Read Online Action! by Carolyn Keene - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carolyn Keene
Tags: Fiction, General, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Detective and Mystery Stories, Foreign Language Study, Children's stories, Girls & Women, Motion pictures, French, Mysteries & Detective Stories, Mystery and detective stories, Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), Accidents
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about that. “Well, nobody was watching Esther,” I pointed out. “She didn’t have a camera pointed at her.”
“But if you want to act like Esther, you have to think like Esther,” Morris told me. “
You
might know you’re being filmed, but Esther doesn’t. She’s just writing in her diary.”
“I guess,” I said. “But I’m not Esther. How am I supposed to forget the camera?”
“By thinking,” he said again. “Right now, you’re thinking your own thoughts—about how you feel silly, about what you should write, about what position you’re sitting in. Am I right?”
I nodded. “I’m self-conscious.”
“Exactly,” Morris said. “So instead of thinking your own thoughts, try to think Esther’s thoughts. She’s not aware of what position she’s sitting in. She’s not wondering what words to write. She’s just thinking her thoughts and putting them down on paper.”
“That’s why you’re telling me to remember how old she is and what her current family situation is?” I asked. “So that I’ll be able to figure out what she’d be thinking?”
“It will give you a starting point,” he said.
I was beginning to understand what he meant. That morning I had concentrated on the other actors. By paying attention to them, I forgot to pay attention to myself and my own thoughts. Now Morris was saying that I should pay attention to Esther’s thoughts the same way I’d done with the Alvarez brothers.
“I’ll do my best,” I promised Morris.
When we did the next take, I tried to ignore the camera. Instead I thought about fourteen-year-old Esther. She was a pioneer girl whose parents had both died when she was a toddler. As far as I could remember, she had been raised by her two older brothers.
It’s odd that she didn’t learn bad behavior from them,
I thought suddenly. The Rackham boys were notorious criminals, but Esther had been a good girl who saved the life of the man her brothers had tried to kill. Where had she learned her morals? Clearly not from her wild brothers.
“Cut!” Morris’s voice broke into my thoughts. I jumped, startled. A glance at the diary showed me that I’d been writing down what I was thinking aboutEsther. Somehow I had managed to forget my nervousness for a moment. I’d even forgotten the camera.
“Much better,” Morris said happily. “Let’s do it again.”
My heart sank. Forgetting the camera for one take had been hard enough. How could I do it for another take? Not to mention for all the other scenes I still had to film this afternoon. I had a feeling I was in for a very long day.
Almost nine hours later, I stumbled out of my trailer, exhausted. All afternoon we had filmed Esther writing in her diary. Between every scene, I’d had to wait while Pam and Degas changed my hair and makeup to make me look a little bit older each time. Mary had to change the set, too, to make it look a little more shabby and lived-in as I grew “older.” Plus, the lighting crew had to change the position of their lamps, and Morris had to decide where he wanted me sitting in each scene. But those things were all easy compared to the acting I had to do.
Sitting still and writing didn’t get any more comfortable, no matter how many times I had to do it. There was something so intimate about writing in a diary—it was almost impossible to do it naturally with a camera watching. I used Morris’s trick as much as I could. I thought about how Esther would feel at the age of fourteen, at the age of sixteen, aftershe’d gotten a job as a bank teller, while she was sick with influenza, and finally when she realized that her brothers were planning a crime. In each different scene, I thought about what was going on in Esther’s life at the time. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. All I knew for sure was that it had taken a long, long time to film.
By the time I had changed back into my own clothes and gotten my stuff from the trailer, it was almost eleven
“But if you want to act like Esther, you have to think like Esther,” Morris told me. “
You
might know you’re being filmed, but Esther doesn’t. She’s just writing in her diary.”
“I guess,” I said. “But I’m not Esther. How am I supposed to forget the camera?”
“By thinking,” he said again. “Right now, you’re thinking your own thoughts—about how you feel silly, about what you should write, about what position you’re sitting in. Am I right?”
I nodded. “I’m self-conscious.”
“Exactly,” Morris said. “So instead of thinking your own thoughts, try to think Esther’s thoughts. She’s not aware of what position she’s sitting in. She’s not wondering what words to write. She’s just thinking her thoughts and putting them down on paper.”
“That’s why you’re telling me to remember how old she is and what her current family situation is?” I asked. “So that I’ll be able to figure out what she’d be thinking?”
“It will give you a starting point,” he said.
I was beginning to understand what he meant. That morning I had concentrated on the other actors. By paying attention to them, I forgot to pay attention to myself and my own thoughts. Now Morris was saying that I should pay attention to Esther’s thoughts the same way I’d done with the Alvarez brothers.
“I’ll do my best,” I promised Morris.
When we did the next take, I tried to ignore the camera. Instead I thought about fourteen-year-old Esther. She was a pioneer girl whose parents had both died when she was a toddler. As far as I could remember, she had been raised by her two older brothers.
It’s odd that she didn’t learn bad behavior from them,
I thought suddenly. The Rackham boys were notorious criminals, but Esther had been a good girl who saved the life of the man her brothers had tried to kill. Where had she learned her morals? Clearly not from her wild brothers.
“Cut!” Morris’s voice broke into my thoughts. I jumped, startled. A glance at the diary showed me that I’d been writing down what I was thinking aboutEsther. Somehow I had managed to forget my nervousness for a moment. I’d even forgotten the camera.
“Much better,” Morris said happily. “Let’s do it again.”
My heart sank. Forgetting the camera for one take had been hard enough. How could I do it for another take? Not to mention for all the other scenes I still had to film this afternoon. I had a feeling I was in for a very long day.
Almost nine hours later, I stumbled out of my trailer, exhausted. All afternoon we had filmed Esther writing in her diary. Between every scene, I’d had to wait while Pam and Degas changed my hair and makeup to make me look a little bit older each time. Mary had to change the set, too, to make it look a little more shabby and lived-in as I grew “older.” Plus, the lighting crew had to change the position of their lamps, and Morris had to decide where he wanted me sitting in each scene. But those things were all easy compared to the acting I had to do.
Sitting still and writing didn’t get any more comfortable, no matter how many times I had to do it. There was something so intimate about writing in a diary—it was almost impossible to do it naturally with a camera watching. I used Morris’s trick as much as I could. I thought about how Esther would feel at the age of fourteen, at the age of sixteen, aftershe’d gotten a job as a bank teller, while she was sick with influenza, and finally when she realized that her brothers were planning a crime. In each different scene, I thought about what was going on in Esther’s life at the time. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. All I knew for sure was that it had taken a long, long time to film.
By the time I had changed back into my own clothes and gotten my stuff from the trailer, it was almost eleven
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