New Writings in SF 4 - [Anthology]

by Edited By John Carnell

  * * * *

  Look, Doc, don’t bother with intros there isn’t time. I’m Johnny Harper, I’m a guy who makes films, that’ll do. Doc, I’m in bad trouble. I got something stuck down inside my head and I got to get it out. Can you fix that for me, Doc? Have you got a machine can reach into a guy’s brain and find a thing that shouldn’t be there and snap it out by the roots, have you got a machine can do that...

  I’m not crazy, Doc, honest to God I know what I’m saying, you’ve got to help. Look, I’ll give you the whole story from when it started then you’ll know I’m not crazy, you’ll know what to do....

  Have you got a girl can take shorthand? Well, get this down yourself then. Don’t argue, man, get a pad or something and get this down, it’s the most important thing you ever heard. Get a name first. Freddy Keeler. Take that down right now, he’s the guy that matters. It all started with Freddy, blast his Goddam soul...

  He’s studio projectionist, shows all the rushes. Well, that’s part of his job, the rest’s secret. I’m telling you about it so you’ll know what to do with Freddy—

  What? What studio? Oh God—No, Doc, I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t say. Hill Studio, the people who make the Little Andy films. You know Little Andy, everybody knows Little Andy ... you don’t see television? Then I’ll tell you, you’re the luckiest guy alive.

  Doc, Hill Studio’s the biggest thing in the business. Six months ago we were broke. Bust, flat, finished. We’d fired off all our staff, and all we had left were the two partners, J. B. March and Jeff Holroyd, and little Freddy and Connie the secretary, Connie the lion I called her. And me, stooging round with a director’s ticket and nothing to direct. Just five of us and the red light was burning for everybody and I was plenty worried, the state the trade was in ex-directors were going to be a drug on the market.

  We’d started up along with ten hundred other little units about the time commercial television got going and we’d outlasted most of the rest. J.B. was smart, he saw to it right from the start we’d got more than one string to our bow, we did animated cartoon, we did stop-frame and special effects and we’d got a good name for live action. When the big slump happened we carried on making films for the Far East and Germany, then we began to feel the pinch and we had to start laying people off. A year ago we’d got fifty staff, then it came down to twenty, then ten, then like I said it was just a handful of us hanging on the best way we could. I knew the axe was going to swing again soon and Connie wasn’t taking enough out the firm to make it worth firing her, and, anyway, you got to keep a smart-looking popsy in the front office because the rest of the boys expect it, so I knew it was Freddy or me that had to go.

  I went along to see J.B. I didn’t get on too good with Jeff, he was a sort of emotional type, always getting worked up, but I got on fine with J.B., you knew where you were with him. Arguing with him was like playing Russian Roulette with half the chambers loaded, but if you knew how to sort of smooth him along you were O.K. I went into his office, I said, “J.B. I’m worried about old Freddy. You know he’s a great guy, but I’m sort of worried about him.”

  He looked at me like he’d heard it before, he said, “So you want him out, Johnny.”

  I lit a cigarette. I said, “Projectionist’s not much good with no films to show.”

  J.B. got nasty. “Director’s no better off with none to direct.” I could see this was one of his bad mornings, he’d been married a few years and there weren’t any kids, and some days his wife gave him Hell, you know how it goes, Doc. I said “I’ll put it to him nice, J.B. He won’t hardly feel a thing.”

  He shrugged. “O.K., Johnny, but do it nice, you know? He’s a nice little guy, I like Freddy a lot.”

  I said, “I promise you my face will be wet with tears.” I made for the door and J.B. called me back. He said, “Funny thing, Johnny, he draws pictures. You ever see one of his pictures ?”

  I didn’t get it. “So what, what’s that, J.B.?”

  He said, “Get him to draw you one. Did one for me, they’re pretty good. I was thinking we could use them but ... that’s the way it goes.”

  The idea struck me funny. “What does he draw, Snow White and the Dwarfs, or is it grown-up stuff for the lavatory wall?”

  He glared at me. “Just get him to draw. And don’t push too hard, Johnny, could be he’s more use than you.”

