Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (24 page)

we’ll take care of you, Carl. Thank you. Next. Ms. Smart, how long and how much to get two panes of candy glass put into an ND set with windows?”

“I liked the meeting be-

fore when we couldn’t un-

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derstand you. Any chance

AN ND SET:

we could go back to the Ice

A nondescript set.

Almost any wall will do.

Age?”

“I’m afraid you’re in the

CANDY GLASS: (
1) Fake glass

Ice Age on this sitcom.”

spun from real sugar that won’t

“Yeah. Well,” she leaned

injure anyone when it breaks. (2)

“Put that down! It doesn’t mean

back up against the wall

you can eat it!
Actors
. . .”

and accidentally turned the

lights off. “Shit. I hope that

wasn’t an omen.” She flicked

the switch back on and started calculating the process. “I could probably put two nondescript walls together from stuff we have

lying around and throw some candy glass in the windows by late

tonight. If we buy sheets of candy glass in standard sizes, I’ll just have construction build a nonworking window frame, if you’re

okay with that. We’ll just cut the window frame to the size of the candy glass.”

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“Very good. What do you think your total cost on that and that

alone will be?”

“Pennies compared to what is in the budget now,” she said, ac-

cidentally revealing the truth. J.T. realized that in getting his crew excited about doing something the old-fashioned way, about trying to do it well and be proud of it, he would also get someone to slip up and reveal the actual cost of the stunt as it now stood in the budget.

J.T. understood the importance of knowing the real numbers.

The budget was crucial. It was his main weapon of mass construction in order to bargain with the executives in order to get the best ever explosion done properly, and
without
explosives.

“Okay, Mr. McCoy,” J.T. asked his director of photography, “can you get me a Steadicam rig with a variable-speed motor? I’m going to want to hide some of our own poverty and then take advantage of what we know we can pull off, and do it so well that it will look expensive and slick. So

I’ll need at least a ten-to-one

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lens on that sucker. We’ll

24P:
A video hybrid that is

be sharp on what’s working

cheaper than film. Think tofu

for us and the rest will drop

hot dogs.

off into mush. Forget 24P

for this stunt. Let’s go nuts:

high-octane, sixteen-milli-

meter. Possible?” J.T. asked with a laugh, knowing this was fun for Mick.

“For you, boss, I’d go and steal it. It’ll be there,” Mick said as he opened the window to get some air into the room.

“How much, Mr. McCoy?”

“I’ll get the rig as a favor. The lens rental is thirty-five bucks a day.” It was the perfect answer because it was so contagious. Ash stood in the corner and just watched the body language of every-1 7 2

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

one in the room as they all became excited about being a part of something they could be proud of again.

“And,” Mick continued, “I’ll get you the best Steadicam operator I know. He’s also become expert with the variable-speed motor.”

“Thanks, Mick. Okay—who can answer this next question:

How many of our seventeen producers can I trust?
In other words, is there anyone on the producers’ staff who would understand how

to do the poor man’s version of this explosion yet make it look stylized and better than what they’d normally get? Is there any one of them we can get on board?” J.T. already knew the answer to this one, too.

J.T.’s eyes scanned the room. “That’s what I thought,” J.T. said.

“All right then, Rod, I’m going to ask you to overstep your bounds as head property master. Are you comfortable with that?”

Rod shrugged, a twinkle in his eye. “Matters what you want me

to do. I feel comfortable taking out one of the Pooleys, but if you have me whacking both of ’em, I’d have to think about it. Okay—I thought about it. I’ll do it.” he said, getting a huge laugh.

“I need for you to go into the studio’s film library and find any and all public-domain footage of explosions,” J.T. said.

“But they’ll all look like

shit,” Rod answered.

Suddenly pride was an

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issue
. Good,
thought J.T.

