was where the similarities to any previous job ended. Richard Glass was an altogether different sort of director
from those she had worked with in Toronto. For one thing, he was slender and almost girlish looking. And he wore suits—unhemmed
pants and monogrammed shirts so worn you could see his flat penny-size nipples through the fabric.
While most directors tended to be brusque and proud of their macho to-the-pointness, Richard seemed to have all the time in
the world for silly small talk and pranks. Like others in his position, he spent a lot of time flirting with the actresses
(whispering in their ears, placing a supportive hand on the small of their backs), but unlike most, he flirted with everyone
else on set as well. He slipped and slithered about the set all day, offering every individual the unexpected treat of his
undivided, if momentary, attention. In this way he managed to charm every member of the crew into carrying out his orders
without ever raising his voice.
Meredith had been on the set for eight days of the forty-day shoot and was coping well enough so far. The film was a Victorian
period murder mystery/romantic comedy starring Kathleen Swain, an American starlet coming to the end of her bankable period.
In it, she played a spinster pathologist who falls in love with a brooding detective while performing autopsies on the bodies
of the prostitute victims of a Jack-the-Ripper-like murderer. The film was financed on the slope of Swain’s cheekbones.
The project’s backer was the mysterious and never-present Osmond Crouch, who, it was widely rumoured, was a former lover of
Swain’s. In his place, Mr. Crouch (as everyone called him on set) had sent a line producer to oversee the shoot. Dan Button,
an overgrown Scottish goth boy, minced about in a black trench coat and skull boots, looking terrified to talk to anyone.
He couldn’t be more than thirty, Meredith thought, and yet Crouch had for some reason sent him here to oversee the production
of a twenty-million-dollar movie. Twenty million! That’s what this pimply monkey of a boy, this wannabe vampire, was in charge
of. It boggled the mind. While most of the hands-on crew generally ignored Button, the director would occasionally slip off
with him for a little chat. Button would invariably emerge from Richard’s trailer flushed with pleasure, and for the rest
of the day would skulk more happily around the set, occasionally tap-tap-tapping his walking staff to the tune of some dark,
internal symphony.
The crew was setting up in a large empty warehouse space on the third floor of a nearly condemned East End building when Meredith
arrived for her call time of seven thirty a.m. She grabbed a juice from the “tea cart” (funny Brits) and unfolded her tiny
portable camp stool in a quiet corner, then began her day’s logging. Hauling a binder out of her bag and wiping the crumbs
from its surface (a packet of airplane pretzels had somehow escaped its packaging), she examined the day’s pages for the third
time that morning. The script had been changed so many times by Glass and the writer that it was now an unruly rainbow of
candy-colored revision pages. Every revised page in the script was dated and printed on a different-colored page from the
one before. The rotation, according to protocol, began with white and was followed by blue, pink, yellow, green and goldenrod
(Meredith had never understood why they didn’t just call it orange). The scene they were shooting today (which involved a
fight, a kiss and a bad guy being set on fire and thrown out of a fifth-story window) was printed out on white paper—double
white—which meant it had been rewritten exactly six times so far. Meredith would not be the least bit surprised if handwritten
blue revisions—double blues—appeared and had to be stapled into her binder. Usually, by the time shooting began, Meredith
knew the script so well, had read it
from those she had worked with in Toronto. For one thing, he was slender and almost girlish looking. And he wore suits—unhemmed
pants and monogrammed shirts so worn you could see his flat penny-size nipples through the fabric.
While most directors tended to be brusque and proud of their macho to-the-pointness, Richard seemed to have all the time in
the world for silly small talk and pranks. Like others in his position, he spent a lot of time flirting with the actresses
(whispering in their ears, placing a supportive hand on the small of their backs), but unlike most, he flirted with everyone
else on set as well. He slipped and slithered about the set all day, offering every individual the unexpected treat of his
undivided, if momentary, attention. In this way he managed to charm every member of the crew into carrying out his orders
without ever raising his voice.
Meredith had been on the set for eight days of the forty-day shoot and was coping well enough so far. The film was a Victorian
period murder mystery/romantic comedy starring Kathleen Swain, an American starlet coming to the end of her bankable period.
In it, she played a spinster pathologist who falls in love with a brooding detective while performing autopsies on the bodies
of the prostitute victims of a Jack-the-Ripper-like murderer. The film was financed on the slope of Swain’s cheekbones.
The project’s backer was the mysterious and never-present Osmond Crouch, who, it was widely rumoured, was a former lover of
Swain’s. In his place, Mr. Crouch (as everyone called him on set) had sent a line producer to oversee the shoot. Dan Button,
an overgrown Scottish goth boy, minced about in a black trench coat and skull boots, looking terrified to talk to anyone.
He couldn’t be more than thirty, Meredith thought, and yet Crouch had for some reason sent him here to oversee the production
of a twenty-million-dollar movie. Twenty million! That’s what this pimply monkey of a boy, this wannabe vampire, was in charge
of. It boggled the mind. While most of the hands-on crew generally ignored Button, the director would occasionally slip off
with him for a little chat. Button would invariably emerge from Richard’s trailer flushed with pleasure, and for the rest
of the day would skulk more happily around the set, occasionally tap-tap-tapping his walking staff to the tune of some dark,
internal symphony.
The crew was setting up in a large empty warehouse space on the third floor of a nearly condemned East End building when Meredith
arrived for her call time of seven thirty a.m. She grabbed a juice from the “tea cart” (funny Brits) and unfolded her tiny
portable camp stool in a quiet corner, then began her day’s logging. Hauling a binder out of her bag and wiping the crumbs
from its surface (a packet of airplane pretzels had somehow escaped its packaging), she examined the day’s pages for the third
time that morning. The script had been changed so many times by Glass and the writer that it was now an unruly rainbow of
candy-colored revision pages. Every revised page in the script was dated and printed on a different-colored page from the
one before. The rotation, according to protocol, began with white and was followed by blue, pink, yellow, green and goldenrod
(Meredith had never understood why they didn’t just call it orange). The scene they were shooting today (which involved a
fight, a kiss and a bad guy being set on fire and thrown out of a fifth-story window) was printed out on white paper—double
white—which meant it had been rewritten exactly six times so far. Meredith would not be the least bit surprised if handwritten
blue revisions—double blues—appeared and had to be stapled into her binder. Usually, by the time shooting began, Meredith
knew the script so well, had read it
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