FRESH OFF THE BUS
It was only two days later when I got the call from Alex, asking if I wanted the job, to which I replied with a firm “yes”. My first couple of weeks were spent assembling the rushes of The Cockwell Inn, being the sexy adventures of the bar staff at a local pub. The crew had shot hardcore and softcore versions of the sex at the same time, which is why they used two cameras. The hard is made into DVD’s and the soft is used on subscription based TV channels. I was essentially doing a rough cut of each of the five scenes and then handing them over to Alex who would polish it up. My part time job has kept me busy everyday for two weeks.
I’m just finishing up the intro to scene five, where two loan sharks want to see the manager but end up fucking the new bar maid instead and I find myself impressed that there is some kind of storyline that continues through each of the five scenes; pub owner owes money to loan sharks, decides to sex up the bar to get more punters in, succeeds, the loan sharks have sex a bar maid. Granted it’s not The Dark Knight but it’s still storytelling and some bits are even kind of funny. Over the past two weeks I have gotten used to the tremendous amounts of staring at sex and editing it just about become ordinary. Hazza walks in with Alex, they’ve been having a production meeting about the next film.
“Ricky boy, how’s it going?” Hazza asks.
“Good thanks, it’s looking pretty good.”
“Great. So… Alex tells me you own a steady-cam?” he enquires.
“Uh yeah, my flatmate, Joe has one,” I say turning my chair to face the two of them, standing above me arms crossed, looking extremely intrigued.
“Do you think we could use it? I mean… I’m happy to rent it. You know, bung him fifty quid.”
“Yeah, sure, no problem at all. Have you ever used one before?” I ask, knowing just how difficult it is to operate.
“No. Alex?” Hazza turns to him and Alex shakes his head.
“No, I haven’t. But you can operate it, right Rick?” Alex asks.
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can bring it and show you guys how to use if you want,” I reply with smile.
“Ok, Ok,” says Hazza having a think. “Well let’s… how about… uh… would you be happy to come down to the shoot and shoot the next film with it?”
“Uh… yeah… yeah ok. I can do that,” I say, a little surprised at the fact that only two weeks into a junior editing position I’m now being asked to shoot the damn films!
“Great,” says Hazza. “That’ll work out well because then we won’t need Jimi and we can keep all the filming all in house.”
“Yeah, that’ll be cool. Plus this one is a little more... reality based,” adds Alex.
“Exactly, it should look real. Shaky cam. As if we’re actually picking girls up from the street,” Hazza says.
“Why do you need the steady cam then?” I ask, wondering why I’m even jeopardising the chance to meet porn stars.
“Okay, okay, so the film is called Fresh Off The Bus. And we’ve booked these young new porn starlets and we film them being picked up from the train station or whatever and then they’re interviewed by yours truly, do a strip tease and stuff but with no make up.” Hazza sits on the edge of the desk I’m working at getting very excited as he describes his new porn vision as if it’s something totally new that no-one’s ever seen. “Then we film them getting made up and suddenly they’ve turned into gorgeous porn stars. And they get fucked. And it’s all glossy and well shot and…”
“Steady?” I ask.
“He’s got it,” Hazza says to Alex. “Fucking brilliant. This is going to be fucking brilliant.” Hazza puts his arms around Alex and me and pulls us close. “Porn made by film school graduates. I’m a fucking genius.”
Hazza’s business partner Jasper walks into the editing suite, brandishing a piece of paper.
“Oh I see, a mini meeting without me,” he says. “I’ve realised that Rick hasn’t actually filled in our specially designed recruitment form.”
“Ah,” says Hazza.
“What is that?” I say wondering if this is something serious, if it means I wont be getting paid.
“Well this isn’t your usual office. And therefore we don’t tend to do a usual interview to find out if someone is compatible with working here at Relish. This is the form we’d usually get someone wanting to work here to fill in.”
I haven’t really spoken to Jasper much these past two weeks, as all the editing is done in a small room, apart from the rest of the office. Jasper is exceptionally posh. I would go so far as to say he was upper class. It’s almost as if he had all the money in the world and much like Thomas Crown, decided to do something frowned upon. I can imagine him and Hazza sat in a pub thinking of things to do before they died and that single mention of making a porn film sticking in their heads for the following few nights and it only takes one of them to mention it again to get the ball rolling and getting some crappy adult film made. And I guess they sold it and saw the money just waiting in a business of some sort and pow; successful porn company.
Jasper sits me down in front of his desk in the main office and picks up a pen, clicking the nib out.
“Right, name?” he asks.
“Uh… Rick Bush,” I reply, wondering exactly what information he’s going to be squeezing out of me.
“And what is your vice?” he asks, completely straight faced.
“My vice? How do you mean?”
“Well, for instance, Don over there would say, ecstasy and the occasional line of cocaine. Hazza would have to say coke too, I think Alex mentioned copious amounts of weed.”
I now understand exactly what he means but I start wondering if this is some kind of trick to get me to admit to any drug taking. The doubt slowly fades as I remember what kind of place I’m working in and I answer truthfully.
“I don’t really have any… vice… but I’ve smoked weed and tried mushrooms and ecstasy and coke. But I really don’t do any of them now.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine,” says Jasper.
“We’ll soon change that buddy,” Hazza adds.
“Would you rather be good or lucky?” Jasper continues with the questions and I have to have a think about this one. Is it better to be lucky or good? What would I rather be, a good person or a lucky one?
