Chapter 10:

Yugi's internal butterflies fluttered at that. But Joey and Sota whooped and Nadia grinned excitedly. Erica's smile widened and she clapped her hands. "From here on out, you're working stiffs, got it? Let's act professional. Let's be courteous to each other and the crew. And let's make a great movie!"

"Yeah!" Joey crowed.

"First thing's first. The opening scenes. We're going to skip the traditional opening scare scene for now, just to get you all started on your own lines and stuff. We'll go back to the scare scene once my makeup people are all set up and we have the special effects ready to go."

A woman hurried up to the group, clutching what turned out to be a bunch of tiny microphones in her hands. She started handing them out to everyone.

"These are your microphones," Erica said. "Those clips there are called toupee clips and they'll hold these microphones in your hair. The sound quality and field pick up of these little babies are excellent, so talk normally. We'll also have a boom mike and take the best audio from whatever source."

Erica took a microphone from the assistant and walked up to Rin. She stuck the clip between her teeth and parted Rin's hair, before taking the clip and attaching it. Then she finger combed Rin's hair back into place and studied her from a couple of angles.

"Good, completely hidden. Each of you will have one of these on at all times while you're on the set. They're wireless and remote-controlled, so don't worry about turning them on and off."

It turned out that the mikes and clips came in various colors. Two were red for Nadia and Sota, one was blond for Joey, two were brown for Rin and Mark, and three were black for Ishio, Daisy, and Yugi. The assistant and Erica placed the mikes in all of their hair, Ishio accepting his with a sour scowl. The clip did not feel particularly pleasant in Yugi's hair and even he could manage only a forced smile when the assistant teased that with his spiky hair, the microphone wouldn't be seen even if it wasn't only two inches long and colored to match his hair.

The assistant hurried off as soon as the microphones were placed and checked. Erica pulled a radio clipped to her belt from under her jacket and told someone they were ready to go. The man on the other end of the radio acknowledged. Yet another person had come up from the Inn's direction. He was holding a pair of wireless headphones, which he held out to Erica. She thanked him and put them on, adjusting them over her ears. The man departed without saying anything further.

Yugi turned as he felt the mental nudge of his dark. Yami, Tea, and Tristan were walking up along the driveway behind them. Yugi smiled warmly in greeting, noting with amusement that Tristan seemed excited to the point of wetting himself. Yugi gave Yami and Tea hugs, greeting his friends with a mix of relief and trepidation that they were really here to see him make a fool of himself trying to act. Joey greeted them, too, smacking Tristan lightly on the shoulder.

"Glad you could make it, T."

"I am so jealous," Tristan whined. "Why can't I be in this movie? I'm way better looking than you."

"Watch it," Joey rest of the group had turned around to see what was going on. Nadia bounced up eagerly, grinning broadly.

"Who are your friends?" she asked.

"Yes, who are they?" Erica agreed. Her expression seemed slightly reserved and Yugi worried they should have asked her beforehand.

"These are our friends, Tristan, Tea, and Yami," Yugi said. "They came to support us."

"Can they watch?" Joey asked. He smiled sheepishly. "I guess we shoulda said something first."

Erica seemed to hesitate for a second, then she smiled brightly and stepped forward to extend her hand to Tristan. "Of course. Maybe just this time, though. I don't want any spoilers taking place."

"Thanks!" Tristan said enthusiastically, shaking her hand.

"No problem." She shook hands with Tea, then turned to froze. Yami paused with his hand in hers, looking at her with concern. Erica stared at him, then looked at Yugi, who smiled nervously.

"Um, we're related," he lied lamely.

"So it seems." Erica seemed to realize she was acting strangely and smiled, shaking Yami's hand. "Sorry about that. Welcome to the set." She confirmed Yami's earlier fears by laughing jovially and adding, "Well, at least if we need one, we won't have to look far for a stand-in."

Yami forced a noncommittal smile. Yugi grinned at him behind Erica's back. The others, aside, of course, from Ishio, greeted Yugi's friends warmly, though Sota stared at Yami a little suspiciously, after trying to figure out how there could be someone who looked so like Yugi that he'd never heard of before. Ishio barely even looked their way. Erica allowed a few minutes of easy chatter before she brought their attention back at hand.

