**
The director clapped his hands together to draw the attention of those milling around the set trying to look as important as they could on a Hollywood set.
“Guys, (Clap Clap) I know this is an extraordinary situation. We have a very low budget. And yet this should look like one of those big releases of the studio. Any ideas how we do this?”
After a deathly silence when one presumes everyone tries to remember the storyline of the previous movies of this series. Sigh. What was that about?. About a grim assassin who tries to remember “ The director tries to get sound bites back into the funeral like eerie silence
“Why was he born?”
“ No idea why he was born boss but sure know somewhere in Cambodia?”
“ Guys Guys focus , why was he Bourne ?. Like why and how did he remember he was Bourne”
“Boss we already addressed that in 3 movies since 2002. The movie goers have caught on . Maybe we should now just say he gets his memory back?”
The director glares back at his inept new recruits. The studios were really on his case with their low budgets. He had decided to shoot the movie straight on the sets without a script. He did not remember why.
“Ok so here’s what we do. We just erase the audience’s mind of the last ten years of the character and reboot them to remember that the hero has forgotten. Clear”
Well it was not clear but the crew nod their heads.
“Secondly, we head to Greece “
“ Greece?
“Boss why would Bourne go to Greece after he has forgotten ?”
The director glares back
“ Because it is the cheapest place on earth you idiot. Besides we get free demonstrations to show. Gives the movie a very serious political thriller look and keeps the audience guessing on what the demonstrations have to do with the story line. Makes for lot s of free action scenes”
The crew is in awe now. The director of photography raises his shaking hand. He has a case of nerves and has had unsteady hands. It always did that after 5 straight glasses. And besides he had agreed to do the movie for free ..Well 50 glasses actually.
“ Yes ?” The director raises an eyebrow
“ Do you think I should do something different “
The director is impressed
“ Well here’s the deal . I do not want to keep repeating ad nauseam about the budgets right. We need to make the audience feel there is a lot going on. So you need to keep it only to tight close ups with reactions of the actors. The people have to guess from the actor’s reaction the tremendous action that must be unfolding in front of the characters. Give your camera a lot of emotion. Remember you are the real actor. The man with the camera. Every time there is a blow thrown, shake your camera like dizzy”
The DOP smiles. “ Of course I can do that “
Raising his shaking drunken hand “ I can ask move the camera so fast through the iron piles at the scrap yard that people just won’t know what’s happening and I will run like crazy with the actors. I think 30 minutes into the movie the audience should be rubbing their eyes wondering if they were seeing things which indeed they will be “ ( breaks into a dizzy smile)
The director smiles back “ Yes you are now catching on. Remember I do not want the camera to be steady for more than 5 seconds at a time. Never should the audience guess that we shoot the main portion in the toy store in Greece. Well there is a huge cost of the toy cars that will be destroyed but I am sure the studios won’t mind losing 2000 dollars”
“Ok so I just thought up the story line. ( How brilliant am I) . Jason is in Thailand sorry Greece like Rambo . But times have changed . So he won’t be cutting trees in a monastery with a scowl to show off his well-toned muscles. Instead we will have a free kick boxing betting fight where he earns his money and every time his head is hit he will remember he acted in this movie before.”
“ Cut back to the home country. We will have the usual dingy room with no windows and important looking people walking around doing nothing while an aged Tommy Lee Jones talks to his new assistant who is a cyber expert. You know nowadays you have to talk a lot of gibberish about computers and show crazy graphics where each call is traced to the caller and one can see the label on their vest. Show a lot of monitors old and new and make sure we get that Snowden type character written in . If necessary make it sound like an Indian name because all these IT kids seem to come from out there.”
The director pauses looks around for compliments. He just had made up the brilliant script of most looked forward to in a quartet of series of an action thriller brand. He had even got a bored Damon back.
“ So do I remember now?”
“ Oh No you don’t . We are going to show the graphics of the windows screen from one of our spoilt monitors which just keeps vibrating to reflect the state of your mind. You just keep that scowl on your face going. You can imagine you got the script to this movie and how annoyed you are. The director wants to bump you off and his assistant will have to make up her mind”
Matt perked up “So does she ?”
Director is annoyed “ We will figure that out Matt as we go along. For now let’s get all these scenes at the toy store shot. “
Matt pipes up “ But what do I do now? “
Director “ Just give 2000 tight close-ups of all possible expressions you can give while trying to remember or stress before and after a fight. I know it is a tough role but remember we have a reputation to live up to “
Matt nods his head and looks towards the bored crew. They pick up their kits and start moving towards the toy store for the night. Their first shot is a spectacular scene where 200 cars are demolished on the street as an evil agent chases the good agent to save the secrets of the greatest nation on earth. It is good fortune that they do not have to explain what happens to the dead 200 drivers in 90 seconds of a car chase on the streets. That was worse than a terrorist attack. Lucky the audience never bothered with such details Two weeks later the shoot is over.
Matt sidles up to the director. “Hi just a couple of doubts” “Yes?”
The director says “ When we bash up more than 200 to 300 cars on the street in the chase will it not mean that many deaths in a night for no reason”
The director is annoyed. He has specially shot the scene in a Benhur parting the seas fashion where a SWAT car cuts through swathes of cars without a dent.
“Don’t cha worry. The Audience is either dumb or numbed out with the opening dizzy scenes” They will be too zonked out to question anything. They will be still trying to remember the gibberish explanations of the story three scenes back. So just rest friend”
Matt is still not at rest “ I want to know which part of the lift was I really hanging to when he escapes the people chasing him while the lift is moving.”
The director is angry “ Look that is not important. What is important is to make the scene look very very slick and give the audience a feeling of mysterious ways of working of the security agency”
“ Ok man, fine. DO I remember in the end ?”
“ Are you nuts. Don’t you want the money. Do you want me to make the next one with Jeremy ?”
Matt is suitably chastened and hastens to forget he even asked those questions. But he for sure was keen to know why would a man who forgot why he existed want to know why he turned into a trained assassin and be scrutinized by the agency and be upset about it. He only remembered he was paid handsomely for the movies before. Fine . He sighs and grimly forgets.
(Someone was shaking me hard. My wife is shaking me.
“It is over . Get up. Enough you sleepy head. Paying ten hard earned dollars to sleep in blasting Air conditioning.”
I am still trying to remember how I wrote that fictionalized account of a movie in the making. I am still trying to remember. I groggily walk out behind 300 other groggy members of the audience. Sigh who wants to remember this. But yes I remember I passed out in the first frame of a chase scene with a shivering camera. What a bummer! )
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