“Even though I’m the editor, I’d like to have your help, Pete,” Emily said. “After all, you shot the film.”
“Sure,” Pete agreed. “I’d like to be involved.”
Emily looked at Erica and me. “And could the two of you schedule some time to look at the film while we’re editing? I’ve never done this and I could use some help.”
“Definitely,” Erica agreed.
“No problem,” I said.
“Okay, Stacey, this is your moment,” Erica said. “Let’s go out with a bang.” I didn’t like the sound of that. “The two of you sit in front of this tree,” she instructed us.
We sat. Emily smiled at me. I tried to smile back but I think it came out more like a grimace.
“Roll ’em!” Erica shouted, and Pete turned his camera on Emily and me.
“How was your day today, Stacey?” Emily asked.
“Oh, you know. It’s a Sunday. Kind of uneventful,” I replied. I tried to control the shake in my voice.
“You seem a little on edge,” Emily said.
“I’m not used to being filmed.”
“Just relax.” Emily asked me a few questions about my life, and I slowly calmed down. I talked a little about my favorite things — math, baby-sitting, fashion. Then she asked how I spend my free time.
“Some weekends I go to Manhattan to see my father and my boyfriend, Ethan,” I said.
“Your parents are divorced, aren’t they?” Emily asked casually.
Little alarm bells went off in my head.
“Yes,” I replied.
“What are your feelings about that?”
Okay, I told myself. She’s just trying to get a good interview. Lots of kids have divorced parents and we haven’t touched on that much so far. We need to.
“It’s not easy,” I said, trying to select my words carefully and still say what I truly felt. “At first you think you won’t survive. Slowly, though, you adjust. You construct a new world. It’s different from your old one, but after awhile you discover that you’re okay, despite everything.”
“That sounds like a pamphlet on divorce,” said Emily.
“Excuse me?” I exclaimed.
“I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t believe that’s how you really feel.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Maybe,” Emily answered.
“What do you want me to do — start crying? Is that your idea of a successful interview?”
“Do you feel like crying?”
“Well, sometimes,” I admitted. “Most kids with divorced parents aren’t thrilled about it. Yes, I was glad that there wouldn’t be any more fighting. Some nights I lay in bed with my hands over my ears and tears in my eyes just wishing they’d stop screaming. I’m glad that’s over. But I’d prefer to live in a happy family with both parents.”
“It sounds like you have a lot of anger right under the surface,” Emily noted.
“Um … well …” What did Emily think she was — a psychiatrist? I wished she’d back off. And yet, maybe she was right. Was I angry about the divorce?
I felt cornered. Knowing that the camera was aimed at me only made it worse. I realized how difficult it must have been for the others.
“It’s interesting that your boyfriend lives so far away,” Emily continued.
I was glad she was changing the subject.
“Do you think coming from divorce has made you look for distant relationships, ones that don’t require too much commitment?”
“I’m committed to Ethan,” I replied.
“He lives two hours away,” she insisted.
My mouth opened but no sound came out. I was not going to fall into her trap and explode. I’d said too much already.
“Cut!” Erica shouted.
“Erica!” Emily protested angrily.
“The tape has run out,” she said. From Pete’s startled expression I could tell she was lying.
I realized my heart was pounding and my hands were sweating. Erica smiled at me sympathetically. Had she lied to Emily to let me off the hook? It seemed so to me and I felt grateful to her.
Emily turned to me. “I’m sorry if I upset you, but that was a great interview,” she said.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I disagreed. And I didn’t appreciate the amateur psychiatry either. “Could we not use the part about my parents screaming?” I asked as my heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
“Are you kidding? That was the strongest part.”
A picture of Mary Anne’s worried face popped into my head. Now I understood exactly how she felt. And it wasn’t good.
Was it too late to undo the damage — for both of us?
When Kristy told me she’d selected Rosie Wilder for her group’s film, I thought it was a stroke of genius.
At seven, she’s already appeared on TV several times and in a commercial or two. She’s studied piano, ballet, violin, voice, and tap.
From Kristy’s point of view, Rosie was sure to deliver something great she could use in the film.
“Do you think we could have a copy of the film?” Mrs. Wilder asked when Kristy, Alan, Anna, and Logan arrived.
“Sure, but she won’t be the only one in it,” Kristy told her.
“No problem,” said Mr. Wilder. “We have a friend who is a film editor. We’ll just have all the other children cut out.”
“We want to expand Rosie’s on-camera portfolio,” Mrs. Wilder explained. “That’s what casting agents look for, how the child projects on screen.”
Rosie came out of the kitchen, twirling a strand of her thick red hair around one finger. “Hi, Kristy,” she said. “You want me to be in your movie? That’s what Mom told me.”
“That’s right,” Kristy said. “How about telling a joke?”
“Okay,” Rosie agreed.
Kristy hurried to ready her camera. She focused on Rosie.
“Knock, knock,” Rosie began.
Alan hovered next to Kristy. “A knock-knock joke?” he said.
“Go away. This is great.”
“Who’s there?” Rosie continued. “Dwayne. Dwayne who? Dwayne the tub — I’m dwowning.”
