What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [65]
All that for a mere couple of seconds of film at best. She sat to wait as the back breakaway wall of the shower stall was removed from its sturdy hinges by the grips. The Actress asked for a towel to dry her hair, but the wardrobe mistress shook her head, the next shot appearing imminent. The camera was repositioned where the back wall had once been, as if looking out to the bathroom door, and when it became clear that the shot setup was going to take some time, the wardrobe mistress finally produced a towel and let out a sigh, the look on her face that of a noticeable need for a cigarette.
The Actress waited, listening to the proceedings and trying to stay alert to help the Director move quickly if he called her to her spot. She saw what they were busy arranging: the camera would face the bathroom door, so it was a matter of light and shadow, not just the blinding surface of a shower wall. The set decorators were on hand with a batch of shower curtains of varying opacity. The curtain was pulled to and fro as the lights waxed and dimmed, the Director shaking his head at what he could and could not see. He called out to her. “I just need to see you in this spot here,” he said, pointing, and she rose from her seat, her back hurting already from not even a half morning of doing nothing but waiting. She stood in her spot as directed, her warm robe pulled around, the men arguing over the finer shadings of her light.
At ten, another woman came in and sat quietly in a chair. She, too, wore a robe, but already the Actress knew she had no clothing on underneath—no bathing suit, no moleskin coverings, no bikini. The other woman sat without saying a word, her time being paid for, though it seemed today her services might not be required. Even though she had a robe on, anyone could see she was endowed with a magnificent pair of breasts, hips curved for a Las Vegas floor show, yet she sat in the chair reading a Marguerite Duras novel in French without once glancing up to meet the eyes of the crew, who stole quick glances and grinned at each other.
Not fifteen minutes later, another woman appeared, this one tall and thin, accompanied by more people from wardrobe, a scattering of props on hand while the Director guided the talk about the lighting. The Actress observed them as they positioned the tall actress at the frame of the bathroom door, silhouetting her, discussing the width of her shoulders, the shape of the wig, the appearance of the knife in her hand. For the rest of the morning, the Actress and the Las Vegas starlet sat in their identical chairs, the nuances of the lighting details becoming so particular and technical that they hardly made sense anymore. For the rest of the morning, it was the tall, thin woman who received the direction, who was guided in how to raise the knife menacingly, who was urged to slow down her entrance through the door, even though she was nothing but a shadow.
Finally, when they were ready to shoot again, the Director called for the Actress, and it occurred to her that even the pivotal scene of turning to face her surprising demise was not yet in the cards. It was merely the entrance of the silhouette. “Can we run the water a little bit, just to warm it up?” she asked, and one of the crew answered politely that it was hardly going to get much warmer. Still, they ran the water some, the Director asking her to keep her right arm close to her body as she rinsed, to conceal the shape of her breast from the camera as best she could.
By this time her hair had dried, and the Actress wondered to herself about just how wet her hair had been in the previous shot. She stood with her face under the tepid water for as long as she could before raising her arms, involuntarily, to run