Savannah.
Mum peered over her glasses at me. ‘Looks like you’ve got some explaining to do, mi lad.’
I nodded and ran upstairs to find my mobile and grab my fleece. Then I was out the door, and on my way to work. But first I had to ring Lia.
I stopped in a quiet lane and dialled her mobile. It was switched off, so I tried the land line.
Her mum picked up. ‘She’s gone into town with Zac and Donny for the morning. Do you want to leave a message?’
‘Message?’ Somehow I felt that asking Lia’s mum if she’d seen the photo of me snogging Savannah was inappropriate. Surely she’d have said something if she had. ‘Er, er, no,’ I replie
d. Leave a message? What would I say? What if there were other people around when Lia’s mum passed it on? No, I decided, I’d rather speak to her in person, when she was on her own.
‘Are you OK, Squidge?’ asked Mrs Axford. ‘You sound a bit strange.’
‘Yes, fine, er . . . you haven’t by any chance seen today’s paper have you?’
‘Not yet, why?’
‘Oh, nothing. Um, please could you just tell Lia that I called.’
‘Will do.’
When I arrived at unit base, Roland was hovering outside the production office like a wasp waiting to sting.
‘You’re late,’ he said, looking at his watch.
‘I know. Sorry, I . . .’
‘What’s the first commandment on a film set?’ he asked.
Thou shalt always obey Roland Rat, I thought to myself. ‘Remember we’re a team?’ I said hopefully.
‘Wrong: time is money.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I really, really am. I overslept, then there was, er . . .’
Roland produced the morning paper from behind his back. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it. And you’re fired.’
‘What? For kissing Savannah? But, she asked me to. We were rehearsing.’
‘Not just that. For being late today. For all the cock-ups yesterday.’
‘But none of them were my fault . . .’
‘No room for buts on a film set,’ he said. ‘In this case, your butt.’
‘But surely Charlie . . .’
‘Mrs Bennett to you. Anyway, you heard her yesterday. She told me to deal with it – it being you – and I have.’ Then he turned back into the production office and closed the door firmly behind him.
I was about to go in after him and plead my case but I stopped. No point, I thought. He’s been waiting for this day since the moment he set eyes on me. There’s only one person who can help put this straight, and that’s Savannah.
I made my way over to her trailer and knocked. There was nobody there.
Starstruck Page 9
