The Real Z

by Jen Calonita

  For Keiran Cook, a true American Girl

  and an excellent first reader

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: The Z Crew

  Chapter 2: Brainstorm Rainstorm

  Chapter 3: School Daze

  Chapter 4: Coffee Talk

  Chapter 5: Lights, Camera, Action!

  Chapter 6: Showtime

  Chapter 7: Total Pro

  Chapter 8: Rainy Week Blues

  Chapter 9: Sneak Peek

  Chapter 10: What’s Your Story?

  Chapter 11: The Real Me

  Chapter 12: “The Horrible Homework Hacker”

  Chapter 13: My Big Night

  Chapter 14: A Fresh Start

  About the Author

  Learn More about Z

  Preview of Tenney

  Request a Catalogue

  Copyright

  I took one last look through my camera viewfinder.

  This was it.

  My favorite moment in every video I shot.

  Two seconds before I pressed RECORD, my palms usually began to sweat, my heart beat out of my chest, and I got more excited than my dog, Popcorn, when she knew she was going for a walk.

  With my eye still glued to the viewfinder, I asked, “Lauren, can you raise Kit’s hand an inch?” Lauren McClain, a.k.a. my best friend, production partner, and all-around amazing prop designer, was sitting on my bedroom floor posing my Kit Kittredge doll in front of a prop mountain as we worked on a video about the California gold rush for social studies. She moved Kit’s tiny hand carefully and I zoomed in on it.

  “Now can you turn the pencil she’s holding so it really looks like she’s writing on the pad?” Lauren adjusted the pad and pencil, which she had made out of sticky notes and a straw. I squinted harder as I stared through the camera lens and looked at the shot of Kit again. “Perfect! We’re ready.”

  I pulled my purple knit beanie down on my head—I couldn’t press RECORD without my good luck charm—and got ready to say my favorite word.

  “Action!” I shouted. I snapped a photo of Kit. “And cut!”

  I turned to my two computer screens—one was a larger monitor that I used to view all the stop-motion shots I had taken—and the second was my laptop with my webcam recording the whole shoot. I wanted to post the video for a new segment I’d been trying called “On Set with Me, Z!” The videos were a how-to guide to doing stop-motion videos like the kind I made. (Which meant I was shooting a video inside a video—how cool is that?) “Okay, Z Crew, so maybe that wasn’t the most exciting two seconds of filming in the world, but guess what? Every shot in our stop-motion videos is important,” I said to my webcam.

  “Especially when we get a close-up of those award-worthy props,” Lauren chimed in, off camera.

  Lauren is not a huge fan of being filmed, but she loves working on AGSM (American Girl stop-motion) videos with me. We got the idea to do an AGSM video for our social studies assignment—a class presentation about a pivotal point in history—during lunch. Making videos is what we did for fun, which meant now we could have fun doing our homework.

  I adjusted the webcam to focus on Lauren’s prop work. “Look at this, Z Crew. Lauren made a papier-mâché mountain out of some recycled newspaper she painted brown with flecks of gold. She is a total genius!” Lauren grinned. “She’s going to win an Oscar for set design one day, right, Popcorn?” I asked my dog.

  Popcorn barked and wagged her tail happily and jumped up on my legs. She was always jumping, like popcorn when it pops, which just happened to be my favorite snack in the world. It was also how my dalmatian got her name.

  My Kit doll was standing on the fabric background that was our set—dark green, to represent trees in the distance—and a box light drenched the scene in warm, bright light. My room looked like a mini movie studio. The special equipment was all I wanted for my thirteenth birthday, and I’ve used it a ton since then.

  I turned back to my camera, focused on the scene, and Lauren raised Kit’s hand as if she was waving. I snapped a shot. Then she raised it again a bit higher. “Each time we move Kit, we take another picture,” I explained. “When we edit all the shots together, it will look like Kit is moving. But if we move Kit too quickly, the stop-motion will look really jerky. We want the scene to look seamless.”

  “Show them how we map out our stories,” Lauren said, sounding excited. She was getting as into our vlogs as I was.

