Araluen (37 page)

‘Terrific, but wasn't the chief pilot supposed to break his wrist when he jumped from the airship carrying his unconscious crewmate?’

Michael nodded. ‘Yes, but we changed it. Stanley's idea.’

‘The human torch stunt's always effective,’ Stanley nodded. ‘And now with this protective skin we can have a close-up of the hero burning his hands saving his buddy – more impressive than a broken wrist, wouldn't you say?’

‘Oh yes, much more impressive.’ Stanley Grahame was certainly not short on confidence, Emma thought.

‘Stan the man! Bob! Well done, well done.’ The director joined them, but he hadn't managed to escape the leading man who had followed him, continuing his one-sided conversation every step of the way.

‘Stan,’ the actor said, ‘that moment of impact when you hit the ground ... There was a second or so's pause before you ran after Bob. I was just saying ... perfect moment to cut in for a close-up, wouldn't you agree?’

‘All right, Jack, all right,’ the director finally snapped back. ‘You've said your piece and I've told you I'll look after it.’

‘I was just seeking a little extra input, that's all,’ the actor replied peevishly. He wasn't used to being spoken to so sharply in public. ‘There's certainly no harm in that; the more input the better, surely.’ He turned tail. ‘I'll be in my trailer.’ There were derisive grins shared by all as he attempted a dignified exit. Jack was an American star with Latin good looks that drove women wild and he'd been imported to boost overseas sales. He considered himself above his antipodean counterparts and so wasn't at all popular.

A lunch break was called in the massive catering tent set up on the other side of the hill. As executive producer, Michael insisted on opening a crate of champagne to toast the successful airship explosion. After all, one of the highlights of the movie was successfully in the can, they were near the end of the entire shoot, they were well on schedule, and even the director agreed that the afternoon's itinerary was relatively simple.

‘Course it is, it's a breeze,’ Michael insisted. ‘Just reaction shots and cutaways. Easy.’

Normally the director loathed producers who said things like ‘Easy’, and ‘It's a breeze’. They were usually the same producers who said things like ‘Yes, I know there's a car chase in the script here and aerial shots there but we're over budget - you'll have to cheat it. You can do it; simple.’ But Michael was a different producer altogether. He not only understood the world of movies on both a practical and artistic level, he was exciting and innovative and, if he appeared a little cocky every now and then, the director was prepared to wear it.

After lunch, Michael took Emma on a guided tour. They bounced around in the runners’ jeep while he showed her the various movie locations. Yarramalong Valley was a beautiful part of the country, and remote, despite the fact that it was only a couple of hours’ drive from Sydney. In the heart of the valley stood a hundred-and-fifty-year-old stone farmhouse which Michael had chosen as the location for the businessman's secret hideout.

‘This is where they live while they oversee the building of their airships,’ he explained to Emma. Then he drove her over the far side of the northern hill where the zealots had their camp. ‘Impressive, isn't it?’ They stood on the hill surveying the lines of tents in the neighbouring valley. ‘We've got fifty zealots. Twenty of them are speaking roles - good character actors, all hand-picked.’

‘Now,’ he said as they got back in the jeep, ‘I'll show you the true stars of the movie. Come and look at my babies.’ And he drove her back to the first in the line of massive airships.

‘She flies like a bird,’ he said, helping her aboard the huge craft, ‘and she comfortably holds a hundred and fifty people and supplies to last them for months.’

He showed her the cockpit with its complicated array of control panels. ‘Fully operational,’ he boasted. ‘If a pole shift actually does happen, I'm keeping this little baby for my personal use.’

‘But wait till you see the pride and joy of the fleet,’ he said, and he called to Stanley Grahame as they climbed out of the airship. ‘Hey, Stan, come and give Emma a demonstration.’

For a moment, Emma barely recognised Stanley Grahame.

Certainly his face had been grimed up for the stunt but what had happened to his black hair and brooding brow? A wig, of course. He was doubling for the star. It hadn't even occurred to her at the time.

‘Well, that's certainly an improvement,’ Emma said, taking in the unruly light brown hair and the shaggy sandy eyebrows.

‘Don't let Jack hear you say that,’ Stanley answered.

With Michael leading the way, the three of them walked along the line to the very last of the airships. With the exception of the burnt-out hull of the exploded ship, all remaining nine appeared identical, but as it turned out, seven of them were fakes, dummies designed to merely sit there.

