Patriot Smith, page 29
part #1 of Patriots Series
He was engrossed in the work, when Doug came and started to read things over his shoulder. Instead of telling him to go away, Sebastian just passed him the protocol print out. After all, they had the rule book, which meant they just had to provide answers as to how people needed to respond, as well as how the police and military should try to act while carrying them out.
That meant they were working for ten hours, with very few breaks being taken. Sebastian barely even got how late it really was, until daylight started to come through the windows of the room. It wasn’t bright out but it was enough to show him that he wasn’t going to get to sleep that night.
Smiling, he finished up the last page of the script. They had at least three hours of material there but a lot of it would be info graphics. Played over scenes and a few still pictures, so that it wouldn’t be way too slow paced. They needed to use good editing and have at least two cameras going all the time. Three would be better but that wasn’t going to happen. As it was, they were going to all be working constantly. The little team he had for it.
Standing and stretching, he took a huge breath.
“We need to get cleaned up, then to get the costumes and makeup ready for this. It’s going to be a long day. I’ll dig things out and check the fires while you shower first? Then… I’d like to start shooting an hour after first light. We can do the outdoor scenes right away.” It was an impossibly tight schedule but the other man looked at him a bit tiredly but without glaring or seeming upset.
“Coffee? We don’t normally break that out but we have some, right?”
They did, in vacuum sealed cans. Sebastian didn’t normally drink it but it was probably a good idea, lacking stronger drugs to keep them all going. That and some food were probably in order, if he didn’t want a revolt on his hands. Not that he’d really blame anyone for doing that. It wasn’t even a money-making project. Not that most of what they did really was. They made enough, and part of doing anything was starting small and building up as you went. That didn’t mean that their little side project was actually worth doing for official studio related reasons.
“We’ll break some out. The coffee maker, too. I think I know where it is. Let’s get to all that? Go and catch that shower. I can take mine cold if I have to.” Not that he wanted to do that. They only had so much water there, and cycling even four people through in an hour wouldn’t really work. They might be able to do three, if the others all hurried.
Getting it all done in time to meet his unrealistic and self-imposed schedule took some jogging and they were having the normal oatmeal for breakfast that day, since anything more advanced would take far too long. Daylight was fine for shooting under, most of the time but they had limited access to it. Worse, when he ran outside, to make sure the greenhouse was warm enough, there were clouds in the sky. They were a nice pink and orange color on the horizon. Which probably meant rain was going to be coming. They could work with sprinkles but an actual downpour was going to be hard to manage around. The air was still, so the sound might still work, even if they were outside.
A big portion of things were going to be narrated, even if that was a bit tacky, to his way of thinking. They just had too much information to get through in a short time period and while showing might be better than telling for entertainment purposes, it wasn’t always the clearest way to get things across to the public. Their current project was about passing information, after all.
On the good side, one frigid shower and some digging through prop boxes later, he was pretty much ready for the day. He’d even managed to drink two cups of black coffee. It was unsweetened and bitter as all heck but that was kind of what the brew was. There was food and cups of coffee on the table for everyone when Doug went and got them all.
Karen looked at the cup on the table, sampled it slowly, then gulped the whole thing down, in one go. Sara went more slowly, wincing as she did it. No one whined about not having cream or sugar for it. That part, well, they had some milk left and lots of sugar. They were actresses though, so understood on some level the need not to get lazy when it came to taking in calories. All of them had lost a little weight but not so much that it was a problem. Out of all of them only Rick was in that too-skinny range. That worked for the man being tall and left him seeming different than the other guys there.
Really, that hadn’t been his point, giving it to them black. Sebastian just wasn’t used to making it, so hadn’t gotten all the right fixings out for it around.
The slightly square man, who had good cheek bones and a nice enough face, smiled.
“I’m up to play a soldier. Sebastian is going to be a cop and Sara is going to be going back and forth if we can get a costume worked up, so that we can have a jerkish civilian man coming at you aggressively. So we can show how to handle people like that? We need everyone to look different for parts of things, which will come down to costume and makeup. We aren’t even trying to fool people though, just let them know what role is being played at what time. That means Karen is doing almost all the female civilian roles. Obviously, we’re all on camera. We want good work that way, with well framed shots and enough movement that we don’t look like a nineties pro-police straight to video program. Karen, you and I are directing together?” That was a thing that didn’t normally happen.
Not just there, either. It would mean the two of them being on the same page for the whole thing, which was nearly impossible to pull off. People tended to think their vision was the right one and that compromise was a horrible thing that needed to be avoided in life.
The woman nodded anyway.
“I’ll take your lead, as much as possible. I get the point, directing and acting at the same time is a lot of work. Let’s go over the shooting schedule. Sebastian, you’re doing the sets for this?”
Naturally, he’d just taken a big bite of hot cereal, which had chewy dried apple bits in it. That meant he had to actually wave for a moment while getting ready to swallow.
“Right. As they are. It’s a simplistic set up that way. I already know what to do. I can get the cars ready for the fake check point in about ten minutes.”