PICTURE CAR:
The actual vehicle

“We are going to get away

that will be photographed; fire

with murder on this one.

regulations state that, if placed

Billy,” J.T. asked the head of

on a soundstage, it must have

the transportation depart-

an empty gas tank. Sometimes it

has no engine. And often when

ment, “can you get Janice’s

the scene is over

with

, the cars

picture car on the set first

engines are delivered to the pro-

thing tomorrow so we can

ducer’s garage.

place it before any of the ex-

ecs get on the lot? As soon as

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1 7 3

they see the automobile, the set, the lights . . . the game’s over. We’ve gotta be ready to roll the second we’re on the clock. Possible?”

“You got it, boss,” Billy answered without thinking twice.

“Perfect,” J.T. said.

Maybe this wasn’t going to be a bad week after all. For J.T.,

these kinds of creative efforts were why he kept coming back to direct, despite the suits and the Poodles.

“Okay, so here’s my plan
. We can only do this once
. No second takes. So we’ll rehearse the shit out of it: we have the carolers, as many as they will allow us to have, so we can get the feeling that this is the
best ever
Christmas,” J.T. said. He smirked back at the smirk-ers and raised his voice above the grunts. “Then I’ll find a purpose for Janice to walk to her car. On a cue, we’ll go high-speed as she leans into the car, we’ll rack focus to just beyond the windshield, and we’ll have the public-domain shitty explosion projected onto the front windshield of her picture car, but it’ll be soft and Janice will be sharp so all we’ll see is a fuzzy impact and the viewer’s brain will fill in the blanks. Boom, impact, explosion, flames, in the reflection of the front windshield as we personalize this and go with Janice. She’ll take the force of the reflected explosion. As she falls backward, we’ll shatter the candy glass in the ND windows. We’ll have E-fans blowing debris

and fuller’s earth onto the

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set along with a little smoke.

Janice will finally get up

PUBLIC DOMAIN:
Freeeeeee!

when the smoke clears. Our

heroine will have survived

the best ever explosion, thus making this the best ever Christmas.

In postproduction we’ll give the explosion and the aftermath a

helluva sonic symphony, and bingo, the
cheapest
best ever explosion in the
cheapest
best ever Christmas, and when this airs on TV

we can all look each other in the eye. Whatta you guys say?” J.T. was a little breathless. So were the crew members, to be honest.

1 7 4

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

From the half nods and mumbly murmurs, J.T. sensed a some-

what positive consensus. He had a team. Maybe not the most rah-rah of teams, but a team nonetheless. It was as if the
biggest ever
weight of the world were lifted off his aging, aching shoulders.

“Now, at any time of the day or night, I want questions. Ideas.

I need thoughts. Brainstorms. Anything you guys think of is more than welcome: it’s mandatory,” J.T. said.

The suits and Poodles had set up a
Them
versus
Us
atmosphere. Now, finally, the
Them
could fight back, creatively. Maybe even neuter a Pooley “Poodle.”

As the crew members began to leave the room and go on their

missions, J.T. made one last request: “Everyone, please, don’t let the negativity of this particular show stop you in your quest to do this bit as well as it can be done. And if you guys don’t mind, the earlier we all arrive tomorrow on the set, the quicker we can get this in place and work out the kinks without the pessimists there to tell us we’re fucking up. If we can show them a mock rehearsal as they walk onto the set, we just might pull this off. Everyone cool with that?”

Everyone was. Or at least no one said no.

“Well,” J.T. said, “this oughta be interesting.”

“Don’t you think it’s going to work?” Ash asked.

“Oh, it will definitely work. That’s not the point. The interesting thing will be to see if we’re
allowed
to pull it off. Somehow it’ll leak, before tomorrow morning. I’ll have to get out of here and be
unreachable.
When the Pooleys find out, they’ll think it’ll be hokey.

Far from the best ever. They also won’t understand the power of not actually seeing the explosion. In actuality,” J.T. said, as if teaching class, “with the limitations that they’ve put on us, the reflection of the explosion will have more visceral clout than a gas tanker truck in an action movie going up in flames. And the candy glass windows shattering along with the E-fans and the debris flying in at a hundred and twenty frames per second, well, it’ll kick ass. Yeah

. . . I know this crew can pull it off.”