  I pointed my webcam at a dry-erase board in the open cabinet attached to my desk. “Stop-motion videos need twelve pictures per second. So for a one-minute video, that’s more than seven hundred shots! It’s easy to get off track or forget something. That’s why I map it all out first.”

  I zoomed in on a second whiteboard, which had lots of words written in different colors and pictures I’d cut out from magazines.

  “This is my Brainstorm Board,” I explained. “It’s where the magic happens. You never know when inspiration will strike! Once I have my ideas and my storyboard, I put together a list of all the steps I have to take—like making props, sets, costumes, and editing—to create an awesome video. Just remember: A good director is nothing without her crew. Sometimes they look at things in a way you didn’t even think of.”

  I reached over and grabbed a piece of caramel popcorn from the bowl Lauren was holding. “Like this,” I said. “Lauren had the idea to use caramel popcorn for ‘gold.’” I popped the piece in my mouth.

  “After we’re finished with our last few shots today, we’ll layer in Kit’s narration on how the gold rush led to the creation of the state of California.”

  “The movie is only five minutes long, but we’ve been working on it for three weeks,” Lauren said.

  “Making videos takes time,” I told our viewers, “but it’s worth it when the video turns out awesome!”

  I caught a glimpse of myself on the monitor and suddenly had one of those “I can’t believe I’m doing this” moments. A year ago, I never imagined I’d be a vlogger. Or that I’d have thousands of subscribers watching my AGSM videos or my “On Set with Me, Z!” videos. It all started one day when my friend Mariela was over. We were watching a video of a cat doing somersaults and a WATCH NEXT link popped up. I clicked on it and it was a stop-motion film featuring American Girl dolls. Lauren, Mari, and I had been making up stories with our American Girl dolls for years, but we’d never thought about filming them before. I showed my mom, who is a filmmaker herself, and she agreed I should try it.

  That night I made my first stop-motion video. It was called “Samantha and the Saga of the Dropped Ice Cream Cone.” After that, I was hooked. Now my American Girl stop-motion videos have hundreds of thousands of views, and Mom says not a day goes by without me filming something—even if it’s just our mail carrier making a delivery!

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  What was that sound?

  Lauren and I turned around. Popcorn’s head was buried in our gold. She’d eaten every last kernel! She looked up and wagged her tail. Lauren and I burst out laughing.

  “Oh, Popcorn!” I scratched her behind her ears. “You’re calling break time, huh?” I turned my webcam back toward myself. “I guess that’s a wrap. Z Crew out!”

  After dinner, I would do a quick edit of the vlog footage from the shoot and then show it to Mom and Dad. They viewed all my vlogs before I posted them. “Once you put something online for everyone to see, you can never take it back,” Dad was always reminding me.

  I helped Lauren pick up the props and put them safely in my closet so Popcorn couldn’t trample (or eat!) them again. Kit got a place of honor on my bookshelf with the other dolls who’d already had their star turns in my AGSM videos.

  Ping!

  A n
ew e-mail notification popped up on my computer. I slid into my purple desk chair and clicked on the e-mail. “No. Way,” I said aloud.

  It was from the CloudSong Seattle Film Festival. The festival had a young filmmaker contest that I’d entered on a whim last month just to see if I could get in. I could feel my heart race. “Lauren, pinch me!”

  “What’s wrong?” Lauren’s voice was panicked. “Did today’s video not save?”

  That was always her biggest fear. It was one of my mine, too, second only to a movie critic someday giving one of my films only one star.

  “The video is fine, but read this e-mail and tell me if I’m dreaming!” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  Lauren leaned over my shoulder. “We are pleased to accept Suzanne Yang into the CloudSong Seattle Film Festival Young Filmmakers’ Contest to create a short documentary film for this year’s festival!” she read, using my real name, Suzanne. Everyone calls me Z, but I use my full name for report cards or contests that require your legal name—like this one!

  “Z! This is HUGE!” Lauren clapped my shoulder. “It says they want you to create a ten-minute film about your life in Seattle and the top two films will be shown at the festival.” She kept reading and then poked me. “First prize is fifteen hundred dollars!”

