Screen Savers

Chapter 42

Voicing over isn’t all that difficult, honest. Ever since I’ve been involved in it, I’ve been amazed at the silliness of the money in relation to the skills required for the work. Maybe I’m down-playing it, but when I was in her class at primary school in Anstruther, Mary taught me not just to read, but to do it with feeling, with expression and with an understanding of the meaning of the words.

That’s all I’ve ever done whenever I’ve stood in front of a mike with a script in my hand, or stood up in a wrestling ring with a prepared text and a list of circus names in my head. If anyone wants to call it performing, that’s fine by me, but I know what it is; it’s just like being back in Mary’s class, reading or reciting in front of the other kids.

If the money is silly for television ads, then for movies — especially American projects — it’s positively insane. Late in my first day in studio, most of which I had spent wearing headphones and rehearsing my narration lines, getting them, without too much difficulty, just as Weir Dobbs wanted them, Mark Kravitz called me to the phone.

It was Sly Burr. ‘Hi kid,’ he oiled down the line. ‘How’s it going in Hollywoodland?’

‘It just feels like Surrey to me,’ I told him. ‘You know what I mean. They still have Tory MPs, every dustbin has its own fox, and all the kids belong to the pony club. A bit like Neverneverland; the PR girl here even looks like Tinkerbell.’

‘Is that right?’ said Sly, almost blankly. Like many showbiz people, unless he is haggling over money — or maybe especially when he’s haggling over money — Sly has no ear for anyone’s voice but his own. ‘To business, kid, to business,’ he went on. ‘I had a call from Miles this morning, about the new scenes he wants you to shoot.’

‘Bloody Hell!’ I exclaimed. ‘I was joking when I told him to speak to you.’

‘What for? I know you’re going to be brothers-in-law and such, but this is business, serious business — and not just for you. I get a piece as well, remember. Okay, so he calls me and he tells me what he plans to do with you, so I tell him, “Wait a minute there, Miles, this changes the whole deal. You hire my boy as narrator, now you want to give him a key part. It can’t be for the same money.”

‘Then he tells me I’m a chiselling bastard and I tell him “Sure, I am; that’s why guys in your business hire guys like me”. Then he laughs and we get down to the nut-cutting. At the end of the day, I’ve got you feature billing below the titles, and you’re in for half-a-point.’

‘Fine, Sly,’ I said. ‘Now tell me what that means.’

‘It means that in the movie credits, on the posters and in all the promo material, you’ll have separate billing. You’ll come after Miles, Dawn and the guy Steele, and you’ll be billed separately. “Introducing Oz Blackstone”, that’s how it’ll read.’

‘Didn’t you think about consulting me on that?’

‘Shit no, kid; you do your business and I’ll do mine.’ The old gormer’s good at his business, I have to admit.

‘So what’s this half-a-point thing then?’ I asked. ‘Type-size on the posters?’

‘You kidding me? You’re a Scotsman and you’re asking me that? Scots and Jews, we’re brothers in the pocket-book. I’ve negotiated us half a percentage point of the gross, on top of the deal we agreed earlier.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘It means that of every ten dollars that goes across the box-office, you get fifty cents.’

‘Fifty cents for every ten dollars?’ I gasped.

‘Ahh, sorry kid,’ Sly chuckled. ‘My Jewishness again; I meant every hundred.’

‘And what’s Snatch liable to make?’

When I heard Sly sucking his teeth at the other end of the line, I knew we were still talking big bucks. ‘We can’t be certain,’ he said, ‘but none of Miles Grayson’s movies ever gross less than a hundred.’

I knew, but I asked the question anyway, just to hear the pride in Sly’s voice. ‘A hundred what?’

‘Million, kid, million. I’d say those extra scenes are going to net you at least half a million dollars. . less my cut, of course.’