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Every good action movie needs a villain, right? John Duncan had made his living playing the heavy. But when his current project is threatened by bad publicity through the internet, John finds himself in the unlikely position of detective, computer hacker, and…hero. Can John figure out who is leaking information and why? The answers lead him to something far more serious than anyone suspects. It’s a race to finish the movie before the movie finishes the studio.
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60
An hour later the quintet were gathered around a small table at
Gillys, the bar John and Marty had been at just days ago. A variety
of drinks and empty glasses littered their table, unnoticed. Anyone
listening would hear boisterous conversation with loud laughter
occasionally sprinkled in.
It had been a good day of shooting and they were all heady with
success. If everything continued the way it had today, Raising
McCain would finish on time and under budget. They all knew it,
and their mood reflected it.
“Ken, How did you ever let yourself get talked into working with
these turkeys?”
Ken Scott smirked at Cliff’s query. “Well, I’d like to say something
to defend these guys, but I can’t. I’m here for the money.”
“Thank you very much, Scott,” John said. “You can use that money
to buy tonight if you going to dispense insults.”
“Oh-ho. Getting a little touchy, are we?” Ken asked.
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s just grouchy cause he’s
too chicken to ask Jan out.” Marty replied.
John held up his hands to ward off questions. “Okay. We are not
going to sit here tonight and discuss my love life. For one thing; if
that’s all we can find to talk about, it’s too pathetic to contemplate.”
He sipped a drink. “For another...” he paused.
61
THE BAD GUY
“For another is that you just don’t want us to rib you,” Charlie
finished for him. “You big baby.”
“YOU are here as my guest. Keep it up and I’ll ban you from the
set from now on.” John said.
“Oh no you won’t,” Marty shot back. “I’ll get him back in here
just to pick up the slack in case I get too busy.”
“Great,” John sighed. “Cliff, can’t you cut his paycheck or
something?”
“Don’t drag me into this,” Cliff retorted. “I got enough woman
problems thanks to our lovely Miss Barnhardt.”
The five of them sat in the bar where just days ago Marty and
John had discussed what had now become known on the set as ‘The
Suckhead Incident’. Instead of the bar however, they sat at a cozy
round table surrounded by baseball photographs and memorabilia on
the two walls adjacent to the booth. John noticed that Marty had
managed to pick a seat where he could still keep the collage behind
the bar within his field of vision, further reinforcing John’s theory of
Marty-therapy. Obviously the unexpected arrival of Elisa still preyed
in the back of his mind.
“Well we are not going to let that mess with our night,” Marty
said.
“Right,” Cliff agreed. “I’m sure there are loads of other problems
we can bring up to do that.”
“Lewis,” Duncan and Ken spoke at the same time.
“Funny,” Cliff said. He turned towards Marty and jerked a thumb
towards Ken and John. “Do they do any other tricks?”
“Pipe down you two,” Marty said instead of replying. “The real
problem will be the Space Needle shoot. Or at least it could be.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m looking forward to it,”
John said.
“Don’t get too excited,” Marty said. “This is one of the most
elaborate shoots I’ve ever done.”
Cliff nodded in agreement. “Not to mention expensive. How does
it look?”
MARK LANIO
62
“Impressive,” Ken answered. “I know in my mind the set is
actually about three-fourths the size of the real Space Needle, but
when I see it my mouth drops open.”
Charlie leaned forward with interest. “You guys replicated the
entire Space Needle?”
“No, no,” Marty replied. “You have to understand Charlie, we
only make what the camera sees.”
“It’s only the top part, Dad. The area Lewis and I will running
around and shooting each other on,” Duncan said, taking a swig of
his beer.
“Right,” Marty continued, “But it’s still impressive. The entire
thing hangs from the top of the warehouse we’re using. The bottom
is on a giant hinge contraption. Carson and the special effects guys
could explain the whole thing better. Basically the thing can tip on its
side. We tip it up and back as much as we want.”
“Until the last take,” Ken chimed in.
“I don’t understand,” Charlie said shaking his head.
“C’mon Dad, I know you’ve read the book,” John prodded, “What
happens to the Space Needle in the Raising McCain?”
Charlie smacked his face with excitement. “Of course! The
helicopter bomb!”
“Give the man a cigar,” John smiled.
The twist in Raising McCain was that while it was obvious that
the Space Needle was going to be blown up, it was the method by
which Hume would do it that was in doubt. It was assumed it was
planted on the monument. McCain and the police went nuts trying to
find it in all the hidden nooks and crannies. In fact, Hume had planned
to have a helicopter drop a large bomb on it. McCain interferes,
causing the helicopter to crash into the Space Needle’s supports,
exploding on contact.
McCain fans had coined a new term from this incident in the
book: The Helicopter Bomb. Any fan could speak this phrase and
instantly all other fans would know exactly what they were talking
about.
