His Tweet last night did.
In the midst of all this, it really does matter, knowing that he’s back on my side.In my corner.
Other than him, Nick and me, there’s just Blake and Emma here for this meeting. Emma’s beside me on a sofa by the cold fireplace. Opposite us, Blake’s in an armchair, his laptop open before him.
You wouldn’t know, looking around the library now, that it’s been used as a set this past week. All the rigs have beentaken away, the windows have been stripped of blast-proof tape, the officers’ bar has been dismantled, and the notice boards – variously adorned with propaganda about careless talk costing lives, and advertisements for local dances – have been removed. There’ll be no more filming here. Thanks to Emma’s food poisoning, all the mess scenes,malescenes, have now been shot. Another air sequence is in the can, too. There are plenty more to go – not least the boys’ final flight – but nonetheless, Nick, Felix and the rest of their crew have spent hours onMabel’s Fury’s cutaway, re-enacting the fear and devastation that was life for Robbie, and Tim, and tens of thousands of other World War Two bomber boys, night after night after night.
The intensity of the flight filming has shaken Nick, I can tell. It’s got under the skin of everyone involved, I think. I have now tried to watch some of it myself, but couldn’t. It was too upsetting. And of course I realise that none of it was actually real. I doknowthat we’re all of us actors, playing at war from within this safe, secure pocket of our increasingly volatile world. But this war that we’re playing at wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a movie. It was a tragedy, of unfathomable proportions, and the more time I spend immersed in recreating it, the more overcome I feel by how much was given, and how much was lost. That was real.
Itisreal, and it’s breaking my heart.
I shift in my seat, and Emma turns, giving me a wan smile. She’s still very pale, and is obviously far from being back to 100%, despite the long hours she’s championed through since returning to work (and, probably, because of them), which only makes me more thankful for the way she kept filming yesterday. Not that you’d have guessed she was struggling. She gave everything, and was so compelling that, at times, I forgot who she was, too.
That’s happened quite a bit this week. In spite of everything, I really have liked that part of things: being with Clare when the cameras are rolling, finding Emma again on the cuts. And between us, we’ve got a lot done. On top of our first shift, we’ve also now shot our arrival in our recreated bedroom, cracking Clare’smedicinal brandy; after that, we filmed a blustery walk with Rusty (whichThe Screenprinted its photo of); then, a montage sequence in the WAAF’s dining room, along with a handful of extras – none of them named, since the screenplay, like Imogen’s novel, leaves the other WAAFs at Doverley very much in the background.
‘Maybe I’d have done it differently if I could have interviewed one of them,’ Imogen’s said to me, ‘but all those I found records for were already gone. I think the others must be, too. I’m sure they would have come forward by now if they were still alive.’
Sadly, I think she’s probably right.
She texted me last night, saying she was thinking of me. I replied, saying how much I appreciated it, and – realising she probably wasn’t having the best day herself, givenThe Screen’s article was followed by scores of others catastrophizing about the likely fate of this movie – hypocritically advised her to stay offline.
It’s all just clickbait. We’re on track.
It wasn’t a lie. Although very little has happened when it should have – and we’ve still done no night shooting at all – we’ve got close to one quarter of the scenes scheduled for this Doverley part of the shoot finished.
No one’s exhaling, though. We won’t until it’s over. And for the present, the reason that Nick, Felix, Emma and I are all here in the library with Blake is because Blake emailed us first thing – subject header: Damage Control – saying he needs our help.
Ana was copied on the email too, but hasn’t come along. I assume she’s busy with Naomi and Jeff, the three of them doing some damage control of their own. The studio execs are, unsurprisingly, none too happy aboutThe Screen’s outing of Emma’s food poisoning, and have hauled Ana over the coals for keeping it from them. She, being Ana, didn’t seem particularly fazed when she called by my and Nick’s room earlier, checking on how we were, but nor was she thrilled about the studio’s demand that she send them the raw footage of everything we’ve so far filmed, plus the new schedule for approval, and forecasted overspend, given the extension of Emma’s contract and everyone else’s overtime.
‘They’ll calm down once they’ve taken a breath,’ Ana said. ‘And I’ve convinced them we don’t need to replace Emma. Now we just need to make sure no one gives them anything else to freak out about. God –’ she gave a hollow laugh – ‘I’d love to know who this anonymous source is that spoke toThe Screen.’
‘My money’s on Blake,’ said Nick.
‘So’s mine,’ said Emma, when we ran into her and Felix on our way here.
And so, in fact, is mine.
It was that bit about this movie blowing everyone away. What publicist wouldn’t want that in the press?
‘Sceptical about me, were you?’ Nick says to Blake now.
‘Did you want to get me fired?’ demands Emma.
‘No,’ says Blake, removing his horn-rimmed glasses and rubbing his eyes. I guess he hasn’t slept much either. ‘And I’ve never been sceptical about you, Nick. I’m not the source. It’s like I keep saying, that’s not how I work. And think about it, why would I tellThe Screenthat your casting, or anything come to that, is a publicity stunt?’
‘To bury the lead?’
‘I didn’t do it, Nick. I don’t know what else to say.’
‘How about filling us in on what you need our help with?’ suggests Felix.
So, Blake does, beginning with his concern that the public might be starting to lose faith in this movie, no matter whatThe Screen’s anonymous source might have said about how great it’s shaping up to be. ‘A lot of the commentary since hasn’t even mentioned that, and we’re running a real risk of being written off before we’ve hit the screens.’ He gives us a,can you imagine, look. ‘People who aren’t excited don’t buy movie tickets, and right now, what’s anyone got to be excited about? We’ve got a director who’s been accused of trickery, and a lead actress who’s rumoured to be on the edge of a mental health episode.’ He throws me a grimace. ‘Sorry to be brutal, Claudia, but I have to say it like it is.’
‘Do you, though?’ asks Nick.
‘It’s ok,’ I say.
‘No, it’s not,’ says Nick.