Kristy kept the camera trained on Rosie. The joke wasn’t exactly a riot, but Rosie had lots of energy.
As Rosie stared blankly into the lens, Kristy put the camera down. “Rosie, do you know any comedy?”
Rosie looked baffled. “Didn’t you think that was funny?”
“It was good but … I need something more.”
“Show them what you did when you auditioned for the waffle commercial last week,” Mr. Wilder suggested.
Rosie frowned. “But I didn’t get the part.”
“We don’t know that yet, honey,” her mother said. “These things take time.”
“Oh, all right,” Rosie relented. “But I need a waffle.” Mrs. Wilder hurried into the kitchen and returned with a frozen waffle. She held the waffle up beside Rosie’s face. “Go ahead, Rosie. Say what you said at the audition. Wally’s Waffles weally taste gweat!”
“Wally’s Waffles really taste great,” Rosie repeated without much excitement.
Kristy filmed it. “Not funny,” Alan murmured in her ear.
She knew it wasn’t funny. “All right, Alan,” she whispered angrily. “You tell me when you see something funny and when you want me to film.”
Alan threw his arms out wide. “At last!” he cried.
Kristy glared at him.
“I’m sorry that wasn’t very good,” Rosie said, putting the waffle on a table. “I didn’t like Wally’s Waffles much so it was hard to say that.”
“That’s okay,” Kristy told her. “I know you take tap. Could you dance for us?”
Alan coughed pointedly, but she ignored him.
“If you really want me to,” Rosie agreed. “I’ll have to go get my tap shoes.” She ran upstairs and clacked back down in her taps. “I need music,” she announced.
Suddenly, Rosie’s face took
on a look of complete horror as she slipped on the wood floor, waving her arms for balance.
“Film! Film!” Alan urgently instructed Kristy.
Without thinking, she obeyed.
Logan leaped across the room and caught Rosie just as she was about to crash to the floor. They landed in a heap in the corner of the room.
Like the football player he is, Logan had even managed to catch a vase as it fell from a table. He sat there with Rosie on his lap and a vase in his hand.
“Rosie!” Mr. Wilder cried as he hurried across the room toward his daughter. Anna followed him.
“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Wilder.
Rosie’s face blossomed into a luminous smile and she turned to Logan. “You saved my life!” she announced dramatically. Then she laid a big kiss on Logan as she wrapped her arms around him.
“Cut,” Alan told Kristy.
She put the camera down and grinned at him.
“Now that was funny,” he said.
Kristy had to agree. Without Alan she might have missed the funniest thing in the film so far.
“Okay, director,” Kristy said to Alan. “What do you want to do next?”
“Maybe we can ask Rosie to talk about going on auditions,” he suggested. “We might get some funny comments from her.”
“All right,” Kristy agreed.
Rosie was now standing and feeling fine.
“Rosie, can you tell us about auditioning? What’s it like?” Alan asked.
“Some of the people you meet are really weird,” she began. “There was a casting agent once who looked like Cruella DeVil.” Rosie tossed her head back. She made a face and began to prance across the room. “She looked like this.”
“Action,” Alan told Kristy. And she turned on the camera.
“Hungry, Stacey?” Mom asked when I returned home that Sunday afternoon.
“Yes, but I need to do something before we eat,” I told her.
I took the cordless phone from the kitchen and sat with it on the stairs. I punched in Mary Anne’s number and waited.
“Hi, it’s Stacey,” I said when she picked up.
“Oh … hello.” Definitely a frosty reception. But I couldn’t blame her.
“Listen, I understand why you’re mad,” I said. “I just came from my interview and now I know how difficult it is. You start to feel trapped and say things that aren’t exactly what you mean.”
“That’s right,” Mary Anne agreed. “I don’t hate my mother. That’s just how I was feeling at that moment. And I only hated her because she wasn’t there — because I would love for her to still be alive. But that word hate is so ugly and that’s all you hear.”
“I know. In my interview I made it sound as if I lived in a home with constant screaming. But that isn’t true. It was only toward the end, and for just a couple of months. Most of the time I was pretty happy. It didn’t come out sounding that way, though.”
Mary Anne sighed. “Now it’s taped and we’re stuck with it, I suppose.”
“Maybe not,” I disagreed. “I’m going to try again, really hard. I can’t promise, but maybe it’s not too late to persuade my group to make some cuts.”
She wished me good luck and I hung up. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, or even if I could, but I was determined to try my best.
* * *
“Editing is one of the most important aspects of making a film,” Ms. Murphy told us on Monday during Short Takes. She stood next to some equipment set up on a table. A control panel about the size of a laptop computer sat next to two VCRs, each with a monitor on top.
“This video editing system is on loan from friends of mine,” she continued, patting the machine. “I’m going to tell you how to use it today and then we’ll make up a schedule so each group will have time with it.”
“What if we like the film we have just the way it is?” Anna asked.
