So not my first story, by any means, but one of the longest single chapters I've produced. I'm pretty excited about this one guys, and I'll try to regularly update, as opposed to most of my other fic which were abandoned after the first or second chapter...
Anyway...not much to warn you about, no triggers or anything. Anna swears a bit but that's it. ELSA'S POV
Enjoy!
I had to keep myself for screaming at the sheer unfairness of it all.
My cinematography professor sure had it out for me. If it was just a video he wanted us to film, direct, produce and edit I'd have been fine with that. If he'd only given us an actual theme. Technically, I guess, he told us our theme should be "Freedom", but what did I know about freedom? Rich little daddy's girl, never allowed outside to play with the other kids. The only freedom I'd ever been granted was choosing my major, which I was seriously beginning to regret.
It's hard to make it in Hollywood, I know, but I was always surrounded by the bright lights, the studios, the celebrities, and the red carpet, I had been hooked from a young age. When I was five my parents got me one of those kid cameras I took absolutely everywhere, and it was pretty much the best present I'd ever received. Well, until my parents got me my first real heavy-duty camcorder, when I was fourteen.
I've always carried my camcorder, or at least my camera, wherever I went, if I was ever struck by a flash of inspiration.
I could really do with one of those flashes right about now.
How do I even begin to make a film about freedom? I heard some of the others in my class chatting excitedly about it when we finished up. There's probably going to be a lot of patriotism going on. But I can't just do that. I've always prided myself in being original and each new project being even better than the last. So I'd have to go and brainstorm.
After three fruitless hours in the library accompanied by several cups of coffee, I was still no closer to being able to film. Sure we had the last month of the academic year and the three months of the Summer to make the piece, but that also included the actual filming, figuring out what to do and post-production. Post-production, the last stage, would take the longest, and it was hard to know exactly how long it would take. So the sooner I started the better.
Finally deciding the atmosphere in the library just wasn't 'free' enough, I gathered my things and started my walk back home. I preferred to walk when I could. The (sort-of) fresh air could help me clear my thoughts, and if I ever saw something I wanted to capture on film, I couldn't very well stop an entire bus for it. It gave me time to think. The walk from campus to my apartment took about thirty minutes, and was just about the only exercise I ever got. It was a nice walk too. Pretty deserted and tranquil, but open enough that I didn't have to be afraid of anything bad happening.
That said, there was one part of my walk I didn't particularly enjoy. The walk past the skatepark. During the day, it wasn't so bad. At worst, little twelve and thirteen year olds teasingly cat calling passers-by, myself included. At around sundown, as it was during the summer, it got a whole lot sketchier. There would never be as many people there as there was during the day, and the whole thing was surrounded by a moderately rusted chain-link fence. Along with the graffiti and the fact it could be fairly easy for somebody to be hiding out behind one of those ramp-box things, it just sent out bad vibes.
Tonight however, didn't seem too bad. It was still fairly bright, and I could clearly see two figures, one of them gesturing wildly at various spots in the skatepark, and the other seemed to recoil from her. Given the first figure's body language, I'd say she was angry about something. As I got closer, I picked up on a few snippets of conversation,
"Dammit Kai...keep steady...totally screwed up," the first figure, a girl with fiery red hair tied into two braids hissed.
"I told you I was sorry...Jesus Anna...chill," The other, Kai probably said.
"Well fuck if you can't keep that stupid cam on my board and OFF my butt, I'm just gonna have to get rid of your horny ass and find somebody else to film me skate!" The girl, Anna I assumed, yelled. That last bit made me stop, interested. I waited to the side, behind a tree, just out of sight, but I doubt either of them would have noticed anyway.
"Fine then!" Kai seemed to be getting angry now, probably annoyed he had been found out, "record your own fucking footage," he yelled at her, grabbing his bag and slipping out through a gap in the fence. He walked in my direction but I ducked out of sight as he stomped past. I waited a moment and heard Anna sigh and mutter under her breath for a bit.
"Shit...third guy in two weeks...you know how to pick 'em, Summers." I heard something thunk on the ground, followed by wheels on asphalt. I decided it might be a good idea to come out.
