Page 39 of Glamour and Grit

“Does a walk-on role in a high school play to impress the head cheerleader count?”

“Not really. Okay, here’s the most important thing: When the director says action, you act, and you go all in until he yells ‘cut.’ That means you don’t stop even if things are going horrifically wrong. Like if you fall or something, or part of your prosthetics fall off. They’ll fix it in editing, but they can’t fix anything if you break character and ruin the scene.”

“Okay. Action means we begin the scene, and I won’t stop until the director yells ‘cut.’ I think I can handle that.”

“We’ll see,” she says, a grin creeping across her face. “All right, get up out of that chair and let me see how you shamble.”

“Shamble?”

“You know, like a member of the living dead.” She adopts a stiff body pose and groans, shuffling forward while dragging one leg behind her. “Remember, your body is supposed to be rotting, so it doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to.”

“All right.”

I rack my brain and try to think of all the zombies I’ve seen in movies and such. I haven’t really ever sat down and watched an entire episode or film, but I’m pretty sure I get the general gist.

I stiffen up and shuffle along, letting out a groan as I do so. Selene cups her chin in her hand and narrows her eyes, watching me with inscrutable energy.

After a few times back and forth in front of her, I kind of get self-conscious. I mean, do I suck at being a zombie or what? Finally, I can’t stand it anymore and I break character, standing up straight and facing her.

“How was that?”

She takes a deep breath and shakes her head.

“Dane…” she says with a long sigh. “You might be the best fucking zombie I’ve ever seen.”

I stare for a moment to see if she’s joking. I don’t think that she is.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. It’s not just because you’re huge, either. You’ve got that ‘it’ factor.”

“Or maybe deep down, I’ve always seen myself as a zombie,” I say.

She snorts with laughter. “Oh god…just, just sit down until they call for you and try not to mess up all of my hard work.”

“Um, it’s been hours, can I drink in this thing?”

“Yeah, but use a straw.”

She snaps up a can of soda from the cooler and pops the tab before thrusting a straw through the oval opening. I take it from her hands, mesmerized by the details on my zombie limbs. Even up close, her work holds up very well.

I discover something about the film industry that it has very much in common with the war business: Hurry up and wait. Either Selene is running around like a madwoman trying to do ten things at once or she’s stuck waiting.

“I never realized how many people it takes to make a TV show,” I say, marveling at the massive film crew. Even the photographers have assistants, and their assistants have assistants. It’s like a small army.

“Oh, this is nothing. I was on set for one of those disaster flicks, making people look like they’d been injured, and there were ten times the amount of crew.”

“Jesus Christ. How do you keep them all off camera?”

“The magic of Hollywood,” she says with a wink. “That, and lots of editing. The last thing you want is a coffee cup left on a table somewhere so the internet can mock you for the next ten years.”

A bell rings and someone bellows for everyone to get in their places. Selene slaps me on the ass hard enough that I flinch.

“All right, break a leg.”

I join the ‘horde of the undead.’ A lot of the extras are giving me dirty looks. This is their time to shine, and now some outsider is getting a crack at what they do for a living. I used to get the same feeling when the Navy would bring in civilian contractors to tell us how to do our jobs.

“Action!”

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