  “I can’t believe I got in.” I felt dazed. “I get to make a real movie.”

  Lauren gave me a look. “You already make real movies.” She motioned toward my camera and Brainstorm Board. “You’re a great filmmaker.”

  I grinned. “We’re great filmmakers,” I said, because, after all, we were a team. “But this is legit!” I quickly read more of the e-mail. “It even says the CloudSong Festival gives you a grant: three hundred dollars to rent film equipment for my video or to get permits for shooting around Seattle.”

  Lauren’s eyes widened. “How long do you have?”

  “Six weeks.” It wasn’t much time, but I could already see the movie coming together in my head. I knew I could do this, even if a teensy part of me was panicked because I’d never been part of anything this big before.

  “I bet you can do it in five,” Lauren said confidently.

  Lauren was not only my best friend: She was my own personal cheerleader. And her whole soccer team’s. She was our middle school’s star player, but she also always made sure everyone she played with knew they were MVPs, too.

  “I guess I should go downstairs. My dad will be here any minute. I still have math homework to do, and I am not looking forward to two pages of multiplying fractions.” Lauren’s mouth curled into a deep frown. I knew how hard she worked for her good grades.

  “Want to work on our math homework together?” I asked.

  “It’s okay. I’ll wait till I get home.” Lauren hefted her backpack. Her favorite soccer ball, a neon-green-and-black one, hung from the mesh sack on the front. She grinned suddenly. “Want to send a quick video message to Mari, Gigi, and Becka to tell them your big news?”

  “Let’s do it!” I answered, grabbing my cell phone. The two of us sat down on my bed. Popcorn bounded up behind us and stuck her nose between our shoulders. The three of us just fit into the small frame. I hit RECORD, and then we made a series of funny faces and poses (well, Popcorn didn’t). “Lauren and I are celebrating! I have something major to tell you guys when we chat tomorrow!” Then I sent the video to our group chat.

  This was my big break. I could feel it. And I couldn’t wait to share the news with my friends.

  Dad had made kimchi stew for dinner (a Korean dish his grandmother had taught him to make with pork, scallions, vegetables, and tofu). As we settled in around the table, Mom shared the highlights from her day. She had worn her long black hair down, and I could see her work lanyard still around her neck. My mom teaches film, but also makes her own movies. She’s usually the first person I bounce ideas off of. I may have inherited my dad’s sometimes quirky sense of humor, but I got my love of filmmaking from my mom.

  Sharing the highs and the lows from our day was our nightly family tradition, but Mom had jumped in before I could break the exciting news about CloudSong. I had so much to tell them! Without realizing it, I started tapping my spoon against my bowl as Mom talked about the university film study class she was teaching.

  “And one of the students had never seen the original Star Wars films, can you believe it?” she said. Then she noticed my excitement. “Z?” She glanced at the spoon that I was using like a drumstick. I immediately stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “My good news tonight is huge and if I don’t tell you soon, I may explode.”

  “Well, we don’t want that to happen,” Dad said, looking at me over the top of his glasses. Mom nodded. “Tell us.”

  I took a deep breath. I could hear the ticktock of the cuckoo clock, which had been in my mother’s family for more than a hundred years (and came all the way from Korea in my great-grandmother’s suitcase!).

  “I got accepted into the CloudSong Seattle Film Festival Young Filmmakers’ Contest!” I said so quickly it almost sounded like one long word. Mom dropped her spoon. “They’re giving me three hundred dollars to make a short film about Seattle!”

  “That’s incredible!” Dad cheered. Popcorn jumped up and down next to the table and barked to be part of the conversation.

  Mom reached her hand across the table. Her eyes were teary. “I am so proud of you! Our Z—a real filmmaker.”

  “Should I be nervous?” I asked. “I’m flipping out!” They laughed.

  Mom nodded. I could already see her filmmaker mind at work. “Of course you are. This is a big deal!”

  “Tell us more about the grant,” Dad said, running a hand through his black hair. “What’s your deadline? Do you need our help at all?”

