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Cut! That’s a wrap, people.
Every single person on set relaxed their
muscles. The shooting had been going on for three months, and they were simply
exhausted. Besides, being in such a fantastic place was too good and perfect to
be there only working. It was a large forest, almost like the ones in fairy
tales, with perfect pine trees and rocks of all forms and shapes.
The shooting had been going on among some of
these trees, in an area where they grew a little bit more separated from each
other than in the rest of the forest. The trailers and camp in general was
located not very far, around a large lake that was almost perfectly round. The
sound of birds and other animals came from the farthest places; it was as if
you could hear forever.
The lead actress, a beautiful young woman by
the name of Samantha Hart, was the first one to return to her trailer. She was
accompanied by the costumer designer, some makeup people and her personal
assistant. She had to remove every single thing belonging to the movie in order
to be able to rest in peace for the first time in several days. It wasn’t
strange that all actors were wearing heavy makeup to conceal the traces of
their lack of sleeping time.
Otto Fröm was the name of the director, a big
man, tall and fat with a beard that covered half his face. Although he was a
very nice person as a friend and when the cameras were not working, he was
ruthless when making a film. He had a vision for every single thing, for every single
frame of the movie, and he wasn’t going to compromise that for anything in the
world. He just wouldn’t.
He left too for his trailer, to check the
footage of the day with his two assistants and the director of the second unit
that had arrived that very morning. He had been in charge of shooting some
scenes very far, by the coast. They went into the trailer and kept working. For
Fröm there was no resting or peace until he finished his movie. He wasn’t
interested in what the production or distribution companies said. He always
sent one of his assistants to speak on his behalf and his answer to everything
was “When the movie’s done”.
Samantha had already taken everything from
her: the beautiful jewels, the amazing costume and even the tons of makeup that
made her look beautiful. Not that she wasn’t beautiful on her own right but she
was human and she had many flaws. As a matter of fact, she spent several
minutes in front of the mirror, looking at herself. She particularly hated the
freckles that seemed to occupy most of her face. She would have loved to remove
them but that wasn’t possible so she had learned how to conceal them with
makeup.
When every single person had left her, she lay
down for a while in her bed and stared at the ceiling of that tiny space.
Another movie had passed by and now she was technically unemployed again. Well,
only for a couple of weeks until she had to travel to Peru and begin the
production of a new film, a historical depiction of the Inca Empire. She got up
and looked herself in the mirror: she would have to dye her hair and let it
grow longer. Maybe they would force her to use contact lenses because she had
never heard of Incas having blue eyes.
In the woods, however, people were still
working. They were the gaffers and electricians that had to pick it all up,
every cable, light and accessory used in the production of the film. Noah was
one of them, a man aged thirty-five, very strong although not very tall. He had
been working in the business for the last ten years and knew every trick and
technique to help the director of photography to do his job.
That man had already left following the
director, who Noah thought was too obsessed with perfection. In his experience,
he knew some things have better results if they just happen or if they are
improvised. As he gathered several lights boxes, he realized this Fröm guy had
not let any of the actors improvise the scenes. This was very particular as
most of the action scenes Noah had been in, the actors had had the necessity to
improvise because they felt fear of the situation, even if they knew it wasn’t
actually threatening.
In his trailer, Fröm consulted every single
detail of the scenes done that very day. Although he had made the actors repeat
the last scene at least ten times, and it was a very long scene, he felt the
ones that had been done lacked something. He asked the director of photography
but him, being a rather older gentleman, thought it was all perfect and that
postproduction may help him have a more shocking scene.
But Fröm, who was a purist, didn’t really like
all the beautiful things promised by the visual effects people. If he could, he
would avoid them at all costs but the production company had already paid them
to be on the lookout once Fröm delivered his rushes to them. He asked his
assistants if he could shoot the scene again but they told him that most of the
materials used had already being removed from the forest and that it would be
very costly to put them up again for one scene.
The crew organized a small gathering that
night, on the beach of the circular lake, in order to celebrate the end of the
shooting. The director was absent and the lead actress appeared only very late
at night, when most of the people had already gone to bed. They had no way of
drinking alcohol so the party was all about eating the food they hadn’t eaten
for the last few days, as well as several bottles of water and soft drinks. The
producer that was present didn’t object and actually offered to put on some
music from her trailer, were she had a computer with good speakers.
Of course, the amount of noise that could be
done was not very high. Amongst them was a man from the government that had to
ensure the preservation of the site during the shooting. He agreed to the celebration
but made them promise that the music won’t be very loud and that they would
finish it all by midnight. That wasn’t an impediment to have fun for a few
hours, eat a lot and celebrate the end of another day of work.
Seeing she had arrived to late to the party,
Samantha sat down with the makeup people and started chatting amicably with
them. She felt closer to them than anyone else on set as she spent a lot of
time in their quarters. Same with the costume designer and her assistants but
that woman was always so busy that she didn’t seem to have fun doing her work
nor realizing that she could relax once in a while.
They spoke about their families and the beauty
of the place. The lake looked now like a large tar pit, in the blackness of the
night. Eventually they all went to their respective “dormitories” and had the
best night of sleep for weeks.
The
following day, a helicopter arrived to start transporting equipment back to the
nearest city but the director surprised them by announcing that no one was
leaving until they had done the last scene one more time. Every single person
was annoyed and most workers refused, threatening to get their unions involved
in the matter. But the man had received an authorization from the production
company that made them stay another day.
Setting up everything took four hours and the
proper shooting of the last scene last almost that same amount of time. But
this time, one the director had yelled “It’s a wrap now, for good”, they start
dismantling everything so fast that in an hour every single prop and accessory
was put away and on the helicopter.
Samantha left with Fröm on the first
helicopter and Noah had to wait almost until dusk to be able to leave. When in
the air he looked one last time to the forest and the lake and smiled. It was
always fun to enjoy work, even if he had no rest for months or his boss was a
jerk. He loved it all.
