Props

“Do you want to go the vintage costume place? They’re holding an Elvis costume for us.”

“Do I ever! Hell yes, I do.”

We got in the car and about half an hour later, entered a cabinet of wonders at the edge of downtown Everett. There was a full suit of armor by the front door, and just inside, a leather and rivets samurai uniform. There was a rack full of wool cloaks, the kind of thing a nurse in WWI would wear while sitting at a handsome soldier’s bedside, field tent not included. There were three, or was it four, Elvis costumes, one with a gold lamé cape. There were two fringed Hollywood cowboy outfits about which Amy said, “Why aren’t we wearing those right now?” There were wraps and drapes and shawls including a velvet peacock patterned drape and another cream-colored number, perfect for when you’ve caught a chill after doing cocaine in your underwear at the hotel room where you’re writing your novel and haven’t paid the bill in weeks and weeks and weeks. I put on a sage-colored Hamilton-style jacket with a gold vest, it was heavy and perfect with my pink baseball cap, a souvenir from the Rural King in Muncie, Indiana.

“Screw Rent the Runway, I’m getting my awards ceremony outfit here,” I said, counting my chickens. “Also, this is some Seargent Pepper vibes, I tell you what.”

“I need to look at that rack of dresses, that is some flapper shit right there,” said Amy.

“You’re doing, what, a movie?” the costume shop woman asked. I recapped the story for her; she lit up and laughed and slid a box of chunky metal rings across the counter. “You want jewelry, too? Take some rings.”

Earlier that day we’d been at the import market. You have to get licensing for everything, every single damn thing. This means you can’t use Doritos or Cheetos when you’re talking about road snacks. You have to say “Those orange crunchy snacks, you know, the ones that leave that orange coating on your fingers.” We came home with an array of off-brand snacks, shiny bags labeled “processed cheese snack food.” One was produced in Jordan and has an English label slapped on over the Arabic nutritional info. One has a top-hatted wedge of cheese with a monocle and ‘stache, clearly denoting the classiness of said snacks.

The day before I’d made a Goodwill run to pick up a few odds and ends missing from our prop list. All the technical gear, accompanied by the director and cinematographer, arrives today. We’ll pull a few more props from my stash of camping gear, I’ll send Harley the Dog to stay with some neighbors, and whoosh, off we go.

Outside of being on call to pitch in where we’re short-handed, I don’t have a lot to do. From today, I’m mostly observing, though I will have plenty of opportunities to provide creative feedback. My plan is to take pictures and make notes, post to Instagram, and stay out of the way — when I’m not looking over someone’s shoulder into the monitor.

Crew and cast, give or take an assistant something something, is about twenty people. We raised 15% more than we’d hoped and we’re also already a beat-up used Toyota or so over budget. I have learned some things I can tell you about today, like no, you can’t use Doritos, yes, there are union rules, sometimes there’s a color theme that shows up and you should lean into that, and good lord it takes a lot of people to make a movie, even a small one like this short.

I’m sure I will wake up a month, three months from now, thinking about other things I’ve learned. Though today I can add that I am happy being The Writer, I have no ambition to be a producer. Also, props are fun, I might be good at that. I’ve also learned that there’s something called a “take home Emmy” and it’s heavy and they send you a nameplate thing that snaps onto the award. No, I’m not mentally rearranging my office so it’s always behind me on video calls, why would you think that?

The speed of this thing has been dizzying, I wrote it right before Thanksgiving and here we are. Take one is a minute away. See you on the other side.