Black River

FIFTY-SIX

O’Brien ignored the slight vibration of an in-coming call to the phone in his pocket. He watched the editor’s screen, watched Frank Sheldon’s body language staring at the painting — the assessing eyes, the popping of muscles at the base of man’s jawline. Sheldon looked at the director standing next to the art director and said, “The face that launched a thousand ships might have been Helen of Troy…but the face of that woman in the painting is a face for a man to defend to his death. What a gorgeous southern beauty. Where’d you find that painting?”

“It’s on loan,” the art director said, using his hands like a football coach signaling a time out. The camera shot abruptly ended and picked up on the next scene of Sheldon shaking hands with the director and meeting the cast and more of the crew.

Oscar Roth leaned back in his chair and said, “Let’s show you some footage from the actual film, you’ll see the difference in quality compared to the stuff shot for BTS.”

O’Brien nodded. “I’d love to see how you cut together some of the battle scenes. How about the first Confederate cavalry charge? Isn’t that how the film will open?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, that huge scene involving hundreds of extras and re-enactors was when the accident happened. What a horrible fluke. Just goes to show you when your time’s up, it’s up.”

“That’s what I hear. How do you edit around something like that?”

Roth shrugged, wiping his hands on a paper towel, sipping iced tea. “It’s easy, really. You just don’t put that scene in the story. Regardless, we didn‘t have cameras trained specifically on him when he was shot. Tragic damn accident. In all my years in the biz, I’ve seen my share of stunt man and stunt woman accidents, but never anyone shot on set.”

O’Brien nodded. “Did you have cameras set up capturing the advancement of the Union forces as the barrage of shots happened?”

“Oh, hell yes. Earl Brice, the DP, overshoots. And all that footage winds up right here in the edit suite. There were four cameras catching that scene, and one of them was shooting in ultra-slow motion. Brice had a scene shot from a crane and another one shot from an aerial drone. Want to see what it looked like?”

“Absolutely.”

“Line those shots up, Chris. They should be in number twelve bin.”

“Gotcha.” He used his boney fingers to find and play the scenes.

Roth said, “These aren’t rough-cuts. They’ve been rendered out in six-K high resolution. The camera is shooting at a thousand frames per second, and when played back at twenty-four frames a second, we get ultra-slow-motion.”

The scene showed more than two-dozen union troops advancing through the palmetto trees and thicket. A squad commander issued an order to fire. Each man shouldered a musket, and all fired at the same time. O’Brien watched closely. Catching something out of the corner of his eye. He said, “That’s really cool. Can you play it once again?”

“Yes,” said Roth, then proceeding to tell O’Brien how the scene was cut together.

“Freeze it there,” O’Brien said. “Now back it up a few frames.” Discreetly, O’Brien pressed the audio record button on his phone, placing the phone in his shirt pocket.

“Did you see something?” asked Roth, leaning closer in his swivel chair.

“Something was different from one rifle compared to all the rest.” O’Brien pointed to the screen. “See the fifth soldier from the far left?”

“Yes,” Roth said. “What about him?”

“It’s not him. It’s what came out of the barrel of his musket.”

“What came out?” asked Goddard.

“Nothing. That’s the point. Nothing visible. In slow motion, we can easily see the paper wads each re-enactor shot from his barrel. That indicates each man was firing blanks. The paper wads drifted down like confetti. But not with the fifth soldier from the far left. His barrel discharged smoke and a solid object, something black that is only a tiny blur even a thousand frames per second, or ultra-slow motion. Stop and hold the frame the millisecond before smoke comes from the barrel.”

Roth said, “Let’s go frame-by-frame, Chris. Maybe we’ll see the damn near impossible.”

Chris nodded, his index finger clicking each frame of video in single increments.

O’Brien pointed to the screen. “Hold it there. Right before the blast of smoke…see the black object? It’s just a blur, but it’s there.”

Roth blew air out of both cheeks. “Man oh man. We’ve looked at that scene dozens of times. The director’s looked at it. Nobody picked up on that. You’ve got a damn great eye. You might make an excellent editor. I need another slice of pie to process this.” He reached over for the pizza.

“Just lucky. Do you have a reverse shot, something taken from the point-of-view of a camera pointed at the re-enactors?”

“We do. It should be in the same bin, Chris.”

“Okay.” Chris hit the play button.

O’Brien looked at the row of re-enactors, counted the fifth from the far right. Watched the discharge of the rifles. Even in normal speed, he could tell the rifle fired differently from the others in the platoon, more kick.

Roth said, “Out of twenty-four soldiers, wonder why that re-enactor’s rifle fired differently.”

O’Brien lowered his eyes from the screen to meet Roth’s gaze. “Because he fired a bullet.”

“Oh shit.” Oscar Roth sank back in his chair.

O’Brien looked at Chris and said, “Can you push in on the section of the frame where we can get a closer look at the fifth soldier from the far left?”

“Can do,” said Chris, adjusting the editing software to slowly zoom into the area.

O’Brien nodded. “That’s good. You can freeze the shot?”

“Easily.”

O’Brien said nothing as he stared at the face of Cory Nelson. Silas Jackson was born bad, and dangerous.

Roth said, “If that re-enactor knew he had a live round in his gun, it means he meant to fire a bullet at the poor bastard who was killed. And that’s shooting with the intent to kill…murder. Something tells me you didn’t come here to get pointers on editing. So who the hell are you, really — a detective?”

“I’m sort of like you guys. Someone trying to edit the pieces together in a whole picture, that’s all. I’m not a detective, but one will be here within the hour.” O’Brien lifted the phone from his pocket, the audio record light still on. “Both of you have been very hospitable, and I thank you for that. But, as you can see, a crime happened — murder on the set. You’re editors. So please don’t edit out what the three of us just watched. Our conversation is in here.” He held up his phone, clicking off the audio record. He stood up to leave.

“We’re screwed,” said Roth.