Close Ups and Mess Ups

by Natasha West

  Kim smiled and walked over to a wall, leaning against it, her eye on the set. She was waiting for me to act. So I did.

  ‘Right, listen up everyone’ I suddenly shouted and everyone on the set froze, including Lyla. ‘We’re running behind so I’m cutting the break short. Anybody got a problem with that?’ I asked, casting my eye over everyone, my gaze coming to rest on Lyla. Sure enough...

  ‘You’re breaking the law if you don’t give me ten minutes for every hour I work. And I’ve been at work for four hours so that means that I get forty minutes’ she told me plainly. I knew that everyone had stopped whatever they were doing to listen. That was precisely what I wanted.

  ‘Yes, it is breaking employment law, you’re right, Lyla. But as you’re the person who has cost me hours of shooting time with your constant questioning of everything I do, maybe you should complain? I want you to get into first position, so we can finish the scene we should have finished this morning.’

  Lyla was aghast. ‘I’m not used to being spoken to like this…’

  ‘Oh, really? Could that be because nobody wants to hire you for exactly the reasons I’m talking about? Maybe that’s why you’ve never heard a complaint? Because you don’t book anything?’

  Lyla’s eyes flashed with rage and she uttered between gritted teeth. ‘I don’t have to be here, you know.’

  I’d fully expected that threat and I had a response ready to go. ‘I guess you could walk off my set, sure. But since your only source of employment seems to come from our school, maybe this isn’t yet another bridge you want to be burning? What do you reckon?’

  Lyla opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t say a word. She simply put down the second half of her banana and walked off the set. I went over to Victor. ‘Now I need you to go after her, tell her how much this production needs her and that I’m a total twat. Make her feel like you’re on her side.’

  Victor looked at me, surprised. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I need her to want to show me I’m wrong. But she won’t come back unless she thinks she’s got a friend on set’ I told him. ‘I know it’s a bit… Look, if you do this, you’ll save this movie.’

  ‘Are you playing me now too?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Victor’ I told him, hurt. ‘This is the only way she’ll stop slowing us down. Please do this for me?’ I begged. I needed his help and I trusted him. I needed him to trust me.

  ‘Alright. But I don’t like this type of thing’ he warned me. He went after Lyla.

  I could hear a low mutter traveling around the set, but I paid it no heed. I walked over to Kim, who said, ‘The good cop, bad cop routine? Could work or it could totally backfire.’

  ‘You think she’ll quit?’

  Kim raised her eyebrows and looked over my shoulder. ‘You’re about to find out.’

  I turned to see Lyla coming back onto set, still in costume, Victor behind her, his hand on her back, steering her like an invalid. He looked at me and gave me the smallest of nods. I didn’t smile, though I wanted to. I’d beat Lyla at her own game. I couldn’t deny that it felt good.

  ‘I think I’ll consider myself finished here’ Kim said quietly into my ear. And she left.

  ‘Right, shall we go back to work?’ I asked the set and everyone began to shuffle back into positions, not a word of protest spoken. At least not in my hearing range.

  Once everyone was quiet, I went through the technical checks and everyone confirmed their readiness to go. I looked to Zara to see if she was off somewhere in the middle of a heated phone call, but she was behind the camera, prepped and ready and she gave me the signal. I got behind the monitor, sat on my chair, slipped on my headphones. ‘Hey, get that boom out of frame’ I told the sound recordist and it duly vanished from the shot. ‘And…. Action.’

  The scene played out without a single interruption. So did the next one. And the one after that.

  For the remainder of the shoot, the set ran as smoothly as I could have wanted, and we made back the time we’d lost. No arguing from Lyla, Zara didn’t take any more calls and no more Chatty Cathy’s. Everyone knew now how I ran my set and no one wanted to be on the sharp end of my tongue, not after Lyla had been put in her place.

  At the end of my four days, I had my footage, I had a good performance from Lyla and I had Kim’s respect. I thought that could be considered a successful shoot.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘So? Lock it off?’ asked Felix.

  I nodded. ‘I think so, yeah.’

  Felix shook his pale little face, the circles under his eyes deep and vivid. This was apparently what many hours stuck in an edit suite did to your face. You looked like an extra from The Walking Dead before the rot had really set in. ‘I need a definite yes on this’ he told me gently yet firmly. ‘Go away and think about it if you like, watch it a few more times, but I’m done for today.’

  I nodded, ‘Sorry, Felix, yeah, get the hell out of here’ I told him penitently. The poor bastard had done enough. ‘I’ll give it a few more watches and I’m sure I’ll be more certain in the morning.’

  Felix didn’t look convinced. ‘That’s what they all say’ he muttered to himself.

  I called Cameron on the way home. ‘I need your help.’

  Cameron swallowed whatever crunchy thing she was in the middle of eating and said, ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I need you to take a look at the final edit with me, help me decide if it needs anything changed. As the original author of this thing, it needs your eye because I don’t know what I’m looking at anymore.’

