Chapter 15: Friday and Saturday, Week Two

Friday

It was another rainy Friday morning when I woke up and got myself ready. We had to meet Phyllis at 6:00am for our Pilates class. For some reason, I didn’t dread it as badly as before. I think it was because I had realized that I really did need to get my body in better shape.

Afterwards, as we were walking back to the café for breakfast, Heather came up and took my arm.

“How did you enjoy your first week of Porn Camp,” she asked happily.

“I’m thinking I liked it really well!” I replied.

“That’s good. Listen, I need a favor. Can you meet me on the other sound stage at lunch? You know, the one behind Sound Stage One?”

“I guess. What do you need?”

“I’ll explain it to you then, okay?”

I just nodded as she kissed my cheek and scampered off. I went to my room and showered then headed to the café for breakfast. I kept wondering what Heather had on her mind.

Later, in Studio One, Marjorie cleared her throat to get our attention.

“Today begins your second week of Studio Boot Camp. I’d like to take a moment to review a little of what you all have accomplished in your first week.”

Then she went over a few basic elements of filming, highlighting our learning how to work with the technical crews.

“Since not all of you have seen every scene we recorded last week, I have selected a few to show you. She then showed us parts of three scenes, critiquing them as she went. The last one was mine and Lauren’s scene on the train.

“While we haven’t discussed green screen filming yet, Ginger and Reggie did a remarkable job, keeping the concept simple, shooting a creative and technically competent scene. Of course, the fact that they used eight techs didn’t hurt their endeavor any!” she said with a laugh.

After the laughter died down, she continued.

Now there is one more scene I’m going to show you. It is how three of our campers chose to spend their afternoon off.”

I felt my face getting red as I looked over at Honey and Julie.

“They decided, on their own, to play with one of the new drones. Here is the result. I’d be interested to know what you all think about it.”

Then she rolled the tape.

When I saw the product and how masterfully Honey had edited it, I went over to stand behind both of them and hugged their necks as my fellow campers watched our little scene by the small stream in silence.

When it ended, they all applauded as I made Honey and Julie stand and take a bow. I hadn’t realized that Mr. Hubbard’s class had joined us to view it with us until then.

“So? What does everyone think?” Majorie asked.

“Where did you get the drone?” Nick Stallion (Gordon Frashoni) asked.

“The tech department has them and I wanted to try one out, but it needed to be outside because I wasn’t confident enough to use one indoors yet. But after what we did, I think they will work very well inside the studio,” Honey explained. ‘With some practice first,” she added.

“How did you come up with the idea?” Lauren asked suspiciously.

“I guess it came from some of the ideas we discussed while rehearsing for our scene,” I told her.

“I thought it looked familiar,” she said with an impish grin.

“Did I detect a certain emphasis on having sex with a handicapped person?” Marjorie asked.

“While we didn’t discuss it originally, we did talk about it later. After some of the complications we ran into filming certain positions,” Julie said sheepishly.

“Did you fuck her ass?” Jackson (Cyrus Merced) blurted out crudely.

“You’ll have to wait for the next one to find out!” I quipped as everyone laughed embarrassingly.

“Who did the editing?” Mr. Hubbard called out. I think he knew the answer.

“I did, Sir,” Honey answered.

“And you did a fine job. I’d like to discuss it with you in more detail later,” Mr. Hubbard told her as she beamed.

“Anyone else?” Majorie asked.

“Can you tell us where you shot the scene?” one of the tech’s asked.

“It was in a meadow near the stream, about three or four miles to the southwest of the big barn,” Honey supplied.

“How did you get a crip ... I mean handicapped person out that far?” Squiggy asked. He was one of the male actors I hadn’t met yet. I didn’t know his real name and I didn’t like his tone.

“Magic!” I told him.

Marjorie quickly cut off any further questions as she began teaching again.

“One of the main goals of Studio Boot Camp is to encourage creativity within its ranks. And while their finished product is exemplary, let me point out that there is still room for improvement. First, they went out without telling anyone where they were going. But worse, they did it without wearing their lanyards. If they had run into trouble, they would have been up that little creek without a paddle.

“And while they had permission to use a golf cart to get there, they never bothered to check the battery. By the time they returned, their battery was almost dead. So they were very fortunate in that,” she said sternly.

I looked at the girls in surprise. The battery’s capacity had never even entered my mind.

“Now. For the rest of the morning, we’re going to work with the entire tech team on filming a scene in here, using a drone. Kirk (Eric Bickerstaff), you and Destiny (Kris Abernathy) will be our first set of guinea pigs. Honey, I’d like you to work with the drone camera operators and Reggie, you and Stephanie (Julie) to help with the set up. And please ... try not to kill anyone. This is a lot of people on set at one time,” Marjorie intoned.

It was a hectic morning. Honey and I spent most of our time repositioning all the lights out of the way of the drone. Several of the lighting techs finally jumped in to help. That took a lot of consultation to get the set lit adequately for shooting the scene.

Julie tried to tell them to keep the scene simple, but, at first they wanted to try all this complicated stuff to take advantage of the drone footage. Finally, they realized it, and settled on a wide open living room set and a big couch.

After the scene was finished, we all gathered around to watch it. The mistakes were glaring and so they decided to try again. This time with another couple and a different set.

Once again chaos reigned for a few moments, and when we finally got around to viewing the product, the consensus was it was slightly better, so we broke for lunch.

Heather came up and taking my arm, led me towards the second stage.

“I overheard Hector threatening to kill someone yesterday!” she said breathlessly. “And I don’t know what to do!”

“Tell me what happened,” I told her.

“I was in my room yesterday and the maids were on our floor cleaning. My door was open because she was going in and out when I heard a loud crash out in the hall. When I looked, Hector’s door was open and he had the maid bent backwards across her cleaning cart, threatening her with something. I don’t know what to do!”

“Who’s Hector?” I asked.

“He’s one of the guy’s from Pheonix. You’ve met him. He’s the one who asked about getting a crippled girl out to your shoot yesterday. He kept saying he would kill that poor maid for something ... I didn’t hear what.”

“I guess I need to go visit Mr. Noble,” I said. “It sucks not having my cell phone at times like this!”

I was still consoling Heather and explaining who Brad Noble was, when out of the darkness of the sound stage a woman dressed in black combat gear from head to foot including her shielded helmet and three different guns that I could see, appeared as if out of the ether. She was talking to her wrist as she approached us.

“Okay. I’ll do it if you say so. But I don’t like it!” she said to her wrist and then looked at us. “Anyone else in here with you?”

“I didn’t think so,” I said. “But then you showed up.”

“Okay. I want you to listen carefully. As of five minutes ago, the subject, one Hector Martinez, not his real name, is no longer on the property and will not be returning. We would like to ask you respectfully not to mention the incident on the fourth floor of the Wolf Lodge yesterday to anyone. Your cooperation will most certainly be appreciated,” the woman told us. “And Mrs. Lamphere is being notified as we speak.”

“Assuming you are camp security, how did you know what we were talking about and get here at just the exact moment?” I asked.