“Lucky,” I say, curious as to whether that was the right answer.
“Interesting. I think you’re right. I think you’re likely to get further in life if you’re lucky rather than being good at what you do,” he says, writing down my answer and I realise I had misunderstood the question. He meant good as in skilful, not the opposite of evil! I start to think about the question again and realise that in this industry I guess it is better to be lucky than good, I never considered myself a great editor but here I am, having beaten professional ones to this job.
“Hazza, it’s your wife,” says Dee Dee holding up the phone. Hazza mutters something to himself under his breath and wanders over to the head of marketing and grabs the phone.
“Yes?” he asks with an annoyed tone in his voice. He continues to squirm in his chair as he argues with his wife about something, getting increasingly tetchy.
“What do you hate?” asks Jasper. I start getting into the swing of things and the answers roll out of me.
“Tomatoes, cucumbers… and chavs.”
“What do you love?”
“Breasts.”
“You’re going to fit in well here,” Jasper says smiling.
“No,” says Hazza, furiously. “I can’t talk here. No. No. We will discuss this later. You are driving me crazy. I can’t talk, I can’t talk.” He slams the phone down on his desk then realises he needs to press the end call button and lifts it up again. “Fucking, fuck, fuck.” He finally ends the call and leans back in his chair, breathing.
Fresh Off The Bus gets underway the following week and Hazza tells me we’re shooting in a hotel so all equipment must be disguised as luggage. My job is to repack all our lights and cameras into non-film-kit-looking bags. This is so funny, they’re a professional film company and my student shoots were more professional than this.
I feel like a spy as we smuggle the kit into the fancy hotel room and wait for the talent to arrive. I set up the steady-cam, getting it balanced with one of the Sony PD150’s on it as Max, the make up artist arrives but refuses to set up his make up kit until he gets a glass of wine. Max reminds me of an Art teacher I had when I was sixteen who we described as super gay. He was so gay it oozed out of him. He once grew a moustache and dyed it purple. His only advice, if you approached him with a problem was to “go for it”. Max seems ultra gay. It’s a combination of his bright bleached short hair, his booming confident voice and the fact that when he sees me he proclaims, “Ooh, Hazza you didn’t tell me you got some fresh talent” and proceeds to grab my groin. Not wanting to seem rude I don’t flinch or pull away or say anything like, “Hey, woah! What’s is that!” No, I simply chuckle and say, “Um…”
The talent, Harmony and Demetri, arrive and Hazza pours Max a large glass of wine and he starts placing his make up bits and bobs on the table. Holly doesn’t look like anything I was really expecting. She’s… well, normal looking; if I passed her on the street, I wouldn’t feel compelled to crack one off there and then.
Alex and Hazza head out with Harmony to shoot the intro and I’m left alone with porn star Demetri and make up artist Max. The second stud for the evening's shoot arrives and introduces himself as James. I can’t help but feel that James hasn’t thought too much about his porn name. It’s a little mundane, I mean sure, it’s memorable if only because you’d expect a porn star to be called Jim Beam or Jimmy Girth or something kind of amusing and clever, not James. Even Hazza has a real name at home! But I guess that’s the big difference between the sensationalised American industry and this seemingly down to earth UK one and if I think about it, I’ve seen hundreds of glamorous, plastic, fake looking porn stars get fucked but what’s really a turn on is seeing the girl-next-door-type take it from someone you can at least in someway relate to. James isn’t a huge muscle bound hulk, he isn’t skinny but he just looks normal, he looks like a James. And I start to understand how very British it all is. The more successful you get, the more you seem like an arsehole to the public. The underdog is always cheered and I can only assume that James must have had this in mind when he chose his porn name.
I lift up the steady-cam, watching the balance and make a couple more adjustments as James walks over to Max, sat at the table and makes small talk. They have obviously worked together a few times and Max starts asking him how his wife is. He’s married? I hadn’t really thought about that. I suppose some porn stars must be married. Do their wives know what they do? How is it different to cheating? How do you go about dating someone if you’re a porn star? I’m filled with curiosity as I suddenly notice Demetri pushing his hand down his trousers and start rubbing his groin while joining in the conversation with Maxx who doesn’t seem in the least bit bothered by the enigmatic masturbation taking place inches away from his face.
“Have you met Rick over there?” asks Max nodding towards me. “He’s got an alright package too,” he adds.
“Ah no,” says Demetri and walks over to me, pulling his hand out of his trousers and offering it to me. “Hi, I’m Demetri.” I look down at his hand. He stares straight at me, his arm still outstretched. I shake his hand.
“Hi, I’m Rick,” I say and he shakes my hand with a firm, if clammy grip.
“Is that a steady-cam?”
“Yeah, only the best for this shoot!” I joke, wiping my hand on the back of my jeans.
“You’re going to be bloody hot with that thing strapped around you aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
“Well if we’re shooting in the bedroom, I take it you’re gonna want the windows closed right? It’s gonna fucking heat up, seriously.”
“Well if that’s what it takes to make it look good.”
“If you say so buddy.” Crap, I’ve spent the past half an hour balancing this thing so perfectly just to sweat my arse off shooting complete randoms having it off in front of me. I’m going to be too hot, it’s going to look crap; they’re never going to have me back on set. I’ll be relegated to that little editing room like some porn watching hermit. Fuck!
To be Continued....
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