  ‘I’ll be right round’ she said enthusiastically and put the phone down on me. I hadn’t expected her to snap into action quite so quickly but so far, I’d banned her from the edit, fearing the too many cooks syndrome. She was obviously excited to see how it looked. She was waiting on the doorstep by the time I got home. ‘Hurry up’ she commanded excitably.

  ‘Christ, Cam, let me get my key in the door would you?’ I told her. But truthfully, her excitement was good to see. She was the only person who could understand what this meant to me, because it meant the same to her. I’d put everything I had into this project. Of course, that was now a bit of a problem because I was too deep into it and I couldn’t see if it was good or not. The film was ready for all intents and purposes. But I was still hesitating on calling it a day. Because once it was done, it was done.

  Five minutes later, we were both kneeling in front of the TV in the living room, like a couple of little kids watching cartoons. I stuck a flash drive in the back, which held the most current edit, and hit play on the file.

  And up it came. Sickness, written by Cameron Haines and directed by Allie Parker. Cameron squeezed my hand as the first image faded onto the screen.

  We watched as Jenny awoke in a bed that she didn’t recognise. Doctors and nurses told her that she was unwell and that she needed a few tests to find out what was wrong with her. Jenny let the medical staff do the tests, all the while struggling against the fear that she wasn’t supposed to be there. She wondered whether she should try to escape but the perfect moment to do so came and went, and Jenny stayed put, afraid she’d get into trouble if she left. She pleaded to the doctors that she felt fine and they told her that was perfectly normal. So she waited for the mysterious test results to come through but weeks passed with no answer, as she watched through the window as summer turned to autumn.

  Finally, Jenny decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She hadn’t seen friends or family in a month and she’d reached the end of her tether. She decided that she needed to leave. She tried to escape in the middle of the night, only to run into the head doctor, who had grown ever more sinister throughout the film. He confronted Jenny in a dark hallway and by now Jenny was freaked out and ready to do whatever it took to get out of the shadowy hospital.

  Fearful, she attacked him, killing him with a pair of scissors left in her room by medical staff. But then security arrived and put her back in her room. The doctor gets up
and takes off his blood pack, he’s fine. In Jenny’s room, they tell her that she’s done well. Jenny’s shocked and confused as they put her under. The last thing she hears is one of the guards saying, ‘She beat all the others. You owe me a tenner.’ The other guard asks how many other people are being put through the same psychological test. The answer is seven. ‘But I knew it would be this one that killed first. It’s always the polite ones that are the most dangerous.’ ‘What are they doing with all this information?’ The other guard shrugs. ‘Not my job to know.’

  The screen faded to black and I looked at Cameron. Her face was inscrutable. ‘Well?!’ I asked, unable to contain myself. Cameron looked at me with a grin. ‘It’s good’ she told me and then started to laugh. ‘It’s really good.’

  ‘You think so?’ I asked her, not ready to accept the praise. I realised that I’d been waiting to see disappointment. I hadn’t prepared for her actually liking it.

  ‘It’s… God, Allie, you really did it. You made what I wrote and it’s all there. Every little moment, every feeling.’

  I sighed and flopped back onto the sofa, in the sudden grip of exhaustion. It was over. My movie was made and it was good enough for Cameron and that meant it was good enough. That I was good enough.

  That night, I didn’t watch the film a load of times as I’d thought I would. Instead, I went to bed early. But not to sleep. I took Cameron with me and forgot all about the film.

  In the morning, I sent a text to Felix, just one sentence, three words. Lock it off.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kim stepped up to the mic and tapped it, getting feedback that made everyone in the room clap their hands to their ears. Kim shot a look to the back, where a guy stood at a mixing desk, frantically moving sliders around. ‘School full of sound engineers and we still can’t get a mic to function’ Kim said with a shake of her head.

  People laughed. They were people that thought she was making a joke. The students didn’t join in, they’d taken enough of Kim’s berating to know better.

  The sound guy gave Kim a nervous thumbs up and she tried again. ‘Welcome everyone, to the British School of Film’s annual movie showcase. We’ve got eight films for you tonight. Enjoy’ she said and walked off.

  A year out of my life was culminating tonight and that was Kim’s intro? But anything else wouldn’t have been Kim. She was cutting, but there was no bullshit about it. That was what I’d come to respect about the woman.

  The lights came down.

  Two hours later, the lights came back up and the audience clapped. I barely heard it. I was too busy trying to discern whose movie was better or worse than mine. All in all, the standard was high, but it was clear that I really only had true competition from one other film. It was of course, Jonny. After the Cameron debacle, he’d snagged himself the golden boy of the writing department, Tate. They’d made a serious drama about a guy who is cursed to live forever. All he wants is to die but it’s the one thing he can’t do. It was po-faced but there was a quality to it. Janey had made an action comedy, a tale of a woman who tries to rob a bank but just as she’s about to pull her gun, another set of robbers burst in and beat her to it. She finds herself caught up in thwarting the second robbers. It was hilarious but so vastly different from mine, I didn’t view it as competition, thankfully. The rest were decent but ultimately forgettable.

