On Camera

Day 0

"Welcome, everyone, to what could quite possibly be the most ambitious project undertaken by humankind."

There was a smattering of applause, but Jacob noticed at least a couple of people rolling their eyes. Maybe they knew as much about the project as he did, and knew it was no anywhere near as impressive as Carter was making it out to be.

"Tomorrow, we begin the filming of a true story--the story of an ordinary girl, with an ordinary life. Two years from now we will have a complete history of those two years of her life. Two years later, we will have a condensed two hour documentary accurately showcasing and highlighting the life of a beautiful college aged girl. And here that girl is now!"

This part had the potential to be interesting, so Jacob looked up. The girl who walked out on stage was average height and average build; in all respects she seemed absolutely normal, aside from her brilliant green eyes. Those could be spotted from a mile away, but the rest of her could have blended into any crowd.

Carter went on a mother spiel about some random nonsense, and Jacob took the opportunity to observe. If he was going to be filming Clara for two years, it would be helpful to know some of her habits ahead of time.

By the end of Carter's presentation, Jacob had identified three habits he would need to watch out for when he was filming:

1. Clara had a tendency to sway nervously while on stage. If it was a habit, he would have to watch out for it in his daily filming to keep it from looking like he had a shaky hand.

2. She turned her head in towards her neck when she thought somebody was looking at her. No one liked to constantly see the back of someone's head.

3. She had a tendency to sweep her hair back every few seconds. It wouldn't affect the filming, but it would drive Jacob nuts to watch her repeat the same move for two years.

Other than that, she seemed like a pretty likable person, or at least a pretty easy person to film. He hadn't been told what kind of camera he would be using, so he didn't know what kind of flexibility he would have to the angles of the shot, but it didn't look hard to find a flattering angle on her. 

After the presentation, Carter had the sense to introduce the two of them.

"Hi," Clara stuck out a hand and smiled. "I guess I'm the star of the show."

"Hi," Jacob returned. "I guess I'm one of the camera men."

"No, no, no." Carter corrected. "You are not one of the cameramen, you are the cameraman! There are other workers sure, but no one else is on site 9am to 9pm like you. You are in charge of capturing her life on the camera."

Jacob glanced at Clara and shrugged. "Well then, that, I guess."

"And there will be no talking between you two of course. Jacob, you are not even there. You are silent, you are a ghost, you are invisible."

"You got it boss."

"And that goes for you too miss Clara. You must do what you can to ignore Jacob while he is filming. It is very important to the integrity of the film."

"Yeah...I guess."

"You two are going to be perfect! I will see you tomorrow morning, 8 am, yes?"

Before either had a chance to respond, Carter was gone. It was the last time they would see him before the first day of filming.