Production Problems Plague Paris
Great Wellington Bowling Green: Geraldo here. I’m whispering as I approach the statue of Bill Faulkner on the crest of a small hill above the bowling green. Like Robert Redford I’m tired of commercial interference with news reporting. That’s why I’m in the field to get a first hand look at Wellington Leg’s film industry at work. My cameraman is in the parking lot talking Indians baseball with my producer. I am alone out here.
From my vantage point I see the Forty Third Earl speaking with a witch. He’s leaning against the Eiffel Tower. I crawl closer through the spartina grass. Discarded industrial gears, lizard guts, the bloated husk of a rusting Chevy, closer and closer, all in the name of journalistic integrity, which, God knows, no one cares about anymore until her single yellow eye turns toward me…
Croak…croak…croak. What can it mean?
“Okay, cut. Someone get that frog off the set.”
“It’s not a frog. It’s wearing a Channel Five baseball cap.”
Croak.
“Look, it’s trying to use the computer!”
“The Eiffel Tower fell over! What next?”
“Let’s take ten. Bob, you fix the Eiffel Tower. Frederika, grab all the baseball hats. Don’t kiss that frog….”
I hear a ripping sound, smell a noxious blend of smoke and cheap perfume, my fingers are swollen, I’m at a Bread concert…
“Geraldo? Better get off the set. The Zombies are coming.”
This is what journalistic integrity feels like! I run for my life, the lede is writing itself: Production problems plague Paris set! Zombie strike is over! Witches are real! But I think she cured my writer’s block!
Geraldo reporting from On Location in Wellington Leg.