  I got out.

  After that I had to play it safe, so I ran Freddy down in the pub where he got his lunch. He was standing up at the bar when I went in, he was scoffing a sandwich and a pint of beer. He’s a little guy, Doc, sort of thin on top, fiftyish, wears hornrim glasses. He’s nothing to look at. I went up and clapped him on the back, I said, “Hello, Freddy, what’s new?”

  He looked at me like he was going to choke. I reckon he knew why I was there. He said, “You want to see me, Mr. Harper?”

  I whistled up a beer for myself and paid for another for him. I said, “I do, Freddy, I do. I want to sort of have a quick talk. Things aren’t too good, Freddy, but believe me they could be worse, they could be a lot worse.” I got hold of his arm and steered him to a table. God, I get tired of soft-talking punks like Freddy, when a guy’s through he’s through, that’s all he needs to know. But I did it slow, the J.B. way. I said, “The boss tells me you’re a bit of an artist, Freddy boy, I didn’t know.” I figured from that I could get round to the fact that he was soon going to need a spare profession.

  He shook his head. He said no he wasn’t an artist, he couldn’t draw worth a damn. He just made images.

  Doc, cinema operators are a funny lot. They stand all their lives watching films through a little square of glass, after a time it gets them so they’re no good for nothing else. They’re queer, Doc, they get things on the brain. All sorts of things. Freddy had spent years watching Images flicker about and jump up and down, he’d got to think Images all day and all night long...

  No don’t get me wrong, Doc, not pictures, Images. That was how he explained it to me, he said a film director, say Hitchcock, anybody you want to name, is always worrying consciously or subconsciously about Images, trying to get some shape on the screen that’ll help the actors along, make you feel what’s going on. He said that was what a good film was, not a lot of shots of actors and such, but a set of Images that made you feel what you were supposed to. He said it was done with the picture composition and the lighting and everything. And he said, for instance, if you saw every thriller ever made and studied them all over and over you could work out a shape from all the Images all the directors had ever used, and the shape would sort of represent fear, all on its own. He said if you drew it and showed it to a guy he’d get scared to death and he wouldn’t know why. He said if the Image was right it would sort of lock onto his mind and make him feel whatever it meant. He said it was possible to make an Image for every emotion, every one in the book, once you’d got the hang of drawing them.

  You know I thought that was pretty smart. Coming from a guy like Freddy it was a pretty smart idea. It was crazy, but it got me interested. It even took my mind off why I was there. I said, “Freddy, I can see you’ve been doing some solid thinking.” I grinned. I said, “Just for kicks, can you draw these Images yourself, or is it still in the theory stage?”

  He sort of stared at me. He said, “Oh no, Mr. Harper, I can draw them all right. It took me years to find them all out, but I can draw them now. Any sort of Image you want.”

  That wasn’t what I’d expected. I stopped laughing and wondered just how nutty he was, anyway. I said, “Er ... yeah. Look these Images, Freddy, they take long to do?”

  He shook his head. “It’s dead quick. Easy when you know how.”

  I said, “O.K., Freddy, I’ll try you out. You make me one of them. Let’s have that fear thing to start with, you scare me to death.”

  He got a pen out of his pocket and smoothed a paper napkin. He started to draw. The ink ran in blots, when he’d finished it just looked a mess. I said, “Sorry, Freddy, I mus
t be thick-skinned. Doesn’t do a thing for me.”

  He was very eager. “Give it a chance, Mr. Harper, sometimes they have to sort of grow on you. You keep looking at it, you’ll feel what it means. Honest, Mr. Harper.”

  Well, what the Hell, I was humouring the guy, wasn’t I ? I picked the thing up and leaned back in my chair and held it up in front of my face. I stared at it for maybe five seconds and then-

  I was on my feet and the napkin was screwed up and thrown in an ashtray, and I couldn’t remember doing it. I was trembling. I said, “Christ in Heaven ...” Then things came back into focus a bit and I saw a couple of guys staring at me and I sat down again, but I was still feeling pretty bad. I said, “O.K., Freddy, what’s the gag?”

