How to Get Ahead in Television (19 page)

I sat still as he sketched. The scene in
Titanic
where Leonardo DiCaprio draws Kate Winslet popped into my head. Though this really was nothing like that. For one thing, I had clothes on, and secondly, we weren't on a sinking boat, we
were in a really small stationery cupboard. Why had that scene popped into my head, and why was I now listing ways in which this situation was different?

‘Does this room smell slightly of red wine to you?' Rhidian asked as he drew.

‘Um, no.' That was probably my breath, or every pore in my body giving away the excesses of last night. I swallowed guiltily. ‘Though now I come to think of it, it always smells slightly of wine in here. Maybe it used to be a wine cupboard?'

After a few minutes, Rhidian handed me the piece of paper. On it he had drawn a cartoon superhero – me in a cape and catsuit, throwing soup at a hideous gargoyle. At the top, in cartoon-style writing, it said: ‘SOUPER POPPY!'.

‘Very funny,' I said, kicking him gently.

‘You'd make a very good superhero, taking out all the bad guys with various food stuff.'

I smiled.

‘Anyway, I'm glad you're not shouting at me any more,' Rhidian said.

‘I don't
often
shout.'

‘Look, just because we're competing for this job, it doesn't mean we can't be friends, right?' Rhidian said.

‘Of course not.'

‘So you'll stop with your whole overly competitive chart thing?' Rhidian grinned.

‘Um, YOUR overly competitive chart thing,' I laughed, leaning over to pinch his nose.

‘Ow!'

STEP 34 – IF YOU HAVE A MEDIA DEGREE, DON'T ASSUME YOU KNOW IT ALL

FROM
: BRAD

TO
: POPPY

Hi Tabitha. It was great to meet you the other night. I hope your latest eco-friendly oil rig design went down well at work? Would love to take you out when you get back from your research trip to the Congo…? X Brad

C
HANGING GROOMS
WAS
something RealiTV called a ‘shock-wedding format'. It took a girl who was about to get married and presented her with reasons why she shouldn't. (Like maybe her ex was still in love with her or, unbeknownst to her, her fiancé had slept with her sister.) Anyway, there were three big revelations in each show, then the wedding itself. If the bride walked up the aisle and went through with it, the show would pay for the happy couple to have a five-star honeymoon to reward them for weathering the revelations. But, if the bride decided it was all too much, she got to stand up her fiancé at the altar, declare she wanted to ‘Change Grooms', then go on the holiday with her girlfriends. It was a very popular programme. Though apparently it was really hard to get contestants to sign up for it now it was in its fourth series because, well, it pretty much ruined people's lives.

I'd been sent to Kent for a few days to help out with one of the episodes. It was the worst possible timing; I wanted to be in the office fixing things with JR. I hadn't heard anything from him since ‘soup-gate'. Still, work went on and it was only a month before they would decide who won the placement. I needed to impress as many people as possible in the shortest possible time.

Today we were filming in one of the contestant's houses. The host, Marcel, would be unveiling the first revelation to a girl called Sandra, and we'd be getting her reaction on camera. I clambered out of the hire car and started to help the camera crew carry their kit from the van into Sandra's house. Alongside the crew, producer, director, assistant producer and me, was an eighteen-year-old work experience guy called Peter. I think he was somebody important's nephew.

‘This is not how we were trained to put lights up,' Peter said, as we carried the last of the kit in from the van.

‘Oh, really?'

I'd driven to Kent with Peter that morning and he hadn't stopped telling me about all the things he'd learnt on his media studies course.

‘No, they should be using way more lights in this kind of filming environment. Plus, I would film on a 5D camera if I were directing this.'

I didn't know anything about cameras, but I could tell the director was not taking kindly to the running commentary and critique from an eighteen-year-old student.

‘I think sometimes these old-school camera guys have always done stuff a certain way, and they don't necessarily know about the latest tech,' Peter explained to me.

‘Jesus Christ,' said the producer, Vanya, as I handed her a coffee. ‘I hate work experience kids who've done media degrees – they all think they're Quentin Taran-fucking-tino. The one thing they're not taught on their degree courses is that all that's required of them in the first six months of working in TV is to make coffee, carry stuff, and shut the hell up.'