  I walked out of the screen room and Cameron appeared next to me. ‘Do you think they liked it?’ she whispered, nodding at some suited types talking nearby. ‘They’re gonna come and talk to you, if that’s what you’re worried about’ I told her, absent-mindedly reaching for her hand. Cameron looked at me as though I’d tried to get her in a wrestling hold.

  ‘What are you doing, people will see.’

  I shrugged, ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘I just don’t like to make a show of it’ she said and walked off. I watched her heading to the basement bar, astonished. I’d thought this was our big night together, that we’d finally talk about the future. And Cameron didn’t even want to be seen holding my hand. What the hell was that about?

  In the bar, drinks were drunk, hands were shook, cards were exchanged, egos stroked. And this time, I wasn’t glued to Cameron’s side all night. I talked to a development exec for a channel, a head of a production company and several agents. Now and again, I spotted Cameron talking to one person or another, doing just the same. I was kind of surprised. She’d always been so shy. But then again, I wasn’t the same either. I’d come into this year thinking that I wanted to be a particular type of director and I’d learned that ideals are nice, but they don’t get the job done. I had Kim to thank for that.

  I spotted the women in question across the bar and I decided I should speak to her, get her take on the evening. I had no doubt she’d be able to point me in the direction of the must-speak-to’s, save me wasting time on those who were only here to hob-nob with people they thought could get them a job, same as me.

  But as I closed in on Kim, I saw a young guy with a beard walk up to her and tap her on the shoulder. I didn’t recognise him. He looked too young to be anyone and I didn’t think he was a student, I pretty much knew everyone at this point. I watched as Kim turned around to see who was trying to get her attention, and when she the saw the young guy she didn’t look happy.

  ‘How did you get in?’ she asked him, looking more foxed than I’d ever seen her.

  ‘I was on the guest list’ the guy told her curtly.

  ‘I can’t think how you got on it, but I hope you’re not here to throw another tantrum.’

  I knew then who the bearded guy was. I felt a chill travel up my spine. Jack Jarvis, in the flesh. It was weird to see him. Like Kim, I wondered if he’d come to make trouble.

  But he simply said, ‘No, no tantrums today. Just wanted to say hi.’ Kim looked like she didn’t fully believe that. But Jack just said, ‘See you around, Kim’ and walked off.

  I had half a mind to check in with Kim. But she was a tricky one. She wasn’t my buddy and I didn’t think she’d really start dishing with me.

  So instead of going to talk to Kim, I found myself doing something rather strange. I began to follow Jack around the party. I watched from a distance as he moved around, greeting other students who looked shocked shitless to see him but pretended nothing had happened as they shook his hand and patted him on the back. I didn’t know what to make of him. He seemed, from a distance at least, nothing like the vicious, arrogant, entitled heir to the Jarvis directorial throne I had imagined. He was just a guy. I’d lived in his shadow all this time and he was a person, just like me. How had I let myself get so wrapped up in his dark legend? It now seemed so silly.

  And then I spotted Ashley, drink in hand, chatting to Victor. My eyes went straight to Jack, mere metres away. Surely this was it. When they saw each other, there had to be drama on the horizon.

  I decided to stand close, in case of trouble. I don’t know why I wanted to have Ashley’s back. But I did. What I actually could have done if it had kicked off, I couldn’t tell you. Nevertheless, when Ashley and Jack saw each other, I braced myself.

  ‘Hi, it was Ashley, wasn’t it?’ Jack said.

  ‘Yeah, I was on the first term project’ Ashley said. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  What the fuck was happening? They were acting like they barely knew each other.

  ‘Yeah, sorry I had to leave it mid-way. Stuff happened’ Jack told her nervously.

  Ashley put a warm hand on his arm. ‘You don’t need to apologise. Life doesn’t always go strictly to plan, does it?’

  Ashley turned and saw me at that point and then said to Jack, ‘This is Allie, you guys should talk.’

  Jack turned to me and put his hand out. ‘I heard you got my spot.’

  ‘I did’ I told him nervously and deeply confused, in an awkward no man’s land with Jack Jarvis, the guy whose life I now had.

  ‘I hope you had a better time of it than I did’ he said.

&
nbsp; I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I said, ‘I’ve certainly had an interesting year.’

  He nodded and smiled. ‘Sure you did. Oh, just spotted the guy I’m here to see’ Jack said, looking over my shoulder. I watched him walk over to the director of the school.

  I turned back to Ashley who was chatting to Victor, relaxed and unconcerned with Jack’s cameo. I was seeing her anew. She hadn’t been the devil woman who’d destroyed a man just because she could. Where had I even gotten that idea?

  Just at that moment I saw her. Cameron. I pushed swiftly through the crowd, unconcerned about the shoulders I was bumping. I’d been told a lie. I needed to know why, and I needed to know now.

  ‘Cameron!’ I called, and she stopped in her tracks, turning to see me. She smiled for a second and then the smile dropped as she saw the look on my face. ‘Is everything alright?’