Page 49 of Outside the Lines
I hadn’t realized all the stuff they show in movies about films was real, but we gotRoll CameraandCamera Speedand the guy with one of those boards that claps down—though after he read out the scene, he didn’t snap it shut—his hand was in the way.
“Watch the model,” Ian said into my ear.
“Set.”
“Action!” Anna’s voice.
At first, there was nothing, then a sizzling pop and the whole set exploded spectacularly, with sparks and flames and fire licking everywhere. Elation and sadness rammed into me. There were the torches I’d painted and the moss I’d glued on and the trees I’d helped piece back together—all gone.
“Cut!” Anna yelled. “Print it.”
The guy with the extinguisher hosed down the burning set and a collective sigh moved over the crew. A few people clapped. I must have had quite the expression, because Ian stroked the back of my neck. “It’s all right. This is what we built it for.”
“But—” I hadn’t expected the anguish of loss, the stab of hurt when I peered at the ruined remains. “How do you do this all the time?”
Ian pressed the side of his body against mine and rubbed between my shoulder blades. “I don’t. A lot of the sets aren’t blown up, but they are taken apart eventually. I’ll need pieces elsewhere, or there’s no space or—any number of reasons.” He gave my arm a squeeze with his other hand, and I realized he was holding me because I was shaking. “It’s all ephemeral. Except for what ends up in the final product on film.”
I didn’t likeephemeral. I wanted things that lasted. “I don’t think I could do that, watch the work . . . vanish.”
“But it doesn’t.” Ian let me go enough to walk me toward Anna’s tent of monitors. “Excuse me, Anna?”
She turned and focused on me and whatever Ian had been going to ask was waved away. “Come take a look at the scene,” she said.
I watched it again, from multiple angles; the sacred grove being destroyed, just as it had been in the books.
“In less than a year, a whole hell of a lot of people will gasp and cry at that,” Anna said, “because you helped make it possible to put it on their screen.”
“And they’ll buy the Blu-ray,” Hunter said, “and make gifs that will play forever.” He’d come up next to us.
I choked out a laugh. “We’re gonna be a meme!”
Hunter’s smile turned serious. “How’d you feel when I destroyed the grove in the book?”
I thought back to that. “Horrible. I mean, you’d been hinting all along.” I sighed and peered at the debris they were now dumping into a big trash bin on wheels. “I get attached to stuff.”
“Everyone does.” Hunter got this weird smile. “We writers like to exploit that and make you suffer for it.”
Anna snorted. “Writers are sadists.”
“So are directors,” Hunter said. “That’s why we get along so well.”
Anna gave him a look that would have scared me to death, but only made Hunter grin. “Anyone have any questions?” Her voice said she expected all of us to say no, but one question still prodded at my mind.
“I do.”
They all stared at me, and Ian gave my arm a gentle squeeze.
“That guy with the clapper-board thing—”
“Slate,” Anna said.
“It’s supposed to snap shut, right?” I mimicked the motion. “But he had his hand in the way. Why?”
Anna blinked. “Oh!” Obviously, that was not a question she’d been expecting. “To indicate we weren’t rolling sound. The clap of the slate is to sync the sound in production, but with this, we’ll mix the explosions and music in later.”
That made sense. “Thanks. I didn’t mean to hit you with film 101 questions.”
She rubbed her forehead. “That was somewhat refreshing. But if you’ll excuse me—”