I approached the park slowly. She hadn't noticed me yet. I took a moment to take in what I was seeing. It was...strange. Unlike a lot of the other skaters I'd seen when passing the park, she was completely ignoring any of the ramps or slopes, instead staying in about the only place where there were none of those around, just flat ground. She seemed to stay mostly in one spot, jumping and...grabbing her board? I couldn't really see, given the distance and the increasingly poor light of the setting sun, but I'm sure it would be a lot more impressive up close. I decided to get closer.
I slipped in through the same gap that 'Kai' had left through. Her back was to me, so she didn't see me when I approached. I wasn't really sure what skater etiquette was, so I cleared my throat to get her attention when it looked like she was between tricks. She flinched and her board dropped with a loud resounding crack. She sighed in aggravation, and looked at me over her shoulder. She looked me up and down, sizing me up maybe?
"Um...look, if you ain't here to skate, maybe you should bounce? I'm not in the mood for an audience right now," she told me. Her tone suggested that even if I was there to skate, I should probably 'bounce' anyway.
"Eh...yeah, sorry, I'm not, but-" she raised an eyebrow at me, telling me to get to the point, "but I was walking by and...um...you need to film something?" I managed to spit out, slightly intimidated by her demeanour. Smooth, Elsa.
"Yeah, but uh...what does a poser know about boarding? No offence." She turned to face me fully. She was wearing a red and black flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, open over a loose black shirt with some logo on it and a pair of baggy ripped jeans. She also had what looked like a pair of bricks for shoes.
"Absolutely nothing. I do however, know a lot about filming and video production. I'd be willing to help you if you help me?" Much better, no stammering. I certainly didn't know what freedom meant, but maybe this girl, Anna had found it riding on her skateboard. It seemed like a thing free people would do. She paused for a moment, gears turning.
"Depends...what'd you want?"
"Exactly what you want. I can make your...skating video, for nothing. All I ask is that you allow me to keep the uncut footage and edit it into a separate, short film. It's for my cinematography class, so you wouldn't have to worry about it getting out to the public and it looking like you plagiarised something."
"So you know nothing about skating...yet you want to make a short film starring an amateur skater?" she looked at me disbelievingly, before bursting into a fit of giggles. Cute. "Aww dude, you got yourself a deal!" she stuck out a fist and looked at me expectantly. I just stared at the offered fist, "you're supposed to...bump it...and blow it up...y'know?" she demonstrated the action using her own two fists, making an soft explosion noise with her mouth as she spread her two fists apart again. She raised her eyebrows. I kept staring.
"Yeah okay we have got to work on that."
After that brief number at the park, we decided to get something to eat at a diner just off campus, and talk about the project. Anna, as she had officially introduced herself, insisted on paying, since I was basically doing her a huge favour for no reason. Far from not having a reason, I needed to ace this project, I simply let her. I make it a policy to never pass up a free meal.
Meal however, may have been the wrong word. Though the diner itself wasn't squalid by any means, the food and presentation left much to be desired. Fries that looked less like they'd been fried in oil and more like they'd been marinated in the stuff, and a suspicious-looking assortment of veg in the burger could really put a person off fatty foods for good, not necessarily a bad thing. Anna however, didn't seem to notice this, happily inhaling her 'meal'. I hadn't even touched my food, sticking to my thankfully ordinary-looking diet coke. Not wanting to appear rude, I picked up one of my fries and started nibbling at it. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that bad, but I made a note not to eat unhealthy food for the next week for the sake of my poor arteries.
When Anna had cleared her plate of food (and thankfully swallowed said food), she began to babble.
"So I'm sorry I was kind of an ass earlier, I mean you never know who you're gonna meet around there and you don't wanna seem weak or easy, y'know? Not that you seem like the kind of person to take advantage of another person, although technically you did take advantage of my cameraman-less situation, not that I'm not grateful or anything, 'cause you totally saved my sorry ass, seriously that was like the third guy in a month and they were all just so creepy, they kept taking shots of my butt instead of the board and it's probably a good thing you're a girl. Unless you're into girls, that's not a bad thing, I'm into girls too -wait what?"
She finally stopped. I was still in awe for the sheer prowess of this girl's lungs. All of that in one breath. It took me a second to realize what she said.
"Um...I don't know, I haven't really dated anyone..."