THE BAD GUY
63
“The helicopter comes underneath. We’ll put that in using models
and CGI. Uh, that’s computer generated images,” John added, not
sure if Charlie was familiar with acronym. Charlie nodded in
understanding, gesturing to John to continue. “The set itself will list
on its side. If you remember, it kept tipping as McCain frantically
tried to get the tourists off.”
“Which he did, but just at the last minute WHOOSH!” Charlie
finished. “Down she went, just after the last hostage escapes.” He
paused. “Can you capture that properly?”
“It may look odd during filming, but once it’s all put together, it
will be spectacular,” Ken said. “Carson will have explosion effects
and such to simulate the helicopter exploding against the supports.”
Charlie nodded, smiling. He then looked at Ken quizzically. “What
did you mean, except for the last scene?”
“We can move the thing up and down all we want. But for the
last scene, we will drop it hard,” Ken replied, smacking the table for
emphasis. “Wreck it beyond any repair. So we only have one chance
to get it right.”
“Sounds risky,” Charlie said.
“It is. But Ken’s been looking for an excuse to destroy a priceless
American monument for years,” John interrupted before Ken could
answer.
“To photograph it, anyway,” Ken said. “We’ll have plenty of time
to get everything shot before we destroy it. We’ll rehearse through
the final scene several times before we actually do it.”
“How in the heck do you rehearse a falling building?” Charlie
wondered.
“Obviously we don’t crash the building. But we do run through
the timings. We’ll have people pretend to hit their buttons at preappointed
times. It’s almost like a choreographer running his dancers
through their steps. Everything has to hit at just the right time.” Ken
smiled. “Most of the time, we use miniatures for that kind of thing.
This will look far more authentic, since it’s the actual set being
destroyed.”
“Wow,” Charlie said.
MARK LANIO
64
Duncan leaned forward. “The crash scene is pretty cool, but for
my money, it’s the set itself that is impressive . They’ve strung cables
from one wall to another. The cameras will be mounted on special
cars that hang from the cables. The cars can roll back and forth
from one side to another. It’s like a fast moving, horizontal ski-lift.”
“Right,” Marty joined in. “The angles will be sweeping and
revolving. Really adds to the drama. We’ve also surrounded the entire
set with green screen. We can superimpose this shoot on any
background we want.”
“Which in this case will be the Seattle skyline, as seen from the
top of the Space Needle. We photographed it and fed it into the
computer. We can rotate it, change the lighting, do whatever we
need, and it will look absolutely authentic,” Ken added.
“I thought they used a blue screen. How does that work anyhow?”
Charlie asked.
“It really doesn’t matter what color you use, as long as it’s static.
The color you pick is a color that doesn’t really exist in the foreground.
Since we will have some blue on the helicopter, we needed a different
color,” Ken answered.
Charlie took a sip of his drink. “So green is what gets replaced by
the background image?”
“Right. If anything in the foreground has the same color, it will
also get replaced with the background. We couldn’t have Seattle
appearing in a large stripe on the helicopter. So we used green
instead,” Ken confirmed. He leaned back sadly. “It’s a shame it will
all be destroyed.”
“Will it be any different than the way the novel portrays it?”
Charlie asked.
“Not a chance,” Cliff replied. “Elisa would mount Marty’s privates
to a wall.”
John snickered. Marty looked indignant. “Well there are a few
laws of physics we’ll have to obey, if that’s okay with her.”
“But other than that,” Cliff continued; “it will be pretty close to
the original novel.”
THE BAD GUY
65
“Ah, enough shop talk!” Marty said with a final swig of his beer.
“There’s a pool table over there with no one playing. This cannot be
permitted to continue.” He stood up. “Who needs to be spanked?”
Charlie took one last sip of his wine and stood up. “Okay, but you
could at least buy me dinner first.” Together he and Marty headed
towards the pool table.
John waited a moment until Marty was out of earshot. “All right,
Cliff, give us the scoop.”
“Yeah, Elisa’s here and Marty’s grown a new vein on his
forehead,” Ken added. “How bad is this going to be?”
“You know Marty, he’s a professional. He’ll deal and get the job
done.”
“Yeah but Elisa’s a…” John paused.
“Domineering bitch?” Ken chimed in.
“Ken,” Cliff scowled and pointed at the man. “Not helping.”
“Ken’s right,” John said, “He may be blunt when he drinks…”
“Hey, I’m blunt sober too,” the cameraman interrupted
“BUT,” John continued, ignoring the him, “he’s still right. Elisa
will complain about something after every single take. We don’t have
the time or the budget to argue that much. Marty may be a bit
controlling too, but he’s also the director. Kinda in the job description.”
Cliff leaned back and crossed his arms. “Don’t talk to me about
budget John. It’s all producers ever think about. Kinda in MY job
description.” He took a drink and grimaced. “Elisa will stay in check.
We had quite the heart to heart.”