"Okay, folks, we're running a little behind, so let's get on this. I need Joey, Yugi, Nadia, and Sota to hop into the Camaro there. Joey, you'll be driving. Er, you do have a valid license, don't you?" When Joey nodded and reached for his wallet, she waved her hand. "That's good enough. Ishio, you have one, too?" Ishio only gave her a condescending look, which she didn't acknowlege. "All right, you and Rin, you're in the Fusion. Ishio, you're driving that one. Keys are in the ignitions. Let's get a start with Ishio and Rin first. Ishio, I want you to drive on down there to that marker down there-" She pointed to a bright pink ribbon tied around a tree about three miles down the road, barley visible from their position. "-and then turn around and come back. The Monster-that's what we call our big dolly-mounted camera, that's it down there-will follow alongside you, getting some shots of you two in the moving car. You don't have to talk or do anything, we're just getting a few moving shots. Once you come back here to the driveway, pull off, and we'll get your lines. Then we'll get the others in their car coming from the other direction and their lines. After that, we'll need to get you guys in the makeup trailer and get you beat up for the crash scene. Any questions?"

No one had any.

"Then here we go. I need everyone to be completely silent." She looked at Yami, Tristan, and Tea emphatically as she said this. "I'm going to be listening in to the dialogue through these headphones and I need to be able to hear everything. Once the cameras are rolling, no one says anything at all, no coughing, no sneezing. You do it, you're booted off. Okay? Good."

Ishio and Rin headed over to the rather ratty-looking maroon Fusion parked in the driveway facing out to the road. Ishio climbed into the driver's side and started the car. It's motor sounded old and rough, as if something was grating inside of it and it's muffler was shot. A plume of blue oilsmoke puffed out of the tailpipe. As Rin got into the passenger side and shut her door, Ishio put the car into drive and pulled forward, turning left into the road and driving east towards the marker. The blue oilsmoke continuously leaked out of the car's rusted tailpipe, drifting into the trees on the other side of the road. As Yugi stood in a rough line with the others along the road, he now saw what looks like a track lying along the length of the road on the other side. Down the street the Monster camera seemed to be resting on the track. It must run along it like a train as it paced the reached the marker down the road. The taillights, one dimmer than the other, lit up as he braked. He made a wide roundabout and turned around to face them again, stopping. Yugi saw a man's figure break away from the platform the giant camera was sitting on and walked up to the car, bending down to talk into the driver's side window. He straightened and returned to the platform. After a moment, Ishio started driving back toward them and the platform moved, keeping pace, the camera pointed at the car. They kept pace halfway, then the camera's platform increased it's speed and pulled ahead, the camera angling back to keep the car in view. Then it fell back, again rotating with the help of the cameraman to get a shot of the back of the car as Ishio went ahead. He reached the driveway and slowed, pulling in and parking as instructed. The camera dolly stopped on the track parallel to the driveway. Yugi saw that the huge camera was mounted on a robotic arm that moved as the operator standing on the platform wanted. A second person sat in a little seat and steered the platform like a little car. The motor on the platform almost entirely silent.

"That's our main cameraman there, Steven, and his assistant Vince. The guy driving the platform is our dolly grip, another Kevin. We usually call him K, to keep from confusing him with my assistant. A dolly grip is someone who operates the camera dolly in moving shots, and without him, I couldn't make half the scenes I do. It takes a lot of training to get dolly gripping down. It's a lot harder than it looks. We are lucky enough to have a motorized dolly for our films. Most dollies are pulled or pushed by the grip, but out here, that would be quite the task for K."

The cameraman hopped off the platform. Another man hurried up, holding a shoulder-mounted camera which he handed off to Steven. Steven hefted it, checked it, then turned it on and lifted it up to his shoulder. The dolly grip got off the platform and followed him, while Vince the camera assistant fussed with the dolly-mounted camera. Steven walked over to the car, then crouched a little to angle the camera steadily into the open window. Another man came from back towards the end, carrying a long pole on which the giant boom mike was hung. He stopped behind the cameraman and the dolly grip and hefted it up, holding it out over and behind the camera.

Yugi could just see Ishio and Rin through the windshield of the car. They were talking, clearly saying their lines. Rin ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ear, then leaned her elbow on the window edge, chin in her hand, looking off into the distance as she spoke. Ishio, hands on the wheel like he was driving, was glaring through the windshield and clearly speaking in a terse voice. The cameraman, the boom mike operator and the dolly grip pacing him, circled around the front of the car in a crescent shape two or three times before Erica suddenly called cut and they stopped. The cameraman lowered the camera, holding it by the handle, and shut it off. The boom mike operator lowered and turned off the mike and the dolly grip turned and went back to the dolly platform.

