MetaMorph Ch. 01

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jezzaz
jezzaz
2,395 Followers

Then actual production occurs, and that's when everyone comes together to actuallymakea movie. The actors are on set, made up and the camera crews roll and the director directs. Depending on the amount of special effects, both real and post (post effects are applied once the filming is done, like CGI effects of filling in a futuristic city scape. Real effects are done on set – explosions, squibs, that emulate being shot and so on) a shot can take anywhere from an hour to several days to set up, and everything needs to be right first time.

Once principle photography is completed, the movie moves into post production. All the grips and lighting crew and film crews and makeup crews are let go – since they are all under short term contract anyway, and know this is a short term gig -, and the post production special effects companies get involved, plus the soundtrack gets composed, recorded and the editing of the raw footage into a finished movie gets done.

Depending on the amount of CGI work a movie may require, it's not unusual for a movie to finish principle photography and then still not come out for another 18 months while all the computer generated imagery is constructed.

Sometimes during post production, actors are required to return and re-record dialog lines or add new ones, or in the worst case, reshoot entire new scenes because of a change of script or the fact that one of the scenes shot just doesn't work – it needs to be a night but was shot during the day.

June learned that on any given set or soundstage, there were anywhere from three hundred to a thousand people all working to build a shot at any given time. And these people needed organizing. While there may be three of four producers on a movie, making the big decisions about which headlining actor to hire or what script to go with, or trying to raise money from studios or movie financiers, there was also a small army of associate producers who actually did all the work. The script may call for a hurricane scene, but that means that on the day of shooting, there has to be water on the set, and a small battery of fans, and people to throw the water into the fans. So they have to find companies to hire the fans from, arrange for them to be on set at the right time, and negotiate a good price for the use of those fans.

She found that these people were generally hired during pre-production, really used hard for principle photography, then let go immediately afterwards. Everything in Hollywood is a short-term contract. You are hired for a short term contract – say three or four months, - paid exorbitantly well for those months, then cut free once it was done.

Dan was surprised to learn that the production companies – the companies that actually made movies, which wasn't the big studios like Universal or Warner Brothers – didn't own anything. They rented or leased everything, because they were designed to be short-term companies. Most production companies come into being just for the duration of making a movie. They form, hire people, make a movie, sell it to the distributor – like 20th Century Fox – and then quietly go away. Apparently it was some kind of tax dodge. They – like everyone else – had thought when you saw the Universal Studios logo at the start of a movie, it meant it was made by them. While it was true that Universal and Paramount did still fund movies, most of the time the movies made there are made by other production companies just renting their studio facilities and then selling them the movie once it was done. Television, they found, is made in much the same way. Just because a show is on NBC doesn't mean NBC actually made it at all – even if it was shot in the NBC studios. Often it was made by an external production company renting the facilities.

June was also shocked to discover that almost none of these assistant producer jobs were advertised anywhere, either. Sure, there was a union, but the union only safe guards the conditions of a job, it doesn't help you get one, nor does it safeguard that job once you got it.

You got jobs purely through word of mouth and on reputation. Someone would get hired early on, then find the need for several AP's and then contact people they'd worked with before, looking to either hire them or get recommendations on other people. It was all strictly peer recommendations, which meant it was very hard to break in to, but once you were in, providing you had any competency and didn't piss too many people off – which for an AP was hard, since part of the job was riding other people hard – there was lots of work to be had. Since everyone was only on a job for a short period of time, they moved around a lot and your name got known pretty fast if you were good at what you did.

June got her break on a student film. She literally answered an ad on craigslist, got the gig on a shoestring budget, but it was enough for her to petition the union for a union card, and once she got that and could show other production companies any experience at all, she was on the ladder.

June was a hit. She was competent, friendly, easy on the eyes and got stuff done on time, in budget and with a minimum of fuss. She soon settled into a schedule of four months on the job, and then two or three off. She was well paid enough that both her and Dan could survive on what they earned combined, and still save a little towards buying a house.

