“Luggage straps,” Andy says. “We’ll get some attached, set them up so they fall that way as the rig tips.”
“Yeah, okay, perfect. How do you want to tackle this?”
Andy thinks for a moment. “Let’s stay focused on the story. We want a good, entertaining fight, but with a schedule like this, the story comes first. Everything else after.” He waves over one of the nearby production assistants, a bookish woman who supports the script supervisor. “We need our goals.”
The woman flips through her copy of the script and opens to the pages for the battle. “So, Electra has just recovered the Thunder Stone, which is the key to her ancestry and unlocking enough power to defeat Thanoseid. She’s leaving in her jet, which is on AI pilot. She doesn’t know that Melinoë followed her and has grabbed the outside of the jet until one of Melinoë’s hacking bots deploys and opens the door, allowing her to jump in and try to steal the Thunder Stone. They fight. Melinoë finallyfalls from the plane, and only as she falls does Electra see that she has the Thunder Stone. Melinoë’s fate is unclear for the moment, and Electra is forced to re-route her jet and chase Melinoë for the stone.”
“So it’s a game of keep-away,” Andy says. “I need… a ribbon? Some string?”
The PA nods, and she’s back within a minute, breathing heavily with a foot of orange plastic ribbon, the same as is marking the stakes for the airbag.
Andy beckons Christine closer.
She leans down, and he ties the orange ribbon into a bow around the strap of her tank-top.
“First, let’s play a game,” Andy says. “Christine, use the blocks we worked through to protect the ribbon. Mylo, you’re on offensive. Get the ribbon and keep it all in frame.”
“What about the story?” Christine asks.
“The goal is the first pillar of the story,” Andy says. “Emotion the second. Let’s work out the goal, and then we’ll layer in the emotion.”
Improvising a scene like this is absolutely insane, and I’m thrilled. This is a unique opportunity to show off what I do best, and an incredible amount of trust to receive from Andy.
I slip out of my sweatshirt and set it aside. Gooseflesh prickles on my arms for the moment, but I’ll warm up quickly.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s give it a shot and see how it goes.”
Andy guides us to our marks in the fuselage; we’re skipping a bit ahead from Melinoë’s infiltration, and we’ll work backwards to that when the time comes.
“First, try it with no movement,” Andy says. “Ready… go.”
Christine sinks into her legs, taking on a ready stance. Her chest angles down toward me, expecting a strike from below.
I jump to the side and she swivels, but she doesn’t anticipate me kicking off the wall of the fuselage into a backflip.
I land and stop there.
She bounces her weight between her feet. “What, finished already? C’mon.”
“I am, actually.” I hold up the orange ribbon, snagged from her strap mid-flip.
Her eyes widen with surprise. “Well, that one doesn’t count. I wasn’t ready.”
“Mhm.” I hand the ribbon back to her. “No cheating with a double knot.”
“Like I’d need to cheat to keep it away from you.” She flashes a cocky, practiced smile.
My heart thrums faster. “Are you saying that as Electra or Christine?”
“Both. I think it’s a little unrealistic that Melinoë gets the Thunder Stone like this, but the plot beat is good, so.”
I give an incredulous laugh. “Oh, you think it’sunrealistic? I was gonna go easy on you, but…”
“Do your worst,” Christine says with a smirk.
She’s not smirking a half hour later when the longest she can keep the ribbon away from me is a minute. The fight needs to last for five.
Exasperation leeches into her tone, and she turns to Andy. “Don’t we need to get to actually rehearsing before it gets dark?”