‘There's the one you've just seen that actually flies,’ Michael explained, ‘and there's this one. Just take a look at this.’ He nodded to the stagehands standing by and they pushed an entire half of the airship to one side. The immense structure rolled easily apart in two segments like the halves of a giant split walnut. The interior of each half was identical in appearance to the inside of the functional ship.

‘All fake, of course, nothing actually operates, but this is where we shoot our interiors. Much easier to get camera angles here than trying to line up shots in the real thing. And Stan's got a few clever little inventions hanging around that we couldn't possibly put in the real thing.’

‘Ready for the demonstration?’ Stanley asked. Emma nodded and he sat down at the controls, pushing buttons and operating switches on a dashboard which looked very complicated. Suddenly, the whole panel started to spark and hiss alarmingly. Emma backed away, startled, as flashes of electricity stabbed the air like miniature lightning bolts.

Stanley switched a button and everything stopped. ‘A minute later in the sequence and the whole thing's designed to go up in flames,’ he explained. That's when Bob and I make a jump for it - we're filming the interiors leading up to the explosion tomorrow.’

‘You mean you're going to destroy this whole set?’ Emma asked incredulously.

‘Oh no,’ he answered. ‘It's just a special effect. The entire panel will appear to go up but, if we cut out of it quick enough, there shouldn't even be a scorch mark left. All an illusion.’

‘Stanley's own invention,’ Michael said. ‘Impressive, eh?’

‘But I thought you were ... a stunt man.’ Emma stopped herself saying ‘only’ just in time. Stanley was such an athletic looking fellow it was difficult to equate him with anything that wasn't purely physical.

‘No, special effects. But sometimes I throw in a stunt or two if I like the director.’ He flashed a comradely smile at Michael. ‘Or, on very rare occasions, the producer.’

‘Let's go to the executive van and have a drink,’ Michael suggested.

Stanley's services weren't required and, as the remainder of the day's filming was going to be fairly mundane, they spent the next several hours pleasantly chatting together and drinking spiked coffees in the producer's Winnebago, one of two vans stationed barely a hundred metres from the old stone farmhouse.

Michael pointed to the other van. ‘Jack's,’ he said. ‘The pompous shit insisted on the full star treatment - demanded the biggest Winnebago closest to the main location - so I lined up one for myself and plonked it here. There's bugger all he can do about it.’ He laughed. ‘Poor old Jack, if he bothered to get out a tape measure he'd find I'm actually three feet closer. Anyone for a joint?’ And he pulled a leather pouch from his pocket.

The others declined and Emma gave him a warning glance. ‘No nagging,’ Michael said. ‘I don't do it in front of the crew and Stanley's perfectly safe - he even shares the odd one with me, don't you, Stan?’

‘Only late at night when I can go to bed,’ Stanley replied. ‘The damn stuff puts me to sleep.’

Emma had long ago stopped nagging Michael about his drug abuse. ‘You snort too much coke and you smoke too much dope,’ she'd said time and again.

‘Rubbish,’ he answered. ‘A bit of this and that to get the juices flowing - it's just a little creative stimulation.’

‘It's just a lot of indulgence.’ But she stopped nagging and was glad to see that he wasn't making a public display of his habits, which would certainly be bad for his image as a responsible producer.

‘So how long have you been working in special effects, Stanley?’ Emma asked. ‘It's a fascinating area.’

‘Been a stuntie all my life, since I was a kid,’ he said. ‘Family business. But I only started specialising in effects about seven years ago.’ He grinned. ‘Probably because I got sick of being called Stan the stunt man and Stuntie Stan and all that.’

‘Stanley is very big news in Hollywood,’ Michael boasted, dragging heavily on the joint. ‘The Grahame family has one of the oldest established businesses in town - his grandfather, Old Man Gus, started out as a stuntie with John Wayne in the early thirties.’

‘Really?’ Emma asked, intrigued.

‘Yeah,’ Stanley nodded. ‘Amazing guy. He was still doing stunts when he was seventy. Mainly horseback stuff,’ he conceded, ‘that was always his speciality. Gus said his bones had grown crooked by then and he was more comfortable in a saddle anyway. Died in his sleep of a heart attack. My mother and two brothers run the business now and I stick mainly to special effects.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Sure. She met my dad when they were working stunts on
The Robe
in the fifties but he was killed five years later filming a car chase that went wrong so she took over the business with Old Gus.’

