Wednesday
I tend to waver between the concepts of free will and destiny, but if ever an individual was destined to become a video editor, it’s Hank Chenowsky. He claims he spent his formative years in front of the tube, and I believe him. It gave him an innate understanding of shots, images, and eye candy that make a film—or in our case, a video—more polished and impressive than it has any right to be. I’m not sure where Mac found him—he says he rescued Hank from an after-school computer-programming class—but wherever he’s from, Hank’s the best editor I’ve ever worked with.
I dropped the box of doughnuts beside the coffee machine in Mac’s studio and opened it. I pulled out a jelly doughnut covered with sugar. After snagging a napkin, I headed down the hall to the third room on the left. The door was open, and I could see Hank already hunched over the console, screening tape.
“For you,” I said, placing the doughnut next to a mug half-full of coffee. Hank straightened, inspected the doughnut, and grinned.
“Krishna has revealed himself.” He templed his hands.
Thin and gangly, with light blue eyes and long pale hair, Hank’s coloring is almost albino, although when I teased him about it once, saying that’s what comes from never being out in the sun, he took offense. I learned later that an absence of skin, eye, and hair color is sometimes associated with mental retardation. Hank is as sharp as the sun on a Caribbean beach, but his reaction made me wonder if someone else in his family wasn’t.
Now I gazed at him. “Him?”
He looked up, an impish gleam in his eyes. “I am grateful to all gods. Regardless of gender. Especially when they bring jelly doughnuts.”
“So I guess that makes me a goddess?”
“The goddess of doughnuts.” He bowed his head. “I worship at your altar.”
“Jeez. If I bring you chocolate, do I get elevated to supreme goddess?”
He shook his head. “I don’t do chocolate. Bad for my skin.”
“Ah.”
“But…another jelly? Or honey-glazed? That could be worth an entire church.”
I smiled and lowered myself into a chair beside him. “Then consider yourself worshipping at the church of Delcroft.”
He took a large bite out of the doughnut, followed it with a swig of coffee, and turned back to the console.
Each time I visit Mac’s editing room, there is some new piece of equipment I don’t understand. Today it was the monitors. There were at least two new ones, each showing something different. Which now made a total of eight. And that didn’t include the monitors on the Avid, or whatever new editing system Hank was using. The panel of switches, sliders, and levers on the machines resembled the cockpit of a small plane. It used to look like all the control rooms of the TV stations I worked at, something I understood and felt at home in. Now, though, I was lost.
Hank had already assembled a rough cut of four chapters of the video, and I’d done a rough scratch track of the narration. Once we selected the shots from the trade show, we could easily drop them in. I’d scheduled a meeting the following Monday with Delcroft at which the top executives would, hopefully, approve what we’d done. Then we’d add the professional narration and all the special effects that make our videos a cut above.
Hank and I scrolled through what we’d shot the day before, marked a couple of sound bites from the presenters, and looked for cover footage to make the visuals more interesting. Mac had taped some shots of the model planes on display at the booth, and we decided to do a cross-dissolve from the model to the real thing cruising through the air once we got file footage from Teresa.
We were discussing where to make the dissolve when Mac stuck his head in. “Everything okay?”
I nodded. Like Hank, I’m happy to spend all day in the editing room. I watched as Hank played with the static shot of the model and animated it so it looked like it was flying.
“Nice.” I smiled.
Hank smiled too. To create something out of nothing, something we could be proud of, was a form of artistry. Well, at least, skill.
“Foreman,” Mac said, “didn’t you promise us a trip to the Bahamas? So we could shoot the plane’s interior?”
I hesitated. “Um, that’s a negative. They didn’t go for it.”
“Always promising…when are you gonna deliver, Ellie?”
“Teresa seemed slightly more enthusiastic about Miami.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Hey…” Hank cut in, “who is this guy?”
“What guy?”
“He’s turning up in almost every shot.”
I squinted at the monitor. “Oh, him. A consultant or something.” I checked my notes. “Gregory Parks.”
“Yeah? Well, his name should have been Waldo. Take a look.”
Hank had marked the video and rolled through three or four shots. Sure enough, Parks was either hobnobbing with other people, or studying the model planes, or sitting in front of the booth.
“You know, now that I recall, he was pumping me during the shoot.”
“About what?”
”Delcroft.” I bit my lip. “Keep going.”
Hank cued up another shot and pushed “Play.” A woman was speaking at the front of the booth, the screen behind her. She was talking about the safety features of the new planes, and the screen showed close-ups of seat belts, fire extinguishers, and defibrillators. When she started in on the automatic pilot system, Mac panned from her to the audience. About a dozen people were listening, including Parks. His expression was so intense I had the sense he was parsing every word. I felt uncomfortable, as if I was eavesdropping on a private conversation.
Mac must have sensed the same thing, because he chose that moment to pan back to the woman. She was clearly avoiding eye contact with Parks, looking everywhere except at him. Although a pleasant smile was pasted on her face, it didn’t reach her eyes. She looked worried.
I leaned forward. “They don’t look like buddies, do they?”
“No, they don’t.” Hank leaned back. “Who is she?”
I went back to my notes. “Charlotte Hollander. She’s Delcroft’s VP and director of engineering. Just moved to Chicago from Utah. Teresa says the woman’s a rising star. Could possibly take over the top spot one day. Like the woman at GM.”
Mac stroked the scar running down his cheek. He does that when he’s surprised. “A woman at Delcroft?”
The three of us studied her image. She was tall, slim, and all business. Probably in her forties. Blond hair in a tight twist. A severe black suit. Dark eyes, and a long pointed nose that made her look sharp. She didn’t appear to be wearing a lot of makeup, but she didn’t need to. Frown lines on her brow indicated she’d fought more than one battle climbing the corporate ladder. At the same time, a slightly haughty expression said, “Don’t mess with me.”
Mac frowned. “Engineering, you say?”
I nodded.
“Why was she in Utah?” Hank asked. “Is she Mormon?”
“Hank, your stereotypes are showing,” I said.
Mac stroked the scar on his cheek. “I still don’t get it. Why would she have to approve the video? We’re not dealing with anything close to engineering.”
“Maybe to make sure we’re not spilling any secrets?”
“Secrets?” Hank made his eyes go wide. “Are you saying a company like Delcroft has secrets?”
“They’re the top military contractor in the country,” I said. “Fighter jets, drones, all that stuff. In fact, before we got the job, Teresa said she had to do background checks on all of us.”
“Now you tell us,” Mac said.
“You passed. I was the one they had a problem with.”
If it were possible for Mac’s eyebrows to arch any higher, they did. I shot him a look. “No worries. We worked it out.”
Hank scratched the side of his nose. “That doesn’t explain why she’s giving the cold shoulder to that guy.”
“An ex-boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t look like the type,” Hank said.
“True,” I said. “But at first I thought he was trying to pick me up.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Let’s just use him once or twice. Lucky for us we’re doing serials. Viewers won’t remember from week to week.”
“You got it.”
“Will I need to revise the scratch track before Monday?”
Hank shook his head. “The first four will be ready by Friday.”
“Great. You can Dropbox them to me.”
“Sí, señorita.”
“Wait. So now I’m a Spanish goddess?”
“Just practicing for Miami.”