I assume, by the excited way he scurries off, that Marla is his wife. His phone is already in his hand, his thumbs moving slowly across the screen—ironic, given the quick work he made of the veggies. It’s refreshing, though, after spending so much time surrounded by young PAs who are constantly on their phones, thumbs tap-tap-tapping away at a speed that makes my hands cramp just looking at them.
“What’s next?” Shayla asks from behind me. Sora stands next to her, holding a clipboard.
When we arrived, Nolan wasn’t in, but Shayla was waiting for us with a broad smile. Much to my dismay, the moment she saw me, she pulled me in for a big hug that lasted, in myopinion, too long, for two people who had only met once. Sora had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Her eyes met mine over Shayla’s shoulder as I glared at her, mouthing, “Help me!” with pleading eyes.
She just waved me off, waiting for Shayla to release me.
In return, I may or may not have taken the opportunity to introduce her as the “junior PA just out of college who knows absolutely nothing and is here to learn from the best.”
The scowl on Sora’s face as Shayla led us to the kitchen we’d be filming in was priceless.
Not exactly worth the physical contact, but close enough.
“I think, at this point, all I need is a time-lapse of the kitchen,” I say, crouching down to my camera bag to pull out a GoPro and a flexible spider mount I can use to wrap the tiny camera around a pole. “Want to learn how to set up a time-lapse?” I ask, looking directly at Sora.
I know she wants to say no, because she’s already confided in me that camerawork is not in her comfort zone.
But she hesitates, eyeing Shayla. Ididsay she was here to learn.
“Uh…sure.”
“Great!” I say, my tone overly bright. I toss her the GoPro, which she manages to catch, despite a slight fumble as she tucks her clipboard under her arm.
About ten minutes later, Sora is standing shakily on a chair that we’ve dragged to the edge of the room, trying to wrap the spindly legs of the mount around the support arm of a shelf.
“Like this?”
“No, you want it facing the chefs who are actually working in the kitchen, not the wall.”
“Shit. How do I…” She struggles to turn the camera on its mount, and I can’t help but snicker.
I honestly didn’tneedSora to set up this shot. Even though she’s gone to film school and has the same education that most of our camera assistants have, she has absolutely zero skillwhen it comes to camerawork. And I get that it’s because she’s not interested in it, which is totally fair. She likes spreadsheets full of expenses, and budget reports—an embarrassing tidbit she revealed to me a few days ago, and which I promptly told her to keep to herself. But to be successful in this industry, you have to know what goes into every facet of a production.
So, while I most likely will not be using any of the footage she gets—ifshe manages to shoot any—I will have taught her a valuable skill.
And, one day, it means she’ll be the kind of producer who doesn’t rush the camera operator while they’re setting up a shot, or talk too loudly when a sound tech has asked for silence.
“I think I got it…can you check?” she calls down, and I pull out my phone, tapping on the app that lets me see what the camera is seeing. It looks fine, although it’s a bit lopsided.
“Tilt it a bit to the left.”
“Like this?”
“Your other left.”
“Oh. Like this?”
“Perfect,” I say, cracking a smile like a proud mom. Sora clambers down from the chair, then plops herself down onto it. “This is why I don’tdocamera stuff.”
I laugh and pat her on the back. “You did good, kid.”
She opens her mouth to reply, but a deep voice from behind us cuts in.
“This must be your protégé,” Nolan says warmly, and I whirl to face him.
He’s not wearing his usual chef’s whites. Instead, he’s dressed in an unbuttoned black dress shirt, rolled up to his elbows. A clean white T-shirt underneath bears no sign of stains—like it would ifIwore it for more than thirty seconds. It’s tight, though. I find myself quickly looking away, trying not to stare at where the fabric stretches across his defined pecs. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I notice his black jeansarealsoquite tight, and I attempt to remember what we had just been doing.
Noticing that I’ve suddenly stopped breathing, Sora clears her throat and stands, thrusting her hand in his direction.