  He looked worried. He said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Harper, I really am... it gets you, don’t it? I can’t see ‘em myself, they won’t work for me, but I know what they do, I should have told you.”

  I lit a cigarette. I felt I needed it. I said, “I asked you, what’s the gag?”

  “No gag, sir, honest. It’s the drawing. It’s a sort of trick.”

  I shook my head. “You’re a liar. That’s crazy.”

  He reached for the napkin. “Honest, Mr. Harper, it’s in the d—”

  I knocked his hand away. I didn’t want that napkin unrolled again. I said, “All right, Freddy, so I buy it. Can you do it every time?”

  He sort of smirked. Like a guy who’s spent twenty years on some damn fool model boat, showing it off and getting praised. He said, “Every time, Mr. Harper. You say what you want, I’ll make you an Image.”

  I said, “Happiness, Freddy. Can you make an Image can make me laugh?”

  He picked the pen up again and started to draw, and the result of that was on the way back to the studio I had to stop every twenty yards or so and wipe my eyes. People must have thought I was crazy.

  In the end, of course, I didn’t fire him, I wish to God I had....

  * * * *

  I sat in my office all the rest of that day smoking and thinking about what I’d seen. I knew I was on to the biggest thing in showbiz, but I couldn’t see a way to use it. You couldn’t make a film just of Images, nobody would watch it. And even if they did, if they got what I’d got they wouldn’t be back for any more. Freddy’s gimmick was the smartest thing I’d seen, but it didn’t help Hill Studios out of the mire one little bit.

  You know how it is when you’ve got something in the back of your mind but it just won’t form out? I kept thinking there was some way we could use this crazy talent. I got high that night because I knew unless I came up with a dilly of an idea we wouldn’t last the month, and it didn’t seem I’d got an idea in my head. I got back to my flat about midnight, I lay on the divan and kicked my shoes off and put the light out, and in time the room stopped revolving and I dozed. Next thing I knew it was dawn and I was sitting up shouting Hallelujah. I’d solved it and there wasn’t much standing between me and my first million.

  I got up and hunted out a drawing-board and some instruments. I was trained as a draughtsman once, Doc, I can set an idea down on paper so it’ll work. I made myself some coffee to clear my head, then I started to draw and by mid-morning I’d got all I wanted, I fetched the car and drove down to the studio like Hell.

  I walked in on J.B., he was dictating to Connie. Jeff wasn’t around. I banged my stuff on the desk. I said, “J.B., this will not wait.”

  He started to get wound up. “I’ve been waiting since nine this bloody morning, where the Hell you been—and get that crap off my desk and get out, I’m busy—”

  I held the door open. I said, “Connie, suddenly you remembered you just had to powder your nose.” She looked at me like she’d get a kick out of putting arsenic in my soup, but she scrammed. J.B. got up. He was real mad. He said “By Christ, Johnny, but this has to be so very good.”

  “It is good. Now look at these, J.B., and knock it off, I’ve just made us a million apiece...”

  “What in Hell are they?”

  I said, “Drawings for God’s sake, mods to a projector. Sub-lim—”

  I guess he’d got a right to blow his top because up to that time sub-lim was a dirty joke. He yelled at me, “What we going to say then, you got it scripted? How about ‘buy our films’ or ‘best British studio’, that’s a good slogan, Johnny, that’s great. Now this is just about the craziest way you ever lost a job—”

  I just yelled louder. Beat him down. “We don’t say anything for Chrissake, we use Freddy’s Images....”

  He stopped dead with his mouth open and his finger still waving round at me. He said, “What? Johnny, what did you say?”

  I said, “I looked at his stuff like you told me. It took an hour to get it out of my system. If I’m not careful I can still remember it.”

  He said, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He sat down and pulled one of the drawings across the desk. He said, “What’s this, Johnny?”

  Do you know about sub-lim, Doc? There was a big row about it four, five years back. Somebody said it was unethical. That was a joke because it never worked, anyway, they didn’t use it right.

