Suzie’s House 483 : Making Movies

Lisa wasn’t sure if she could use any of the film footage later, but she certainly was having fun. She dropped to her knees in front of Bruce, panned up along his stand to the underside of his keyboard, then zoomed in on his face.

Normally she considered Bruce’s innate machismo nauseating. He was too brutal to be an oaf, but not smooth enough to be cool. Or so she thought until today. On film, with that narrow-eyed, knowing expression taken from this angle, he looked pure cool. Unless something weird turned up in the background that she didn’t notice now, it would be a keeper.
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Done with him, she waddled on her knees across the grass in Suzie’s backyard to where Emma stood with a microphone. Emma had on her favorite mask – a black leather and lace affair that left only her vamp-red lipstick and her lower chin showing. The lipstick was Tracy’s idea. It certainly filmed well.

When Emma first saw the camera on her, she froze up. Lisa almost let the camera drop, on the assumption she’d have to give another lecture, but Emma didn’t stay frozen for long. Maybe Lisa could edit it out later.

Emma smiled like a first class vixen, then moved in close. Nothing but those bright red lips were visible as she sang. It was actually pretty good. No, it was really good.

Then Lisa jumped to her feet while trying to keep the lens aimed at this wonderful angle on Gene and Tracy, both leaning back with their guitar and bass respectively at the same angle and arms moving in unison. The garage in the background wasn’t so good, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Kate did too much mugging when Lisa moved to the drums, so she only did a quick shot, then changed the focus to show Justin, tapping away on some weird wooden thing that Lisa couldn’t even begin to name. He looked contemplative. Or maybe even a little sad. It was a good look, so Lisa did a lit of quick shots of him from different angles that she would work in through the final video. She was still on him when the song ended.

“One more time,” she shouted.

“No. I can’t. I’ve got a family thing.” Justin put the wooden thing in a box.

“We can do it again later, right?” Tracy looked around, nodding as though this would solve any problems.

“I’m not sure about the equipment….”

“Miranda owes us.” Tracy’s glare brooked no argument.

“Everyone,” Gene actually raised his voice. “I want to go over the ads Miranda has lined up now.”

“You sound like Bruce,” Kate said as she set her drumsticks aside.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Bruce said. His Casio was already packed.

Gene dug out a piece of paper from his pocket. He started describing all the ads in question and even included an opinion or two, which Lisa had always found to be something he generally kept to himself. He really had changed this summer.

Clearly this was all the footage Lisa would get today. It might even be enough to make one video. If not, she might want to throw in some more random stuff with different locations anyway. She’d leave it up to the band to get the equipment again.

“So we’re done, right?” Kate was frantically taking down her drum kit the whole time Gene and the others talked.

“Unless you have a problem with any of these ads.” Bruce said it like he knew for sure she wouldn’t.

“Well I do! Why is she using so many of my songs?” Tracy looked seriously peeved. No surprise there. She’d been grumbling non-stop for days now.

“Because your songs are better,” Bruce snapped. He looked a million times more peeved than Tracy right then.

“I… what?”

“Your tunes are catchier. Just the thing that sells better. I’m the one who’s supposed to be the main song writer, but looking at it from Miranda’s point of view…. I’ve lost.” Bruce did not look happy about this. “So suck it up already!”

Lisa stiffened, waiting for an explosion, but the only reaction was Emma putting her mask back on.

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