Virtual Studio On the Move
by Cinemahead

Stu started an improvisational moving company that afternoon. He asked Jack about the bluegrass music coming into the foreground more and more

“What is it Boss Man? What’s the Kentucky cha-cha?”

He got a sweaty reply.

“Garcia and the Boys. Radio City Music Hall. 1980”

It ain’t easy to move a film studio into a container on a summer afternoon with two folks and a sleeper at the wheel.

“Wow!” Stu blurted, “Never knew much about those hippy people other than they on-the-roaded it all over the country to hear the music play.”

Stu is 6’ 5" of pride for one overachieving, yellow hair growing back on his Indiana pig-farmer bald head. Without that, half of his sale pitch would be gone.

His services range from cooking to cracking bones to reading palms, massaging feet and telling stories. Every virtual studio needs a soul like Stu, and Cinemahead is no different.

“You could put it that way. Maybe it was because nothing was ever the same. Nothing the same twice.” Jack was again explaining his dead music, a sticky task, even for Sibelius – and in any case Stu wasn’t listening no more, his head in the refrigerator.

“Like in real life?” A kid question from the giant man with thin legs, as his hands swiped away more sweat than a bucket could contain.

“Yes. It was kind of a life. Just add images, I guess.”

“Wow. All improvisation, huh?” The mover was suddenly struck by curiosity and interest, strangers to much of his daily toils.

“Making it look like improvisation is the hard part” said Jack, who had no idea where the big box with the unused film stock belonged in the container.

“A lot of artists succeed if they dissolve all their mechanics into a lifelike process” ventured Jack, encouraged.

“Lost you there, boss. Let me get the 16 millimiter cameras.”

“Be careful.”

“One day you explain to me how you make a movie, boss man. All that manipulation and control, doesn’t it drive you crazy? Making a world and being responsible for every move that goes on. I try and stay away from that stuff, I have enough trouble keeping my room clean."

"I tell you what: you help me finish this load in time, and I tell you some more about this film I’m going to make.”

“You got it boss man, and then go get yourself a buffalo burger. It doesn’t sit on your stomach like the regular meat. I bet they don’t have that in Norway."

“Sweden, not Norway”

“Never been nowhere.“

“You got a passport?”

“Never left the country. But I’m on a green card from East Bend,”
said Stu, staring at lighting gear in metal casings.

“Where’d you get all that?”

“We rented it yesterday from Castex, Hollywood”

“We did?”

“You signed the contract, Stu.”

“Is that what that was?”

“It was stolen today, you see. The insurance for the rental company will buy them back more equipment.“

Truth or dare.

“You got yourself some new gear, boss man, and you didn’t pay nothing for it.”

“Fiction and non-fiction, two sides of one coin, my friend.“ Jack was happy with the con he put together. A friend on the European side of the shipment would take care of the customs declaration.

“Come to think of it, there’d be room enough for me in there,” said Stu, placing an index finger across his tight lips and poking his head into the three-quarter full 20 footer.

The ship would be sailing from Long Beach, California in just a couple of saturdays. In theory, of course, it could be done.

“Except they don’t allow animals in there.”

The container-truck driver, holding on to his tip in one hand and a numbered seal in the other, said his name was Pedro. He slammed the door shut, latching the entire film production inside.

Cinemahead was heading for port again. Was it any proof that the day had not been wasted in idle talk of hippy philosophy, cinema, the art of confidence, acoustic guitar and cheap beer?

“No way” came the voice of The Wiz, the man who helps without being there. That’s the beauty of these web-wizards, you can’t run a virtual film studio without them. And who would want to?

“What’s the difference?” lead Stu again, with Becks beer for all, and that’s no product placement stunt.

“What’s the difference what?”

“You were going to tell me about the movie.”

“Thanks for the help, Wiz. Let’s get out of here.”