The rest of the day would be him running, between shots. On the good side, they only needed five different set ups and three of them were just going to require him to do minor things to get ready. It would take him longer to get the police uniform ready than that. Mainly because the thing needed to be ironed first, so it would look right. It wasn’t a perfect replica of any local or state uniform, of course. It was close, just different enough that no one could get after him for claiming to be a cop when he wasn’t. Not if they were just playing dress up at home. His hair looked about right for that but Doug was wrong for a military man. He nearly didn’t mention that part, then shrugged.
“We need to trim your hair for your part, Doug. We can put Sara’s up for it, since that’s regulation. That won’t really work for you. A high and tight, I think?” He smiled but it was going to have to be that or a flat top, even if they were showing Doug as National Guard. Not that the fatigues they had were right for anything the military was going to be wearing at the moment. They were all desert camouflage and a few years out of date. Close enough that people would get the idea even if they didn’t have unit insignia or a name over the pocket.
The man wasn’t that happy to hear about his new look, though he sat for it without complaint, in a kitchen chair, in the bathroom. It had been a while since Sebastian had done anything like it, which slowed him down, since you couldn’t afford to botch a short haircut like that. Then, working carefully, he started to do makeup for everyone. It felt a bit funny being out of practice but they knew how to sit and didn’t squirm too much. He also wasn’t trying to make them look insanely different, or like they were ready for a night out on the town.
It still set them back, schedule wise. On the good side, they actually worked together well enough to get everything finished in one shooting day. That was a huge amount of work and not all of it was going to be perfect at all but it was still kind of impressive. The acting was actually decent, when he settled in to look at the raw footage at about ten that evening. He hadn’t eaten all day but no one had, so that part was fair enough. He was about to fall over anyway, so didn’t whine about it.
Instead he drank a lot of water, took some time to scrub his face clean and then took over the computer that Hal was working at, since the man waved for him to do it. Sara was right there as well, all of them hovering around the machine.
Then, acting like he wasn’t being insane, Hal started to hammer them with complicated editing information. It was hard to keep up with. Sebastian tried to force himself to do it, anyway. Sara did too, and after a few hours, patted him on the arm.
“Right, get some sleep. I’ll work this part. Wish me luck?” She looked like she meant it.
“All of it. Thanks. I’ll… Try to get up early. It probably won’t happen. Come get me if you need help?” It was midnight and he was honestly about to go down, hard. Hopefully she wouldn’t need him in particular that night.
Standing up, he gave Sara a small hug. She did it back, as if it were a normal thing for him to be doing with her. It wasn’t but being as tired as he was meant that his inhibitions were down a bit. On the good side, he was too tired for sex and she was too busy at the moment to be tempted away from her task. That meant she let him go after a bit, and settled in to work.
Before he could get sleep as tempting as it was to do that directly, he had to check the fire in the greenhouse. The others could do the main one, though he needed a small blaze in the Coldwater, if he didn’t want to shiver all night. That meant getting to bed late and not getting up until nearly ten the next morning. Even at that he struggled to get himself moving. Sleep had gummed his eyes and left him feeling blurry.
Not that well rested, either.
On the good side, he didn’t really have a lot to do that day, except for answer questions about what he wanted done for Patriot Smith. Paul was doing all the real work on it but he was allowed a tiny bit of input. Really, he could have had more than that but the truth was that the other man was better than anyone else they had on that side of things. Faster, too.
To that end, he started to work on making more candy, for sale later. It would last for a long while, so he spent hours on it, making lunch and dinner, since he was already in the right room for it. He didn’t bake anything, since those kinds of product would need to be done up fresh, the evening before they were sold. That or he needed to get up at three in the morning to do the work. Hopefully a few hours weren’t going to make that much of a difference to people. He wanted to do a good job but sleep was kind of nice as well.
At dinner, both Hal and Paul seemed happy. For the same reason, as it turned out.
“We have everything going up right now. The first four Got Your Backs, since that was easy enough to do, Neighborly, and Hal’s Variety Show. Really, if we’re calling it that, you should MC the thing.” That was directed at the red-head who waved the idea away, as if it was silly.
Except that it wasn’t, really. There was no reason for him not to be the headliner for the program. He was already doing most of the writing for it.
Sebastian nodded.
“That’s a good idea, really. I’ll work editing for the new project tonight. That way Sara can get some sleep. How much is done on that?” He didn’t really expect it to be all that much, since they hadn’t even come up with a name for it.
She shrugged.
“About half? I did up a decent title section for all three parts. We’re calling it, “Things to Know About Martial Law” I know that isn’t inspired but I kind of figured that being on the nose was better than too artistic. We want it to show up in search engines and all that.” She seemed nearly embarrassed by the idea. As if her name for it was too silly.
In fact, she blushed, which only Sebastian noticed happening.
Still, she wasn’t wrong, so he smiled at her.
“Nice. I probably would have picked something similar, if it were me. I’ll try to work up the music then and finish all the inserts needed for it. That and anything else I can work out how to do.”
It was probably going to be a bit rough. That and slow paced, since you didn’t do three hours’ worth of jump cuts and interesting fades in one night. Then, they were probably going to be cut a little slack if it wasn’t the best thing ever. Hopefully.
