Page 62 of The Cut
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JUNE 2024
Max drove along Vista Del Mar to Manhattan Beach on autopilot, racing the surfers riding waves into the Santa Monica Bay. Access to the ILM studio was through a friend at Disney and Lucasfilm who owed him a favour. The sound stage, initially built forObi-WanandThe Mandalorian, was no longer in use, but Max had the skills to work The Volume alone. The coast road from Marina del Rey took him to the very edge of the sea and the end of the runway of LAX. A crowd of surfers and beachcombers had gathered to film an incoming A380 that skimmed the tide, its engines blasting so close you could see the passengers’ faces in the windows. Max checked the side pocket of his carry-on for his passport. After he finished up at the end of the day, he would head to departures.
‘Hey, Letitia.’
The glamorous receptionist on the desk of Industrial Light & Magic wore sliders and cut-off denim shorts. She gave Max a huge grin and the grills on her teeth sparkled. ‘Hey, Mr Crow, long time no see.’ She sucked on a straw from an enormous plastic cup. ‘I got it all set up in there for ya.’
Max dumped his bag behind the desk. ‘Thanks for coming in on a Saturday.’
‘Of course, Larry said it was for you so …’ Letitia flicked her braided dreads over her shoulder. ‘Just so ya know, I don’t have anyone on Brain Bar to help run the program though.’
‘All good, I’m not shooting today, just reviewing.’ Max pulled his laptop from his bag. ‘You’re a star.’236
‘Well, ya’ll need anything, just holla.’ She clamped her glossy lips to the straw and her eyes returned to the screen of her phone.
The Volume was all set; the footage he had sent over digitally was loaded on to the multiple screens that formed the state-of-the-art immersive sound stage. They were nearly there in the rough cut, but there were still crucial pieces missing.
Max set up his laptop and ran the program that would hold his footage in the system. The surrounding light bleed outside The Volume faded to black as the first image ofTheCutformed in three dimensions around him. He stepped out into the space about the size of a tennis court as the opening scenes of the film began. The silhouette of the mill was almost exactly as it was back then. Max breathed in deeply, holding his nerve. It was as if he was stepping back there. He made a mental note to extend the tower just a little bit higher than it really was, make the river just a little wider; everything needed to be exaggerated.
The assembly was seamless. Max stood at the very centre of the action, as if it was playing in real time around him. On the football field he ran with the players, he flinched as punches flew, ducking and diving through fight after fight. The blood and the aftermath all around him in a virtual backdrop. Then he lay on his belly in the terrifying darkness of Pen y Fan and the camping trip with the unseen monster in the woods. His heart raced as he chased through the fairground into the Mouth of Hell and felt the heat of the fire.
Max grounded his feet into the concrete floor as the image on the huge LED screen began to rock like a seesaw. Nate was on the rope swing tied to the branch of a tree overhanging the brook at Cheney End. A ripple of laughter and the sound of splashing kids enjoying the sunshine blended with the choral high notes of the choir on the soundtrack.237
‘OFF, OFF, OFF!’ Nate’s exhilarated face, flushed with energy, turned to the camera. ‘MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE!’
The camera moved slowly up the rope to the knot attached to the creaking branch, bending under the strain of the boy’s weight. Max knew what was coming next and he braced himself.
Nate’s face grew larger in the frame as he swung towards the camera. The director had dropped into monochrome, close on a mouth wide open in a silent scream, a moment of pure expressionism that would hold up to Murnau’sNosferatu. The image slowed to fifty frames per second … and the branch broke.
Max watched in horror as the rope twanged from the splitting wood. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing: did they actually do this, or was it a stunt? Nate couldn’t swim, he’d confessed as much in his audition tape; surely Karine knew that? He plunged headfirst into the river. Max’s whole body juddered as Nate hit the water, and he gasped for air as if he himself was going under. As the camera panned across the surface, Max followed the river from one screen to the next. It was all around him, a continuous turbulent flood. He moved with the current along the bank, as if he was right there, waiting for Nate to resurface, but he was gone. The shot cut to a black screen, then a countdown to the next take.
Max crouched down and caught his breath. His heart thumping in his chest, he knew what was coming next. The story needed Annie’s journey from the minute she left home that night, all the way to the school. He wanted to track everything that had happened after that, moment by moment. Every single detail of that missing half an hour when Annabel Maddock had disappeared had to be revealed for the story to be complete.
Out of the darkness, a thin silhouette stepped into a half-light, and black became grey, bleeding into the soft orange hue of the evening. She was moving fast but the camera was steadier this238time, tracking from feet to legs, to spine, closing in on the back of her neck. Max followed her slowly, pacing across the space that led him deep into that dark alley. His heart raced; the emotional recall was almost too much to bear. He stopped as her hand reached out to caress the fence. Max reached out along with her, fingers gently brushing the climbing ivy, covered with cream-coloured flowers. Max closed his eyes. He could feel the metal fence on his fingertips turn to wood. He opened his eyes as Lily Knot, the girl playing Annabel, drifted through the shot in white chiffon, floating like an angel. She was heading up The Cut towards the school, full of excitement for their prom. Max followed her.
‘Turn around. Let me see you.’ He stepped in closer to the LED wall.
The image distorted and he backed off a little. Karine was good. This was exactly what she had intended; she wanted the audience to crane their heads to see the face of the protagonist. But she was denying them the satisfaction. Max exhaled as a sudden wave of guilt rose into his throat.
He closed his eyes and stood in the darkness, steadying himself. This had been a long time coming. He wasn’t prepared for the surge of emotion that was flooding his body; it was a completely physical reaction to the immersion of The Volume. He wanted to crumple into the concrete floor; his stomach felt hollow and his heart ached for her. The girl on the screen.
The cuts of the penultimate act before the finale had been partially recreated, just as they had planned.
Nate’s Marty McFly costume was convincing but the angle from the top of the tower looking down into the car park was shot against a green screen. Max tapped the keys of the computer and The Volume shifted sideways across the vast LED wall to a239clearing on the other side of the river. It was a plate shot from the actual location at Blackstone Mill. That’s where the car would need to be parked.
An eruption of sound and an impressive burst of fireworks from stock footage filled all four walls of The Volume. Max looked down at his hands and arms as his whole body was covered in the reflections of the glittering fire. A car alarm sounded, screaming over the explosion of a thunderclap. Max’s hands flew to cover his ears as all four screens slammed to black. Max stood in the darkness waiting, his heart racing erratically in his chest. Every cell in his body was back there, remembering every impulse of that fateful night.
Slowly, the screen began to fade up, into an extreme close-up of a pair of eyes. As the camera pulled back, the pixelated face became clearer.
Although she was older now, there was still something so familiar about her features, the sad smile that he had known so well. Her hair was cut into a bob and streaked with silver, framing her delicate features, but the kind sad eyes that stared back at him sent a shudder of recognition through Max. Deep in the pit of his stomach there lingered a profound sense of guilt.
Her married name was Carter, but back then he had known her as Catherine Maddock.240
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