“You sound very sure of that,” John said sarcastically.
Ken smirked. “Yeah. The day Elisa keeps her mouth shut is the
day I eat film.”
“Good thing we went digital then, huh?” John shot back.
Ken’s smirk grew into a full grin. “Miracles have been known to
happen. I like to cover my bases.”
Cliff wasn’t smiling. “Joke all you want you guys. But we gotta
get a movie finished. Production has just begun, with a ton of
postproduction and marketing to go. Not to mention the security
concerns. I’m sure you both have seen the Internet stories.”
MARK LANIO
66
John did his best innocent look at Ken. “What’s an Internet?”
Ken returned the look. “Something to do with fishing, I think.”
Cliff looked at them both deadpan. “Are you two finished?”
Ken feigned a hurt a look. “You said we could joke all we want.”
“Yeah,” John added. “There is liquor here, after all. It tends to
increase the desire for humor.”
Ken watched a pretty waitress walk by. “It increases desire, but
not for humor.” He held up John’s glass. “What the hell are you
drinking?”
Cliff – pleased to not be on the receiving end for once – decided
to chime in. “Now we already know all about John’s social desire.”
John surrendered. “Okay, let’s not open up that can of worms
again. What about the Internet, Cliff?”
“I think we got a leak. Stories keep coming out onto
mccaindiaries.com. And they’re usually accurate.”
Duncan grimaced. “You know that explains a lot. I was surprised
how quick my casting got on there.”
“Exactly John,” Cliff snapped his fingers. “Whoever it is has been
doing it awhile, probably before most of the current crew came on
board.”
Ken looked back and forth between them. “So what’s the big
deal?”
“Bad publicity,” Cliff replied.
“Aw hell,” Ken replied. “We’re basing this movie on a best-selling
novel. One, I might add, that we are not deviating from in any
meaningful way.”
“There are plenty in the movie going public that have never read
the book.” Cliff picked up his glass, took a sip, and continued to hold
it while gesturing. “Take Jurassic Park. It was an amazing bestseller
that became an even bigger movie. People that never read the book
saw the trailers and wanted to see dinosaurs eat people. This is kind
of the same deal.”
“Once these rumors get any credence on the Internet,” Duncan
added, “it doesn’t take long for them to appear on Entertainment
Tonight, Access Hollywood, or E! Entertainment. Before long,
THE BAD GUY
67
the speculation begins on the quality of the movie, and most of the
time its negative.”
Ken nodded. “So even if the movie’s good, it might not be able to
overcome its negative hype. I see what you mean.”
“I’ve been on a movie like that before, Ken.” John added. “Once
the bad publicity got out, every critic was ready to pan it before
they’d even seen it. Some were fair, some weren’t. I remember
during a screening I attended, I noticed one critic writing smart-ass
headlines before the lights had even gone down.”
Cliff looked down. “Cerner has a lot invested in this: new
technologies, enormous sets, and high priced talent. We have a
responsibility to all that.” He trailed off.
John contemplated that. Cerner was generally doing well because
they let their people create. Lewis’s contract notwithstanding, they
never interfered in the process, believing that the most profitable
movies are ones that were made for the sake of the writer’s vision.
It was one of the reasons Elisa Barnhardt had picked Cerner; she
knew they would cooperate with her on keeping the integrity of her
father’s stories intact. At least she used to know that, John thought.
More importantly for John personally lay in the fact that if he
indeed wanted to direct, Cerner would be the only big-budget studio
willing to take a chance on a first time director. Not too mention their
indebtedness to him for the many profitable movies he’d helped them
make.
He gazed into his glass. “I’ll poke around on the Internet and see
if I can find out anything for you, Cliff.”
“Yeah, and I’ll keep an eye out on the crew,” Scott added. “See
if anyone has heard or seen anything.”
“Should we tighten security?” Duncan wondered.
“If it’s from the inside, what good would it do? We don’t know
who it is, and our people still need to get on the set to work. We can’t
bar everyone.” Cliff leaned forward. “John, Raising McCain has to
do well. This is all or nothing. Either Cerner gets its blockbuster and
we get to continue to make movies the way we want to or...”
MARK LANIO
“Or it goes under and we have to take our chances like everyone
else. Yeah, Cliff I hear you.”
Cliff nodded. Duncan looked over at Marty, still playing pool with
his father. “Have you told any of this to Marty?”
“I think Marty has enough stress with Barnhardt coming to town.
Besides, he knows the score.”
They fell silent, each thinking of the potential problems that lay
ahead in the coming days. Finally Ken took a long swig of his beer
and said, “So. It seems to me all we have to do make a phenomenal
blockbuster.”
Cliff grinned. “Right. Though a box office record-breaker is
optional.”
Though the mood was dampened a bit, the excitement of a shoot
well done overtook the worries of the future. They continued on in
the night, joking, drinking and laughing.
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