She worked on some larger movies – Lethal Weapon 6, Jurassic Park : Cretaceous (she kept pointing out how stupid the name was, but she was advised to shut up early on.) and others, plus some indie movies. She soon got a reputation for working hard, getting the job done and was recommended to other producers.

One thing that worked for her was a small idiosyncrasy she adopted early on. For each movie she worked on, she totally changed her look. On the Mel Gibson comeback movie, Little Angels, she was a blond with short spiky hair, and dark eyeliner. And the next movie, a Fargo brother comedy called Spanks the Clown, with Jim Carrey, she dyed her hair black and had it in a page boy bob. The next, her hair had grown a bit and she went red head, pulling it up into a bun, with deep red lipstick.

Dan loved it. As he proclaimed, "It's like getting a new wife every time you start a new movie." It became 'a thing' for June – stage hands would have bets on what her new look was going to be when she showed up for work on the first day.

The only downside for June in terms of her career was the fact that she point blank refused to take a job that was outside of LA. Lots of production companies make movies outside of LA, due to the tax rebates they get elsewhere or simply because of state based incentives. Lots of Eastern states offered a great rate for movie companies to film there, and the union rates were far lower. But June would not leave LA. It would mean she wouldn't come home for three or four months and she just wasn't up for that. As a result, several opportunities to advance were lost. The last one – to be a full producer on a Channing Tatum movie being shot in Vancouver, was particularly hard to let go, but June did it. She had made her stand and she wasn't going back on it.

However, while Junes career had a steady straight line going up, Dan's just...didn't go anywhere.

It's a truism that every waiter in LA is waiting to be discovered and constantly running off to casting calls – however what is less commonly realized is that everyone who isnotan actor is, in fact a writer. LA is awash with them. Go to any Starbucks in the city, and sit and watch all the laptop crowd, and you can see at least three or four with Final Draft on their macbook screen, writing yet another draft of a script.

Dan just couldn't get traction. He was productive and wrote a lot, but nothing got picked up. He tried to get an agent, but no one was interested. It was a catch 22 situation. To get an agent, you needed to have something sold. But to get something sold, you needed an agent. He tried and tried, and while he thought his stuff was at least ok, he didn't either look the part of sell himself enough.

He tried several things – writing clubs, run by someone who 'had written an episode of Buffy!' but soon discovered that the reason these people were running writing clubs was thattheycouldn't sell anything either, so they fell back on teaching as a way to earn a living. He tried writing scripts for lots of the local script writing contests, and while he won a few, he also found that the script writing contest circuit was an end to itself. You could be the best in that group, but that still didn't mean production companies would come stampeding to your door, competing for your latest story.

June kept offering to take some of his work to the production companies that she worked for, but Dan, who had some self-respect, said No. He didn't put his foot down often, but he did with this. He wanted to be known for his work not because his hot wife pushed it, but because someone else recognized the value in it. He didn't have much respect for himself at this point, but what he did have, he wanted to keep. And June, wonderful June, respected that. She didn't stop offering but when he said no, she stopped asking. At least that month.

It was while he was working with a scripting mentor – someone Dan had zero respect for, since the hack who was 'mentoring' people had had one script made into a Stargate episode – that Dan had an experience that made him wonder at what was going on when June was at work.

The mentor – one Simon Mcriller, who was fond of making sound bite statements (it was his eternal hope that some of these sound bite statements would end up in someone's script) – had promised to take the students he had to a working stage in Universal studios, where a friend of his was script editor on a TV show being made there. At the time, June was working on a movie for Chris Nolan on Stage 39. The TV show was being shot on stage 36. Dan was hoping he could run across to Stage 39 and surprise June at work.

Once they'd sat through the TV show briefing and met the crew there – which was agonizing since Dan knew more about what most of the people there were supposed to do than they did. Sitting through Simon's long and tortuous – and often wrong – explanations of what was going on on set was bad enough. Knowing his wife was doing her thing two stage over was even worse.