He started right in on that, as soon as he could, which wasn’t until after midnight. The other programs had to be uploaded to different places and while they had high speed fiberoptic internet connections, it still took hours to set it all up. Patriot Smith wasn’t done at all, which meant Paul still had to work on it the next day.
Still, the work that Sara had done was at least as good as what he would have managed himself, so Sebastian didn’t have to try to redo her work or anything. It wasn’t even bad, really. A bit less polished than they could have managed if it wasn’t a rush job but it was honestly more than halfway done. Most of his evening was spent on typing and inserting things in the right places, in the correct fonts, then making up simple music that was overlaid for impact.
He tried for an overall patriotic sound for the whole thing. It wasn’t grand really. Original work so no one would be pulling it down due to copyright claims. Sebastian even felt like he sort of matched the scenes playing out. That part was hard to do well but he was able to recycle things, using the same tunes, with minor variations, on all three videos.
That meant, when morning came, and he was making pancakes for everyone, they actually had a decent little program to put up. Paul and Hal looked at it first, before eating even, both seeming a bit annoyed when they finally sat down.
For a moment he figured it was just so bad a job that they were going to have to redo it all.
Paul looked at him and shook his head. Slowly.
“It’s not horrible. A bit pedestrian. The whole thing is… Fine really. Not high on entertainment value. Better than a lot of things like that, I guess. I like the music. That was actually solid. I didn’t know you could do that. We’ll have to get you to work on other projects. Hal?”
The other man grinned but it wasn’t a totally happy thing.
“It’s a rush job. It doesn’t really show too badly. We can do better work and should be. This is good enough to go up but only just. I started that already. The spelling was good. At least I didn’t see any errors that way. We might want to keep the studio name off of it? Even if it’s clearly our people in it.” The man winced then, looking at the others. “Sorry. Still, we normally do better work than that. It really isn’t bad, just… You know, it isn’t what we normally do here.”
For a moment it seemed like he expected a fight, or an argument to take place over it. Karen actually seemed ready to battle, the fork in her hand trembling a bit as she squeezed the thing in anger.
Sebastian tilted his head, then patted her on the shoulder. She didn’t stab him or anything. There wasn’t even angry pulling away.
“That’s about right, for this kind of thing, though. If we made it look like a fiction program, a lot of people wouldn’t trust the information. Plus, this is our attempt at helping the public, for free. Really, helping everyone. Fingers crossed that it works? I think that if a few hundred people watch it, that’s probably a sign that we win, right?”
It wasn’t and they all knew it but everyone pretended that it was good enough. Also, that they weren’t slightly bummed that it hadn’t turned out to be a masterpiece even with all the rushing around and cutting of corners.
After they ate, which went slowly, since they were having a nice breakfast that day, Hal got a copy of the whole thing set up online in five different places. As soon as that was done, Sebastian walked quickly to the other room, the side bedroom and got in touch with Agent Brevet. It was just an email, that had all the link locations in it.
To every location online, since it was there and already available. If it made the DHS site, that might get the thing a few extra views. Not a lot, probably, since most people weren’t going to be heading to government web-sites for entertainment purposes, most days. Most wouldn’t even go to them for information purposes.
As an aside, he also gave the Agent links to all the Sebastian and Chloe: We Got Your Back, programs that were up. They didn’t really fit in with what the DHS did but advertising wasn’t a horrible idea. Even if it only got them one extra view, it was worth doing.
Tapping send, the black key slightly rough under his finger, he realized that he didn’t really have a lot to do that day. Even making more candy was out for the time being. He had enough, and sugar was more valuable in its raw form than not. It was too early to bake anything and while he was tired, taking a nap was a poor plan. At least if he wanted to be on anything like a normal schedule.
That meant he was just standing there, doing nothing, when the phone rang. It was in the far corner of the kitchen, so he answered it on the second ring, feeling a little bit shocked that it had made any noise at all. When he touched the receiver, the cordless plastic felt smooth to his hand. Against his ear as well.
“Good morning, this is Sebastian, how may I help you?” It was too official sounding but he wasn’t used to answering the phone.
“Sebastian! This is Chloe. I’m just calling to let you know that we got in all right. There was a bit of trouble at a rest stop. We were stuck there for most of a day, too. Waiting for our gas ration turn to come around again. The police weren’t that happy that we’d beaten three men that tried to gas-jack us. On the good side, they let us go as soon as they saw the video of it. The station had cameras set up, thankfully.” She sounded pleasant enough. Happy nearly.
“No one was hurt too badly?”
She would have led with that, if it were the case, he thought.
The actress inhaled sharply, then made a sound that wasn’t too harsh.
“Meh… Nothing too bad. Rene has a black eye but isn’t whining about it. Melissa is acting like it’s the end of the world. Though she was all right when it happened. She jumped the guy that was holding the gun from behind and took him out pretty hard. A pipe to the back of the head. That was why we were kept like that, I think. The man was put in the hospital with a concussion. It was self-defense, so not a big deal. Marc and Rick got the other two for us.”