"WHAT?" she yelled in shock. The few other patrons in the diner went quiet for a moment, before resuming their own conversations, "you haven't dated? Dude, just look at you! Seriously you're just...wow...shit...no wait, you're not "wow shit" sorry. Like what even is that..." she trailed off for a second with thoughts of wow shit, before snapping back to attention, "so you've never...done the do?" she raised a suggestive eyebrow and winked. I managed to stop her crude gesture involving the index finger of her left and the thumb in an 'o' shape and the pointed index finger of her right hand, my slamming my own hands on top of hers on the table. The contact made my stomach flutter, and I pulled back.
"No I have never "done the do"," I snorted at the expression, "though I should hardly think that's any of your business." She started blushing and looked down at her hands, which were still on the table.
"Right...uh...sorry I just, I don't really have a...what's the word, filter? I don't have a filter, everything kind of just...comes out." I raised my own eyebrow at the choice of words.
"You don't say?"
"Yup...huh? Hey!" she blushed again realising what I was alluding to. I could only laugh, and Anna joined in too. When the giggles faded, she told me a little more about herself. She said if we were going to work together on this, we should at least be somewhat-friends.
She told me she was turning in twenty-one October. She was originally from Kentucky, where her parents still lived, but she came here about a year ago with her best friend Kristoff Bjorgman. They'd both been skating since they could walk, but since, unsurprisingly, the skate scene in Kentucky kind of sucked, they'd moved here, to a warehouse converted into lofts in Hollywood, in order to be closer to Santa Monica, "The Birthplace of Modern Skating" she'd called it. She'd liked the feel of Hollywood, which was her reason for staying a good thirty minute bus journey from Santa Monica itself.
I told her a bit about myself too. I'd lived in Beverly Hills my whole life, my father being CEO of the prestigious "Arendelle Hotels" chain, the first of which had opened near the walk of fame. I was a student, in my second-to-last year of my cinematography major, twenty-three years of age. I lived on my own in an apartment a little closer to campus, though my best friend, Olaf, visited often. I'd wanted to be involved with movies for as long as I could remember, and I wanted to direct or film, or both, I still wasn't entirely sure.
After that, I asked her why she seemed to eager to shoot a video.
"Well...it's a little complicated to explain to somebody who hasn't got a clue about boarding, but I'll try to break it down. So, skateboarding, like any sport, has companies interested in using it to advertise. Unlike other sports though, investors, or "sponsors" are actually legit interested in the sport and are pretty much always skate companies. So, I'm assuming you've at least heard of Tony Hawk, right?" I nodded, "right, well before he retired professional skating, yeah don't look at me like that, he's retired, he originally rode for "Powell-Peralta". So they'd pay him money and skateboard stuff to make their products look good, and they'd kinda nurture budding talent in skaters. You can also get skate shoe sponsors," she stuck out her foot and gestured to her still incredibly uncomfortable-looking lump of a shoe, "but they come later."
"And the point of this is?"
"I'm getting to that. If you want to make it as a skater, you need a sponsor. I want to make it as a skater, but I don't have a sponsor. So, there's a local skate shop, not too far from here actually, "Wandering Oaken's", they do surfboards too down at Venice beach, that's known for lending a little moolah to talented skaters in the area to enter into competitions and get bigger and better sponsors. So here's my plan: Make a video. Send it to Oaken's. Get sponsored by Oaken's. Use Oaken's contacts to get to the Tampa AM contest in December. Win the Tampa AM. Get sponsored by somebody bigger than Oaken's. Simple, right?
"Um...right. Just one question."
"Yes?"
"What's a Tampa-am?"
Well. It turns out the Tampa AM is only one of the biggest amateur skating contests in the states, and that everyone everywhere has heard of it except me because I'm a poser. After holding myself back from slapping my new "friend" upside the head, I decided it was time to go for the night. Given that it was so dark, Anna offered to walk me home. I told her I didn't need to but she insisted her new "partner-in-perfectly-legal-crime" needed to be safe at all costs. When I asked about her, she laughed and held up her board.
"Haven't you heard? Skateboarders are bad news."
I will be posting any thoughts and side notes I have on a chapter on the tumblr I made especially for Elsanna, bewareofthefrozenhearts, under /tagged/storynotes. For my main tumblr, go to zestywatermelon. I take requests, mainly for one shots. So check out my storynotes tag if you want to know any little bits of trivia and my own thoughts on writing. Let me know what you think.