At one point, Dan just slipped away. He was always surprised about how, once you got onto the ground at a major studio, you could pretty much go anywhere and enter any building, as long as it wasn't a closed set, and no one would say boo to you. Getting onto a studio required drive on passes and your car inspected and so on, but once you were there, you could go anywhere. Since so many of the stages were rented out by production companies that are only there for a few weeks, faces changed constantly and no one really knew who anyone else was. It was just supposed that if you were on the studio lot, you were meant to be there.

So Dan wandered up to stage 39, walked on to the stage and stood at the back, next the sound recordist, watching.

It was a busy set, people moving around. A shot had just wrapped and the director was giving instructions for the next shot. Dan saw June in the group of AP's who were organizing people. She wore a headset and walkie-talkie, as almost everyone on stage who is anyone does, and she was consulting an Ipad. Dan heard the director yell for June and she hurried over.

The director said, "June, I need the swamp setting ready to go in an hour, ok? It's all set right?"

June nodded, looked down at her Ipad and said, "Yeah. The only thing we haven't got set yet is the pond scum, but it doesn't last long so I didn't want to drop it in the water till ten minutes before we shoot. We only have so much of it and it's expensive. Otherwise I need to get the grips to respray the vegetation with water and we are good to go."

"Awesome," said the director, swigging water. "What would I do without you June?"

She gave him a tight smile and said, "About a hundred bucks an hour I should think."

And then off she went. Dan didn't want to interrupt and to tell the truth, he was just happy watching her at work. She was busy and didn't need him taking time out of her day.

It was only because he was watching June that he saw what happened next. In order for June to get to the next set, she had to go down the side of the current one – a relatively narrow corridor. Dan happened to be in the far corner and could see down the side of the set, and could see there was a group of 4 grips sitting on drums playing some card game. June walked down by the side of them and as she did so, they jumped up to talk to her. The guys basically blocked her path and she was forced to stop and make chat with them. Dan expressly saw one of them look around at the busy set and see that no one was paying attention. At that moment he knew something not good was going to happen and he started forward. He didn't see exactly what happened because one of the group obscured his view, but he heard the slap and the raised voice. Everyone on the set did.

"Who the FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" shouted June, as she yelled into the face of one of the group. "FUCK YOU, You scum bag. You are SO FUCKING FIRED. Jim. JIM? Where the hell are you? Security?"

Jim was the name of the director, and he was on the other side of the set, talking to one of his assistant directors. June came bowling over to him, face flushed and evidently extremely pissed.

"Jim. I want that guy fired. Now. That fucking grip just pinched my ass. I want him done and out. Now."

Jim put up his hands. "Sure June, which guy was it?"

June pointed over at the group, who were rapidly vanishing to the four corners of the set. "Him, with the red cap." she said. "I want the union rep in here now, I am filing a grievance, and I want security to escort him off the premises, now."

"Whatever you say June." Jim, the director nodded at his AD and ran across to the stage manager, June in tow.

Dan didn't know what to do. Should he get involved? It looked like June had everything in hand and he wasn't supposed to be there anyway. Getting involved at this point would probably not be in Junes best interests – all he could do is go and add his voice to her cries and she was already several decibels over the limit -, so he decided that, in this case, discretion was the better part of valor and slipped away, planning to chat later. For some reason, it just didn't feel right to be involved. He knew it was probably his non-confrontational nature, but in this case it seemed appropriate.

That night, Dan cooked her one of her favorite dinners, shrimp and scallops in white sauce, with mushrooms, peas and bacon on eggplant noodles. He figured she'd need it.

When she came home, she was not in a good mood, so Dan massaged her feet, fed her wine and fed her dinner until her good humor came back.

After dinner, while they were sitting with yet another glass of wine and watching another episode of LOST – both of them were binge TV Show watchers; neither had the patience to watch week to week and instead waited till the box sets came out and watched them episode after episode over a week. Some nights, if they truly were engrossed, they'd watch four or five episodes in one go – he asked her about her day.

"How was today? You came home pretty annoyed? What's going on?"

June stretched out her arms and said, 'Oh nothing important. Just another day at the office, ho hum."

