What They Do in the Dark - By Amanda Coe Page 0,13

the frame.

‘Could have done it with a back projection down at Elstree and kept our feet dry, love,’ Dougie muttered as Tony agonized over lens sizes.

Vera had known Dougie for years. When Mike had talked through the scene with them, she had been unsurprised to hear him suggest that he put the car into gear without actually driving away at the end. Dougie was the laziest actor in England. The decline this film marked into his first non-speaking part perfectly suited his inclination to do as little as possible. She herself had once witnessed him argue that the character he was playing was far too patrician to pour himself a drink, insisting that he should stay in his chair and let a servant do it for him instead. In that case, he had won. Over the car, Mike prevailed. Well, they would see. Dougie’s idleness apart, when all the other elements had run smoothly in the scene, Sod’s law just begged for the engine to stall, killing the take.

After another half an hour to set up and run through, they were ready to begin. The AD, nervous, nasal Derek, delivered Dirk and Lallie’s lines, nervously and nasally. Since the shot was actually from Colin and June’s point of view, the two leads didn’t appear in it, and rather than get his star actors to stand out of sight and mouth the lines, Mike preferred to keep them in their caravans, out of the cold. Besides which, as he had confided to Vera over an early cigarette at the catering van, it was merry hell trying to arrange the schedule around the strictly limited hours which Lallie, as a minor, was legally allowed to work. Even with her mother as chaperone, and more willing to bend the rules than the usual stage-school harridans, they had to save every minute they could.

To that end, any shot which didn’t require Lallie’s face was in fact a shot of Lallie’s double, a stunted, bewigged twenty-five-year-old called Sue, to whom access was unrestricted in more than merely the professional sense. Vera could see her by the sound equipment, joking with the grip. She wore an adult bomber jacket which made the child’s costume beneath seem provocative. Her drab hair was coiled up to accommodate the wig which sat on the hair woman’s waiting hand, being brushed out by her assistant. As Vera watched, Sue squeezed the grip’s bum. Gripped the grip. She couldn’t share this with Dougie, who would have appreciated it, as Derek was shrieking, ‘Turn over!’, and they were seconds away from a take.

With the car engine supposedly idling, but to be added in the dub, Vera had to roll down the window, suspiciously eye the character of Colin, played by the absent Dirk Bogarde, but fictitiously standing to the right of the camera, then drop her eyes to the height of June, aka Lallie, also missing but represented by a strip of tape on the chest of Derek’s jumper, and deliver the line, ‘Everything all right, love?’ Derek responded with Lallie/June’s ‘I’m fine. Aren’t I, Dad?’, and Vera had to catch Dirk/Colin’s non-existent little flash of surprise at the child’s resourceful pretence that they were father and daughter. Then came her line, ‘Can we give you a lift?’ and Colin’s reply before Dougie drove them away, out of the frame.

It was a couple of takes before the eye lines were sorted out, with the piece of tape meant for Lallie positioned and repos itioned on Derek’s chest, then she fluffed by changing her line to ‘You all right, love?’ and was admonished by the script girl (always a girl, although well into her forties), then for three takes, with eye lines and script lines perfect, she was encouraged by Mike to ‘take it down’, until on the seventh take, when Vera felt that she had taken it down as far as was possible, short of just thinking the scene instead of performing it, a plane flew over.

‘Shit!’ shouted Mike.

‘Go again!’ shouted Derek, remorselessly.

During the eighth take, Tony announced a slight camera shake so they cut and went to take nine. Take nine was a print. Nine takes wasn’t bad, particularly given the car. Everyone swarmed in for the next set-up and Vera moved off for a fag.

Vera felt pleased with herself. She was, after all, a pro. She watched Sue-the-double, her Lallie wig now in place and jacket off, playfully massage the bicep of the boy who had been helping the boom