I laughed, making a mental note to follow those instructions while working for Vanya. Vanya was an incredibly beautiful black girl in her mid-thirties. She had a sharp bob, luminous skin and impeccably tailored clothes. She had a reputation for being ruthless – there was a rumour going around RealiTV that she once fired a researcher for mispronouncing the word ‘barbiturate'.

Vanya gathered us around the car for a briefing.

‘Right, team, we only need minimum crew on set; we don't want to overwhelm Sandra. Peter, you can wait in the car. Poppy, you stay – I want you to time-code what happens. Put a massive star in your notes next to any bit where she cries.'

Peter looked furious at being cut out of the action.

‘This work experience is not actually helpful for me anyway,' he grumbled to me as he collected his things. ‘I want to work in film. TV is just a gateway to hone my craft.'

Vanya rolled her eyes behind his back. I think Peter was doing me a favour: he was winding everyone up so much that I looked positively meek and accommodating by comparison.

Inside the house, I perched myself on a low stool with a notebook and searched around in my bag for a pen. In one of the side pockets I found one with bite marks on it and a neatly folded piece of paper that I didn't remember putting there – it was Rhidian's ‘Souper Poppy' cartoon. He'd written a note on the back:
I think you're souper, R
.

I smiled. I'd been taken aback by Rhidian yesterday, and the whole creative side to him he'd been hiding. He was good company (when I wasn't arguing with him), and he had that easy manner of someone incredibly comfortable in their own skin. I suppose he wasn't horrific to look at either…

Marcel came into the living room with Sandra and I carefully folded the cartoon back into my bag. Sandra was a rather overweight mousey girl in her mid-twenties. She looked terrified. Marcel had been talking to her upstairs, warming her up for the interview. The cameras started rolling and
Marcel began. I scribbled furiously in my notepad, trying to keep up with their dialogue.

‘Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Changing Grooms
, where we're with Sandra! Hi, Sandra!'

‘Hi, Marcel,' said Sandra.

‘Now, Sandra is getting married this weekend. Yay, Sandra!' Marcel whooped. ‘But…'

‘But…' echoed Sandra.

‘But we're going to see if she really wants to get married on Saturday, or whether she'll be crying out to “Change Grooms”! What do you think, Sandra? Are you confident in Malcolm? Are you confident in your relationship?'

‘Yes, I think so.' Sandra looked nervous. ‘We've been together four years, I love him, I… I don't think there could be anything that would make me not want to marry him…'

I marvelled at how naïve some contestants were. They wouldn't have been selected to take part in the show unless the production team had found some pretty major skeletons in their closets. No TV show gave you a free holiday without getting something in return.

‘Ah! Confidence! We like it when they're confident, don't we?' Marcel shrieked to the camera. ‘Okay, let's take a look at you and Malcolm and your life together so far.'

‘And cut,' said the director. ‘That was great, Marcel, Sandra – brilliant. Um, can we just do it again? And Sandra, it would be great if we could see a bit of that confidence coming through, like you really
know
that everything's great between you and Malcolm.'

‘Er, okay,' said Sandra.

‘You'll be great! You look wonderful, really great, we just need you sounding a bit more confident, okay, darling?'

We filmed the introduction four more times, until Sandra was sounding confident (confident to the point of annoying, in my opinion). Vanya told me in the car on the way down that the audience tend to like it when the girl sounds arrogant – that way they think it's her fault when her relationship falls apart.

‘That was great, that was great,' said the director. ‘Okay, Marcel, ready for Revelation One when you are…'

Marcel patted Sandra reassuringly on the leg; she had started to look nervous again.

‘Don't worry, pet, it's only telly. You look fabulous, hun, really great!'

‘And action,' said the director.

‘So, Sandra,' Marcel began, ‘you think you and Malcolm are rock solid, you think you don't have any secrets?'

‘Um, yeah, no, we don't have any secrets,' said Sandra.

‘We need to get you saying that with more confidence, Sandra,' said the director.

‘No, we definitely don't have secrets,' Sandra tried again.

‘So, did you know that on the fourth of January last year, when Malcolm said he was on a business trip in Spain, he was actually in a hotel in London?' Marcel said it with relish.

Everyone was silent, watching Sandra, waiting to see what she would say.

‘What?' Sandra's lip quivered.

‘He said he was on a business trip in Spain, but we pulled his credit card receipts, and he was actually staying at a hotel in London that night. I take it that wasn't with you then, Sandra?'