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J.T. and Ash exited the building into a starless night. It was

about a ten-minute walk to their modes of transportation. The

two men stopped at Ash-

er’s car, which was parked

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next to J.T.’s bicycle. “Nice

wheels,” Ash said flatly.

THEATER IN L.A.:
Baseball in

J.T. seemed startled for

Canada.

a second, as if he’d forgot-

ten Ash was even there. He

tried to brighten up. “What

are you doin’ tonight, Ash? Any plans? You okay?”

“I’m seeing a show for my Theater 101 class,” Ash answered.

“It’s the perfect object lesson on what not to do.”

“What kind of masochist are you?! You’re seeing
theater in L.A.
?”

“Yeah,” Ash said, laughing, “so basically, I’m not doing any-

thing.”

“Wow. You’ve got more guts than I do. From sitcom to theater—

in Los Angeles. Wow. Ouch. What did you do in a previous life,

Ash?”

“Maybe I was a
Pooley
.”

“Let’s kick ass tomorrow, Ash. Let’s make some good TV.

Whattaya say?”

“Yeah. Let’s kick ass,” Ash agreed.

J.T. started to wheel away. Suddenly an automobile revved its

engine very close to the men, its tires wailing as they spun on the cement. Halogen lights lit up the parking lot, picking out J.T. like an actor in a spotlight. Like a target.

A fully loaded Humvee with a V–8 engine and oversized tires

was bearing down on J.T.

“J.T.?” Ash said, his arm trying to reach out for his buddy. “Either call ‘CUT!’ or look the fuck out!!”

J.T. looked the fuck out to see the military vehicle coming

straight for him, gaining speed with every tire rotation. He froze, 1 7 6

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

stunned, just standing there squinting to see who was trying to run him over.

It was Janice. He couldn’t be sure until the Humvee was only

five yards away from killing him. Ash dove in front of the vehicle and tackled J.T., taking him and his rented bicycle out of the path of the killer B actor. Or in this case, actress.

Ash and J.T. landed safely in a heap. Janice had not swerved,

even at the last minute. This was an insane woman, used to get-

ting her way, who was outraged to the point of murder. It was only thanks to Ash that J.T. wasn’t dead, with his name in the
DGA
Magazine
obits next to Jasper Jones’s.

The Humvee came to an awkward stop. Ash and J.T. disentan-

gled themselves as quickly as they could, watching for the white reverse lights that would mean it was coming back to get them. But the red brake lights stayed on.

“You wanna be king?” Janice screamed out of her window.

“Well, the King Must Die!”

J.T. jumped to his feet.
This is it,
Ash thought.
The man’s going
to chase the bitch down. I’d better call the police.

Instead J.T. simply smiled. Very quietly, but just loudly enough, he called out after the car, “Get some rest, Janice. You have a big day tomorrow.”

That’s all he said. In her fury and lack of satisfaction, Janice roared off and scraped her newly purchased vehicle on the side of the stucco studio offices. It was over as quickly as it had started.

“Impressive,” J.T. whispered.

“Impressive? She almost ran you over, J.T.” Ash said, still shaking.

“No, impressive that she quoted Mary Renault,
The King Must
Die
, rather than Stephen King or Michael Crichton.”

“She was going to kill you, man,” Ash said, an octave too high.

“She’s got three more days . . .” J.T. looked at Ash. “The fun just never stops!”

Wednesday

Wednesday began—whether J.T. liked it or not. On this particu-

lar shoot day (actually a
pre
shoot day), with all of its intangibles, there would be an additional, very tangible factor to contend with: children.

J.T. pedaled off to work in the early morning smog/haze. The

consequences of being on a bike in traffic were not measured so much in time as in the relative chances of being hit by the road-enraged driver of an SUV. Or a Mini Cooper. L.A. might be one