Movie Making

I dreamed that I was working with a film company on an erotic romantic comedy. The comedy took place at a school, in fact, my old middle school. The projectors and white boards had been removed and we'd reinstalled the old green boards that I remembered from my own childhood. The production company had wanted all wooden desks, but I had pointed out that not only would that be over our budget, but it wouldn't actually match the chromed steal desks with laminated tops that we'd actually used as students. The desks with the unmanageable wire book management trays. The ones where large books got tangled, and small ones always seemed to spill out and end up under foot. The ones where the wires got bent into a hook that was just the right height to catch and untie shoelaces, or pop open three ring binders.

It was the middle of summer and the condemned school was empty except for the film crew, most of whom, because there was no air conditioning, and the extra lights were powerfully hot, had stripped down to shorts and t-shirts for the men, and shorts and halter tops for the women. We were filming a scene between the four protagonists where they were essentially playing truth or dare in the classroom after school.

The scene was getting pretty racy and soon there would be enough nudity to get us our "R" rating, but in the process, things were going a decidedly NC-17 direction, as everyone was horsing around and the crew had started to play along with the actors behind the scenes. I commented to the director that the "Making of" documentary was going to rated "X" at the rate we were going.

We decided to take a break, and the water truck was pulled up next to the abandoned buildings and set up to spray the little planter area, which we dubbed our "Water Park". Everyone ran out and got soaked so we could take a long lunch break. One of the nearly naked actresses made sure to stay close by me, asking all sorts of questions about what the school had been like when I had gone there. Somehow it had come out that I had actually dated a teacher a few years my senior shortly after I had graduated and come back to work at the place.

I pointed out that the teacher was still quite young, and had not been there when I was a student, but she insisted on portraying it as the scandal upon which our own movie was based to anyone who would listen. By the end of the break nearly every woman had invited me back to the hotel after the shoot, because "you won't have to drive all that way in the heat," and "we have a pool, air conditioning, and a bar tab."

The nearly naked actress smiled at me as we went back to work, "you can thank me later, sweetie."