  Dad was so organized. Being an aerospace engineer, he had to be. He helped design airplanes for a living and was always working on a bunch of projects at the same time. I quickly filled them in on the contest rules and details.

  Dad listened carefully, drumming his fingers on the table. “Seattle … hmm … that’s a lot to cover in one documentary.”

  “I guess so,” I said. I looked at Mom. “I’m still just so surprised that I even got this grant.”

  Mom grabbed a pen from the buffet table behind us. “Dad’s right. Movies need a clear story or they get messy. You’ll have to decide what your vision is.”

  I nodded. “Well, I’m not sure if this counts as a vision, but I guess I would want everyone to see Seattle like I do—as the greatest city in the world.”

  “Now you’re talking!” said Dad. “What makes it so great?”

  I thought for a moment. “I like that I can walk Popcorn down the block or go paddleboarding on Lake Union.”

  Mom wrote the idea down on her napkin.

  Now that it was spring, we’d be able to take our two-seater sea kayak back out. Which also meant … “And flying kites on Kite Hill.” Mom wrote that down, too.

  “Don’t forget Mount Rainier National Park,” Dad added. “We hike there at least once a month.”

  “And Seward Park is great for bike riding. Lauren and I love when you take us there.”

  Mom handed Dad the pen, and he wrote both ideas down. Ten minutes later, both sides of the napkin were full. The list had grown to our top fifteen places that made Seattle home. And I was only getting started! I couldn’t wait to run upstairs and start writing things down on my Brainstorm Board.

  “You’re excused,” Mom said, the second I finished my last bite of stew and gave her a pleading look.

  “Thank you!”

  I ran upstairs with Popcorn on my heels and hopped onto the computer to research which landmarks required permits for filming. I’d barely started when my phone pinged with group text messages from my friends.

  MARIELA: Z!! What’s the big news?

  GIGI: Lauren?! Can you tell us?

  LAUREN: It’s your news, Z, not mine!

  BECKA: Tell us! Tell us! Tell
us!

  I started to laugh. I quickly typed back.

  Z: Okay, I’ll tell you guys. Drumroll, please …

  MARIELA: WAIT. I’m coming over! I want to hear this in person!

  GIGI: Hurry, Mari!

  While I waited for Mari to arrive from the house next door, I wrote down some notes. Gum Wall close-up—gross or cool? Include the Beanery! Must show everyone Queen Anne Hill. That was my neighborhood. It sat on the highest peak in the city, northwest of downtown Seattle. I loved eating at outdoor restaurants with my parents and going biking with Mariela. Ooh! Maybe I could wear my GoPro camera and film Seattle by bike, too! I jotted that idea down as well. I heard a knock at my door, and Popcorn started barking, wagging her tail madly to welcome our visitor.

  “Come in!” I yelled, spinning around in my chair.

  “Whatisitwhatisitwhatisit,” Mariela said quickly as she bent down to pet Popcorn then rushed over to my desk. Her cheeks were flushed like she’d been jogging, but she looked ready for the runway in a slouchy white scarf that she’d paired with a cute, fringed navy shirt and bright green skinny jeans. I’d never think to put those items together, but they looked great on Mari, especially the white scarf against her bronze skin and curly black hair. She plopped down on my bed, and a stack of beaded bracelets on her arm slid down to her wrist, sounding like a wind chime. “You can’t tease me like this! What’s your big news?”

  Mari is my oldest friend in the world. She’s the one who started calling me Z when I was a toddler and it stuck. She’s one year older and in a cool band, but she still finds time to play official fashion consultant for Lauren and me on our AGSM videos. (Kit had Mari to thank for her rocking knit hat and sweater with jeans in our California gold rush video.)

  “Hmm …” I scratched my head. “I don’t know if I’m ready to spill the beans yet.” Mari’s jaw dropped and I laughed. “I’m just kidding! Get over here so that we can chat with Becka and Gigi.” I waved her to my desk.

  I quickly set up a video chat, and soon saw little moving images of my friends staring back at me from the computer screen.