Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

The chain tightened around my heart loosens at the concern evident in his eyes. And even though we’re on set with cords and wires snaking over the floors, cameras all around and even some above, the cast and crew scurrying to prepare for the next scenes, the intimacy of his touch takes me back to my bed, the sheets rumpled by our passion. I put one hand over his caressing my neck.

“I’m fine. I just need to check into that rash.”

He’s seen me naked, obviously, and knows about the rash. It’s still in just a few patches, though, so I’m hoping to keep it that way.

“Oh, yeah. That’s good.” He bends and brushes our lips together. “I miss you.”

I take his bottom lip between mine, nodding and resting my elbows on his powerful shoulders. “Same.”

“One month.” His hands skate down my sides, mold to my waist, and settle low on my hips. “After Santa Barbara, we’ll only have a month left.”

“Like you don’t immediately go into edit mode and all the post-production stuff once we wrap.”

“I do, but it’s a different level of concentration. We can—”

“Places!”

It comes from the real world just beyond our hiding place. Canon drops his forehead to mine and dusts kisses over my temple, my cheek, and finally, places one on my mouth. It’s a possessive kiss fraught with longing and promise and hunger. I lean into it, answer it, open under it, inviting him in, but there’s no time. There’s never any time anymore. A flurry of footsteps freezes us both as everyone scrambles to get in place for the next scene. Canon blows out a resigned sigh, and then he’s gone.

43

Canon

“So we’ll do thirty-five-millimeters for the day exteriors,” I say, tapping my pencil for emphasis and looking from Jill to Kenneth. “And digital for night exterior shots, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jill nods. “And I’m thinking the anamorphic for those huge outdoor shots. Like the sweeping ones.”

Kenneth tilts his head, eyes the storyboard and our shot list. “We still using the drone for those aerial shots on day three?”

“Yup.” Jill grins, her eyes alight with excitement. “Santa Barbara is gonna be our French Riviera, boys.”

I toss the pencil onto the table and lean back to link my fingers behind my head. “The one advantage of Galaxy is they’re paying for all this shit.”

We laugh because shooting on film is expensive, and in the age of digital, a luxury most filmmakers don’t experience often anymore. Guys like Scorsese, Tarantino, Christopher Nolan—standard bearers for the format who vehemently resist digital—they have the budgets and the clout to insist. We lose a lot of flexibility going with film and can’t review it in real-time like we can with digital. Our dailies have to be sent off to a lab and come back later. It’s slower and less precise. You’re basically shooting onto dollar bills. More rehearsal. Fewer takes. A lot less room for error. Shooting parts of this movie on film will lend it the look I want and add layers of nostalgia, but it’s costly, labor-intensive, and generally a pain in the ass.

And yet the three of us are like kids in a candy store at the prospect. We have the expertise, especially with Jill as our cinematographer, to vary our formats and really create something special, though it will require a different approach to shooting.

“We need to make sure the cast is ready for this shift,” I say, directing the comment to Kenneth. “Everyone, of course, but especially Neevah and Trey. A lot of these scenes are just them and a whole bunch of background actors. We good on the extras?”

“I’ll handle the extras.” Kenneth hesitates and clears his throat. “But with so many of them to wrangle, I’ll be less available for Neevah, and Trey, of course, so I guess you’ll manage them on set.”

Kenneth flips his phone in his hand, looking down at the screen instead of at me. Jill scribbles on her pad, pointedly fixing her eyes on the words as the silence stretches awkwardly between the three of us.

They know.

They can’t know for sure that Neevah and I are together, but based on this shifty-eyed behavior, they know something is up. Obviously, based on our conversations, Jill has her suspicions and did her part to help things along, but I haven’t even told her how things have developed. I grit my teeth, annoyed with myself for showing that much of my hand, but determined to make it clear it won’t affect my work or this story.

“Sure.” I stand and walk over to the model of the Lafayette Theatre for something to do. “That’s no problem. I’ll have to be out there more anyway since we can’t watch the shots in real-time from the tent.”

“Right.” Kenneth pounces on this reasoning. “Works out perfectly. And I’ll make sure all those extras are in place and ready.”