Dan didn't know what do with this. Should he tell her he was there? Should he just shut up?

It was obvious that on some days, lots more went on at work than June told him. On the other hand, he had visual evidence of her ability to both handle what occurred and also of her fidelity to him. On reflection, he decided to just not say anything. The most essential thing in maintaining any relationship is trust, and she'd demonstrated to him today that he could trust her to the end of the earth.

Maybe that's where he'd gone wrong. Nice guys are suckers, aren't they?

And so it went on. Years piled on years. Dan and June were happy, although Dan wasn't happy in his lack of success. He was involved in several web projects, some of which he was very proud of, but none of which seemed to hit the zeitgeist. Dan became very aware of how much luck really played a part in hitting it in Hollywood. But, as June often said, luck hits when you are prepared and are trying. If you aren't prepared and trying, it's that much less likely to hit. So he tried to keep his spirits up.

But in reality, he was just sinking lower and lower in a low level depression. His eating habits got worse, his exercise regime became walking from their apartment to the store and back. He played D&D more and more in a way to escape his own relative failure as a life. The only bright part in it was June, and as he got larger, their physical sex life decline.

Then, three years in, more bad news hit. His mother was diagnosed with cancer. It had already hit stage 3 and was moving into stage 4, with it metastising all over her body. She was gone within 5 months of the initial diagnosis – Dan moved back to Madison and was with her the whole time. He'd spend his days in the hospital, watching his mother wither away and his nights crying with June on the phone over how unfair it all was. Two months after her funeral, he buried his Dad, who had just given up. He was found dead in his bed, having passed away peacefully. Dan – as an only child – was left the house, only to find it had a small mortgage on it to help pay for his mothers treatment. He sold the house and basically broke even on it. After that, he retreated even more into himself. June did her best to bring him out and make him sit in the sun, metaphorically, but Dan's mood was dark and on top of his own self worth issues, he just couldn't seem to find his spirit any more.

June was in demand, the three months off between movies was now down to 4 weeks, and she was back in the saddle. She was tired constantly, and when they did have sex, his size now made it so doggy style was pretty much all he was capable of, due to his gut size. Dan was demoralized, sad and his wife was working so hard that their physical contact was minimal.

She still loved him – she came home one day with a signed copy of The Watchman graphic novel for him, just because she'd had a meeting with Zack Synder and mentioned her husband was a fan and he'd pressed it on her. Small signals, but it meant everything to Dan.

He was pretty much existed to love June at this point – he couldn't see any future for himself except for small writing jobs here and there – and so he made a point of doing just that.

And then the bottom dropped out of his world.

jezzaz
jezzaz
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AnonymousAnonymous6 months ago

Very well written and highly erotic. A very good story which people can relate to

miket0422miket0422about 1 year ago

Ok beginning to a series but, there are so many editing errors it's difficult to read.

AnonymousAnonymousover 1 year ago

We all need to look in the mirror of truth at some point in our lives, some do and turn it around. Others have to have the mirror broken over their heads to turn it around, you would be surprised at how many fail the wakeup call, then blame everyone, anyone and someone but never themselves.

On a happier note; I do enjoy this writing style not everyone's cuppa but he is a pom!

dgfergiedgfergieover 2 years ago

My second reading, had to work hard to find this story again. There are few few who are really dedicated to a marriage, men or women. Some of us don't pay enough attention to what it takes to keep a marriage going.

I still don't after a 13 year failed marriage, she wanted to look around for something better. What she wanted was more important then the family, a husband and two young girls. I thought I was selfish. I thought oh well and let her go and I was in more pain than I ever thought possible. But there are good women out there and I found one with four kids and it lasted for 40 years. Amazing! I just dedicated my self to her and that was it, whatever she wanted she got. There can't be any cheating or lies, trust and love, period.

dgfergiedgfergieabout 3 years ago

good writing but sad watching him go downhill but it happens a lot, depressed and fat, still no justification for cheating.

If you want to screw around, don't get married. If don't like being married just walk away.

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