"All right, Ishio, good job."

Ishio and Rin had exited the car and walked up. Ishio didn't acknowledge the praise, only stopped and turned back to the road, standing a few feet apart from the rest of the group. Rin came to join them, looking a little sour.

"That man is the biggest jerk ever," she said in a low voice aimed at Nadia that Yugi could still hear.

"What'd he say?" Nadia whispered

Rin shook her head. "Nothing, really. I tried to be nice, said we were going to be working together for a while, maybe we should try to get along. He looked at me like he wanted to push me out of the car and then didn't look at me again the rest of the drive."

"I don't know why you guys keep trying," Daisy said. "He clearly doesn't want to have anything to do with us."

"I guess I'm just a nice person," Rin said with a sigh.

"Rin, great job with your lines," Erica said. "I could really hear the emotion you were trying to convey."

Rin flushed. Erica grinned, then waved toward Yugi and Joey. "All right, let's get the other car's shots," Erica said. "We're all reset."

"Good luck, guys," Tea said. "This is so exciting!"

Yugi smiled, his stomach fluttering nervously again, even though he knew they were only driving a short distance with nothing to say. It wouldn't last long. They'd be doing their lines soon enough.

Joey grinned and laughed, slapping Yugi on the shoulder as the four of them walked over to the black Camaro. Joey hopped into the driver's side and started the engine, Yugi getting into the passenger side. Sota and Nadia got in back. The Camaro was clean and in good shape. A plastic water bottle partially filled was in the cup holder and road map lay on the dashboard. Yugi was supposed to unfold it and pretend to be trying to get Joey's character to acknowledge they were lost. In back, Sota had put on some fake headphones and was holding a Walkman. Nadia had a purse she'd be rummaging through, looking for her cell phone, which would turn out to have no reception.

"I'm so nervous," Nadia whispered.

"We'll be great," Sota insisted. "You heard her. If she thinks Ishio can do a good job, we'll be spectacular."

Nadia smiled, appearing cheered.

"There's the signal," Joey said. "Let's do this."

He put the car into drive and pulled out into the street, heading in the opposite direction Ishio had. Yugi took the map off the dashboard and opened it, though he wouldn't be saying anything until after they were parked. They drove along the road two or three miles before Joey slowed at the sight of the pink marker and turned the car around. Yugi saw that the camera dolly had already made it out this far ahead of them and was ready to go. It seemed the platform swiveled back and forth without the wheels leaving the track. The cameraman was on the dolly, the large camera pointed at them, the dolly in the driver's seat and the camera assistant crouched down, hands on what looked like dials that moved the camera as necessary.

Joey started back down the road. Yugi looked out his passenger window as he was supposed to, finding himself staring into the big round glass of the camera's lens. It looked like a big, unblinking black eye, shiny in the light of the sun, blind.

Wondering where that image had come from, Yugi looked beyond it to the trees going by. Then he looked in front out the windshield before looking at Joey, who was driving along at a sedate pace, ignoring everything but what was in front of the car. Yugi would have thought he was completely at ease until he noticed the muscle in Joey's jaw was tense. He was clenching his teeth, clearly more anxious about this than he'd let on.

The drive took only a couple of minutes and then they were pulling back into the driveway. As the cameraman and dolly grip started doing their thing again, the boom mike operator moving away from the group up the driveway a bit where he'd been talking to Erica, Yugi felt his stomach give a swoop and for one horrible minute he thought he was going to be sick.

/Stay calm, Aibou,/ Yami whispered along their link. /You'll be fine. Know that you can do this. You've always had the strength to do whatever you wanted to do./

Yugi felt better at the sense of reassurance coming from Yami. He smiled a bit, relaxing some. He was still nervous, terribly so, but he was not going to vomit on camera. That would be more humiliating than getting booted off the project.

The cameraman, mike operator, and dolly grip were in position by the car. Yugi hastily looked down at the map in his lap, as he was supposed to. It was time for their lines. This was it, they were in the movie, and there was no turning back now.

tbc…

A/N: Please review!