‘And they're the best, believe me,’ Michael said.

‘It was my grandfather himself who personally recommended Stanley. Couldn't speak highly enough of him.’ Michael was feeling very laid-back. He started rolling another joint. It was good to unwind. He'd taken an upper in anticipation of the morning's filming and the excitement of the explosion stunt and he needed something to bring him down a little.

‘Stanley's done a lot of work for Minotaur Movies and Ross Entertainments. He's one of the few people who actually gets on with grandpa Franklin. Apart from me, of course.’

Emma couldn't resist the question. ‘What's he like, Stanley? Franklin Ross?’

‘Oh, he's a tough old guy, all right,’ Stanley nodded, ‘but I like working for him. If you give him your best you get a fair deal.’

While Emma and Stanley continued chatting, Michael put the joint out and sat back in his chair relaxing before lighting the next one.

Yes, Stanley was right, Franklin gave a fair deal, but then he was prepared to pay for the best. That's what he'd always said.

‘Stanley Grahame's the best, Michael,’ he'd said. ‘He doesn't come cheap and hiring him'll boost your budget, but if you're going to do something as ambitious as this, you might as well do it properly.’

That was all Michael needed. If Franklin wasn't going to complain about an increase in the budget then the other investors sure as hell weren't. Franklin himself was the prime money man and the others had invested on the strength of his name alone.

‘You'd better not blow it, boy,’ he'd warned. ‘You're getting your big chance here.’ But Franklin wasn't investing for nepotistical reasons alone. If he hadn't loved the originality of the concept - the idea of shooting the actual comet, visible only once every seventy-six years - and if he hadn't loved the script itself, he wouldn't have invested a cent.

‘This Emma Clare, your writing partner, who is she?’ he'd asked after he'd read the script.

‘Hell, grandpa,’ Michael grinned, ‘she worked for Ross Productions for eighteen months.’

‘Really?’

‘She took over as executive storyliner on the Snowy series.’

‘Good series; very impressive.’

‘Don't you ever look at the credits of your own shows?’

Franklin refused to be baited and he was far too fond of Michael to be irritated. ‘Not the Australian productions, no. That's Penelope's area. So where is she now, this Emma Clare?’

‘She got an offer from Richmond's. They're shooting a mini-series around the Great Barrier Reef and they wanted her there on location. She left three months ago.’

‘I'm surprised Penelope didn't put in a higher bid,’ Franklin said. ‘Good writers are hard to come by. She should fight to keep them’. Franklin actually wondered whether he should say something to Penelope about it but he decided not to. The Australian side of the entertainment business was her concern, after all. ‘Well, I'll look forward to meeting Miss Clare at the
Halley's
premiere,’ he said.

‘I did two years of a science course at UCLA,’ Stanley was saying. Michael shook himself out of his reverie. ‘But I got bored with the company of academics and I figured by then I knew enough for special effects work.’ He grinned. ‘I have to admit, ego was never my problem.’

Emma was finding Stanley Grahame an extremely interesting man. Certainly he was confident but he wasn't arrogant as she'd first supposed. He was simply a man who knew what he wanted and set about achieving it. And the world of special effects was most certainly an interesting one.

Michael was aware of Emma's intrigue and he didn't like it. Was she interested in the man's conversation or in the man himself? ‘What's on the agenda for tomorrow, Stan?’ he asked, although he knew the schedule full well. His interruption was a little rude but Stanley didn't seem to mind and Emma had long since grown accustomed to Michael's swift mood changes. The conversation was successfully changed and they spent the rest of the afternoon chatting about the film.

Emma stayed for a further week to watch the filming of the comet itself which, to her, was the most exciting part of the whole process. The first night they filmed it from the location site. Michael's research proved correct: Yarramalong Valley was a perfect viewing choice. The night was clear and still, a chill was in the air, and Halley's was clearly visible as it snaked its way across the black velvet sky.

The following night, when they returned to Sydney and filmed from Observatory Hill with the special equipment loaned by the Observatory itself, the comet was. positively awe-inspiring. A mammoth fireball with an endless streaking tail, it looked for all the world like a demon wreaking havoc in the heavens. A demon with no regard for anything in its path.