‘No… no, I don't think so.' Sandra had gone as white as a sheet.

‘So who do you think that might have been with, if it wasn't with you?' Marcel pushed.

Sandra looked like she might be sick. She glanced over at me.

‘Camera, darling, reaction to the camera,' said the director irritably.

Marcel pushed her for a reaction again.

‘Malcolm, your fiancé, your beloved, was, without your knowledge, staying in a hotel in London! Wow, Sandra, how does that make you feel? Pretty shitty, I imagine.'

Sandra was still staring mutely into the distance.

Marcel tried to get a reaction from her but she wouldn't respond. The director called cut.

‘This happens sometimes,' he whispered to me. ‘They're in shock; we just have to ride it out to get to the real reaction – the anger, the tears. Usually just takes a bit of time to sink in.'

‘There's probably a logical explanation,' Sandra muttered.

‘Wait! Don't say anything,' said the director, ‘we're not rolling.'

‘I said, I'm sure there's a logical explanation. Perhaps he got his dates wrong. He does sometimes stay up in London for work…'

‘Roll, roll,' the director hissed to the cameraman.

‘Can I call him?' Sandra asked.

‘No, no, you can't call him, Sandra,' said Marcel.

‘But there's probably a rational explanation…'

‘So you think he was staying in that hotel alone?' said Marcel.

‘I don't know.'

The director made a hand signal to Marcel and Marcel started being more aggressive.

‘You think he was staying in that hotel alone, not having sex with another woman?'

I was taken aback by this change in tone. I had never heard Marcel be so harsh before. On screen he came across as this really loveable, cuddly camp guy.

‘You don't think he was up there, in bed with another woman?' Marcel pushed. ‘What if we told you the staff remember seeing a young blonde girl leaving his hotel room?'

Sandra looked as though she was about to cry. The director made a hand signal to Marcel, his hand going around and around as if to say ‘keep it going'.

‘A young, thin, blonde, really skinny girl. “Beautiful”, the receptionist said. Who do you think that could be? You think Malcolm could ever get someone that hot? I mean, he's engaged to you.'

Sandra broke down into hysterical sobs. The director clenched one of his fists in victory.

‘His PA! That's what his PA looks like. He… he said it was over, he said it was over years ago,' Sandra cried, sniffing back tears.

‘Darling, let's not condemn him quite yet!' Marcel clapped his hands together and handed her a tissue.

The director carried on filming Sandra's breakdown, and then, when she'd finally calmed down, he asked if they could film a few of Marcel's questions again.

‘Marcel, can we just get a single shot of you telling Sandra about the blonde again? But toned down a notch.'

‘Sure, sure,' said Marcel. ‘So, dearest,' he turned to Sandra, ‘I hate to be the one to break it to you, and don't take our word for it, but one of the receptionists at the hotel said that there
might
have been a blonde with him that night. Does that sound like anyone you might know?'

‘Great, great, that's perfect,' said the director. ‘Just some sympathetic listening shots from you now, Marcel. We're done with Sandra, I can get the listening shots without her and cut it all together later.' The director looked around. ‘You okay to take her upstairs?' he asked, pointing to me.

‘Me?'

‘Yes.'

I took sobbing Sandra upstairs. I had no idea what to say to her. In her bedroom she crawled into bed.

‘What will I do?' she asked quietly. ‘Should I break it off?'

‘Oh, I don't know.' I looked around uncomfortably, hoping Vanya or the AP would come up to help.

‘I knew he'd had a thing with her in the past, years ago, but I forgave him, he said it was over… ancient history.' Sandra wiped her nose on a corner of duvet. ‘I mean, if I knew it was a one-off… I… we've paid for the wedding now, everything's sorted.'

I sat down on the bed next to her. ‘Don't worry, I'm sure whatever happens, it will be for the best,' I said with a weak smile.

‘Oh god, I just want to die.'

Sandra got up and started banging her head against the wall.

‘Shit! Don't do that!' I said, pulling her back onto the bed. ‘It will be fine, I'm sure it will be fine. Maybe they got the dates wrong? Maybe the credit card company got it wrong? Maybe… um… maybe it wasn't this year?' I struggled for an explanation, anything that might stop her banging her head against the wall.