  Look, I’d better tell you about this, you’ve got to get the picture. The ad boys worked it out that if you took a word, say a product name, and flashed it on a screen too fast for the eye to pick it up, the guy on the receiving end wouldn’t know he was being pressurized, but he’d get the message, anyway, sub-liminally. The idea was great, trouble was getting a thing on the screen and off again quick enough. They tried it, tried it on television. I know because I damn well saw it. Doc, film speed through a projector gate is twenty-four frames a second, twenty-five for television to help the scanning. And that isn’t fast enough. They’d overprinted single frames and you could read them as they went through, it wasn’t sub-lim at all.

  My idea got round all that. What I’d designed was a second optical system with a film gate and all that we could strap alongside the projector mute head. I hadn’t sorted all the details, but I knew what I wanted and I knew it would work. There was a second intermittent movement geared to a stop-frame assembly, cans to hold a spare film roll... and behind the gate, try to see this, Doc, behind the gate a lamp housing with an electronic flash. You know you can get those things to fire down to thousandths of a second ? Using the rig we could pump in rogue pictures whenever we wanted and nobody would be any the wiser. And we didn’t have any junky product-names to play with, we had Freddy’s Images. I wish I could draw one for you. Doc, but Freddy’s the only guy can do that. I can’t even remember what they look like, all I know is if they say laugh you laugh, and if they say cry, by God you cry...

  When I’d done, J.B. just sat and looked at the drawings. Then he said, “It’s great, Johnny. The greatest thing ever. For cinema. But television?”

  I was prancing round the office, I couldn’t keep still. I said, “Why not the little screens, J.B., don’t electrons move fast enough no more ? Strap a unit on the telecine gear, rig a prism behind the lens, slam the Images straight through the camera...”

  He licked his lips. “They wouldn’t touch it. They wouldn’t dare.”

  I walked back to him and put the palms of my hands on the desk and stared him in the eyes. I said, “We make up a pilot. We get some of the boys down to see it. We run it with sub-lim. The Images tell ‘em they love it. They tell them how much to pay. How much do we want to make apiece, J.B., got any ideas?”

  And that’s how Little Andy was born...

  You don’t know who Little Andy is do you, Doc? Oh yeah, I forgot, you don’t see the Lantern. But, Doc, if you did, it wouldn’t make no difference. Nobody knows who Little Andy is, Doc. They just know they love him, that’s all. Is he a puppet? They don’t know. Is he a real live actor? They don’t know. Is he a cartoon? They don’t know, Doc, but they laugh when Little Andy laughs, they cry when Little Andy cries. He’s all that matters, they know he’s real. The Images tell them, that’s sub-lim...

  I started on my prototype that same day.
I got in a couple of guys I needed, I had to promise them plenty. I didn’t know where the money was coming from and I didn’t care. That was J.B.’s worry, I had troubles of my own.

  We only had one projector in the place then, the Kalee Twelve in the viewing theatre. I planned to use that for the experimental hookup. I scrounged a lens and we fitted a bracket to carry it just above the mute gate. The stop-frame unit wasn’t so easy, we had to rob a linetest camera and adapt the parts to fit. I’d intended to run it from the mech, but when we got down to it breaking into the geartrain was a major job, so we settled for a spare motor strapped up behind the top spoolbox and rigged a flexible link to the camera drive. The flash was no problem, one of the boys built up a unit and we made a housing out of tinplate and hitched it on behind our auxiliary head. Then we made up the cans to hold the filmstrip and it all looked a crazy mess, but mechanically it was O.K.

  Freddy hung round all the time, fussing like an old hen. I told him we wanted to try out his Images just for kicks, he was pleased as Hell. I set him onto producing a range of stuff to cover every emotion I could think of, all the subtle things like worry and hope. And I got him to grade them down a bit. The thing he’d shown me, that had upset me plenty. I didn’t want to frighten people to death, just glue ‘em to the screens. He brought the work in the morning after I asked him, I looked through it and it was great. I took time out to set up one of the rostrum cameras and get the whole lot on film. I did my own processing. I didn’t want any little prying eyes seeing what we were doing till we were ready to hit the market.