Lee Goldberg - The Walk

Marty finished, zipped up his pants, and turned around to see a small, three-man film crew on the sidewalk across the street.

The obese camera operator lowered his 35mm Arriflex and spit out a gob of chewing tobacco, nearly hitting his lanky assistant, who was lugging the camera pack, totally lost in a daze that probably began with the first rumble of the quake a day ago. They struck Marty as a post-apocalyptic Skipper and Gilligan.

The director was marching across the street towards Marty, who immediately pegged the guy for the job because the only thing he was carrying was attitude and the cigarette between his lips. This would be the post-apocalyptic Thurston Howell, only downsized and edgier for the new millennium.

“Really, you were marvelous. Very special. Now do you think you could do the exact same thing, only without pissing this time?”

“What was I doing?”

“You were mankind,” The director held up his hands in front of him, making the lower edges of a frame for himself with his index fingers and thumb. “I was panning down from the building and settling on your back, to give the destruction human scale, when you decided to whip out your schlong and piss.”

“Now you have human scale and irony. You rarely find that in stock footage. You should be thanking me.”

Based on the equipment Marty saw, and the subject matter, he figured they were shooting stock footage. It was Hollywood’s oldest little secret. Virtually every movie and TV show ever made used some uncredited footage shot by others and already seen many times before. But it was the very innocuousness of the footage that made it possible to get away with it without most viewers ever noticing.

Marty started to go when the director suddenly blocked his path.

“Wait a minute,” the director flicked away his cigarette stub and pointed to Marty’s bag. “You work at the network, don’t you?”

“No.”

“How did you know I was shooting stock footage?”

Marty couldn’t resist showing off. “A news crew would be using a video camera. You’re using 35mm film, no sound equipment, no lighting, no real crew, and you’re shooting a building and my back. It was an educated guess.”

He tried to sidestep him, but the director blocked his path again, whipping out a card.

“I’m Kent Beaudine, King of Stock Footage.”

Which is also what the card said, along with a drawing of a crown resting jauntily on top of a happy-faced film reel.

“You know the building in LA Law? That was mine,” Kent said. “You ever see that shot of the full moon with a wispy cloud passing in front of it? Mine. Spielberg, Coppola, Scorcese, they’ve all used it.”

“That’s nice,” Marty shouldered his way past him.

Kent motioned to his crew to stay put and fell into step beside him. “This is your lucky day.”

“Doesn’t feel like it to me.”

“I know what you mean. Today we’re witnessing a terrible tragedy and feeling the suffering of our fellow man.”

Kent slowed, sidelined by all that suffering. He lowered his head somberly to ponder it all.

Marty slowed, too, despite himself, and looked at Kent. At that instant, the director looked up, his face alight with enthusiasm, and pointed his finger at Marty. “But tomorrow it’s going to be a movie, we both know that. It’s just a question of who makes it first!”

Marty groaned and continued on his way.

Kent hurried up beside him. “And whoever does is going to have to recreate all of this.”

“The tragedy and human suffering.”

“That’s easy, it’s the massive destruction that’s hard. But you’ve got the inside track.”

“I don’t see how.”

“No one has ever had good earthquake footage before. Everything’s on video. It looks like shit, it never matches the rest of the movie. The audience knows right away it’s fake, so you’ve got to spend a fortune on model work and CGI. Not anymore. I’m shooting this on 35-millimeter film. This will be the first, feature quality stock footage of a cataclysmic earthquake. It’s going to be an evergreen. You’ll be seeing this film in movies and TV shows for the next thirty years. But you, Marty, can be the first to use it.”

Marty stopped. “How do you know my name?”

“It’s on your business card,” Kent tapped the laminated identification tag on the strap of Marty’s bag. “It looks embossed. Very impressive. I’ve been thinking of doing that.”

Marty suddenly had a notion, but it would take some investigation to see if it would work. “What kind of footage do you have?”

“Hollywood Boulevard submerged, the spires of the Chinese theatre poking through the mud. Geysers of fire shooting out of Farmer’s Market. The La Brea Tar pits swallowing up Wilshire Boulevard. That’s just for starters.”

Marty suspected it might be his lucky day after all, but not for the reasons Kent thought. “You did all of that shooting in just one day on foot?”

“Hell no,” Kent jerked his head towards his camera crew. “We used motorbikes.”

Marty followed his gaze. There were three motorbikes parked on the sidewalk just outside the spitting distance of the tobacco-chewing cameraman.

Yes, indeed, it was Marty’s lucky day. “Where are you going next?”

“I hear the Century City towers collapsed. Thousands of people died. It’s gotta look spectacular.”

“You ought to go to the valley.”

“Yeah, right, like anyone cares. You’ve seen one pancaked apartment building, you’ve seen them all.” Kent took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, and offered it to Marty, who declined.

The director stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “I’m trying to get landmarks, or what’s left of them. That’s what people what to see destroyed. That’s what has emotional resonance and, more importantly, re-sellability. Why do you think asteroids in movies always hit the Chrysler Building or the Eiffel Tower?”

Kent took a deep drag and blew the smoke off to one side, away from Marty.

“You’re right, of course.” Marty said. “But I’ve got special needs. The movie I’m thinking about takes place in the valley and the city.”

“You’re thinking about a movie?”

“It’s about a guy who’s walking home from downtown LA to his family in the valley. The movie will shift between his wife and kids trying to survive in their ruined neighborhood and this guy’s heroic struggle to get back home.”

Kent thought about it a minute. “ Die Hard meets Cold Mountain.”

“More like The Odyssey meets Survivor. I see Tim Daly or Kevin Sorbo in the lead.”

“I like it. It’s fresh and original. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“If you were to shoot exactly what I needed, it wouldn’t be stock footage any more(it would be second unit work. You’d get a screen credit, maybe even a co-producer card.”

“But I would still own all the rights to the footage in perpetuity.”

“Absolutely.”

Kent smiled and put his arm around Marty. “Let’s go scout some locations.”

1:30 p.m. Wednesday

Beverly Hills was not a city, it was a theme park. And today, the attractions, gift shops, and concession stands of Wealthy World were closed.

Marty shared a motorbike with Kent, holding the director loosely by the sides, as they snaked their way around millions of dollars in leased German cars left abandoned on the buckled asphalt of Santa Monica Boulevard. The Skipper and Gilligan, carrying the equipment, followed right behind them on the other two motorbikes.

They passed solemn, armed police officers leaning against their shiny, black-and-white Surburbans, manning the barricades that sealed off Beverly, Rodeo, and Camden drives from intruders.