“Very few, if any films are right just as they’re filmed,” Ms. Murphy replied. “They shouldn’t be. It’s important to shoot enough material so that you can make some choices about what to keep and what to leave behind. Cutting the film is an art in itself. All your material can’t be in your movie. Face it — some of it is probably just plain boring.”
I raised my hand and she nodded at me. “What if something in a documentary would embarrass someone? Is it all right to take it out?” I asked.
Emily turned and frowned. I glanced at Erica and Pete. They listened intently for Ms. Murphy’s reply.
She folded her arms and gave a small sigh. “That is a very difficult question but an important one,” she answered. “I can’t give you one simple rule because it’s something you have to decide for yourself. Explosive material makes for dynamic, award-winning films. What price are you willing to pay for that? Only you can say.”
I wasn’t exactly surprised by her answer, but I was a little disappointed. I guess I’d been hoping she’d say people have to come first, or something along those lines. That way I could go to Emily, Erica, and Pete saying, “You heard what Ms. Murphy said.” It wasn’t going to be that easy, though.
For the next few minutes we watched as Ms. Murphy showed us how to use the equipment. It seemed a little confusing to me, but Pete and Emily would be the ones who were mostly responsible for the editing.
As far as I could tell, you inserted your tape in the first VCR, called the source. Then you marked in the pieces you wanted to use by pressing different buttons on the controller. The controller then sent only the pieces you marked over to the second machine, called the record machine, where they were transferred to a blank tape.
On the controller, there were also buttons marked audio one and audio two. “These are for sound,” Ms. Murphy explained. “Many editors like to keep audio one for dialogue and audio two for music and special sound effects.”
“Cool,” Pete murmured. I’d never even thought about adding music or anything like that. I wondered if he and Emily had any ideas.
“You can also view your work before making final decisions about what to keep and what to cut by pressing the preview button here,” Ms. Murphy explained. “So, as you can see, you have many options when creating your final piece. Another thing I’d like to mention is that if you really don’t like a particular scene, you can reshoot it and insert it into your finished film.”
We made up a class schedule for using the editing equipment. “It might seem that you have plenty of time, but it will quickly run out,” she warned us. “Battles over the use of editing equipment can become very nasty. So use your time efficiently.”
Once the instruction ended, Ms. Murphy asked us to break into our groups to discuss how we wanted to work.
We pulled our chairs into a circle.
Our group was next to Kristy’s. Before we began talking, I actually heard Kristy say, “Well, what do you think, Alan?”
Amazing!
“I had this great idea,” Pete began, pulling my attention back to my own crew. “I was thinking we could use music from the radio that’s popular exactly this week. That way we could indicate the time of the video without having to say this is such and such a time.”
“I love that,” Erica agreed. “Did you understand how to do it on the machine?”
“Yeah. Just make another tape — I could film my radio playing — and mark the music in and out on the audio channel while the visuals are playing.”
“Sounds good,” Emily said. “I was thinking too that we didn’t shoot any credits. I could type up an opening with our names.”
“Great,” I broke in. “Now we need to discuss something else. After my interview, I understood better how Mary Anne felt. Can we please think about cutting her out? It’s not as if we don’t have enough material. I’d like part of my interview to come out too, but we can leave that in if we take Mary Anne’s out.”
“No!” Emily cried. “No way.”
“Wait a minute,” Pete said. “I think I agree with Stacey. We interviewed friends. You guy
s knew things about the people you interviewed that you wouldn’t have known if they had been strangers. So you had an advantage another interviewer wouldn’t have had.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “You knew my parents were divorced. If you didn’t, you’d have had to wait for me to reveal that and maybe I never would have.”
“You’re putting friendship over filmmaking,” Emily said stubbornly.
“So what?” I said loudly. (Everyone in the room turned to look at me.) I lowered my voice. “Yes. I suppose that’s my decision. To me, friendship is more important than our project.”
“Don’t you care about the truth?” Emily asked.
“This isn’t a film about truth. It’s about the feelings of middle school kids. And I care about Mary Anne’s feelings.”
“Erica is the director,” Emily said. “It’s her decision. What do you think, Erica?”
A panicked expression came over Erica. She seemed uncomfortable about including Mary Anne’s portion of the film against her wishes. Maybe she’d come through for me. After all, she’d helped me out when my interview had grown uncomfortable.
“What do you think?” I pressed. “You know how awkward it can make you feel to be taped.”
“Do I really have to decide?” she asked unhappily.
“You’re the director,” Emily pointed out.
“All right,” she said. “My decision is … Mary Anne stays.”
Thumping my desk angrily, I sat back hard in my seat. I felt the impulse to walk out in protest and began to stand up.
Then I sat down again as an inspiration hit me.
There might actually be a way to fix this. I only hoped I could come up with new material interesting enough to make the others want to use it.
“Mary Anne,” I said at the end of our BSC meeting that afternoon. We were still in Claudia’s bedroom, though everyone but Claudia, Mary Anne, and I had left. “I couldn’t convince my group to agree to a cut.”
“I don’t believe them!” she cried. “Why can’t they see that — ?”
I held up my hand to stop her. “I have an idea. Maybe the answer isn’t to cut, but to add.”