"Scott Westerfeld - Non-Disclosure Agreement" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

We didn't bother with microphones. Real fires don't sound good on TV. Too crackly, they're just so
much static. We generally insert a low rumble, like a subway going under you, with a white-noise wash
on top.

The six camera-jocks dashed in as close as the heat allowed, working to record the warp and woof of
the blaze. They tried to catch the dramatic and particular details, a beam splintering in a gusher of sparks,
a trapped pocket of air exploding. We wanted to capture this fire's effulgent specificity, so that the art
director back at Falling Man could escape the tried and true spreading-flame algorithms that all the other
FX houses used. We wanted something unique, almost real.

Like nineteenth-century scientists taking spirit photographs, we were trying to capture the soul of this fire.

The PA whom I'd allowed to start the blaze put her hand on my shoulder. I looked up and was struck by
the simple, pyromaniacal joy in her eyes. The woman's touch was unselfconscious, unsexual, and I saw
her twenty-something innocence writ by the dancing red light on her face, and in my jaded,
thirty-something way preferred that to the blaze itself. I watched her, until a cracking noise and a sudden
intake of breath from the crew brought my eyes back to the fire.

One corner of the house was threatening to collapse.

A gout of flame had sprouted from the base, running like a greedy tongue up the vertex of the two walls.
The supporting beam hidden behind this column of fire must have been wet new wood; it was hissing,
throwing out steam and sparks explosively. It began to buckle and twist, writhing like a snake held
captive in a cylinder of gas and plasma.

"This is the money shot!" I cried, waving all the handhelds around to that side. I was breathing hard, heart
pounding and cigarillo hangover suddenly vanquished. I ran a few steps toward the house. Even in those
meters the air temperature raised noticeably, the blaze now a heavy and scorching hand pushing against
my face. It dried my contact lenses, which gripped cruelly at my eyes like little hemispherical claws.

I felt as if I was waking up from a long dream, like when you realize the exquisite detail of the real world
after a prolonged session in VR.

I turned back to the PA, who had followed behind me, and shouted, "This is why we do this."

She nodded, her pupils as wide as the zeroes on a hundred-dollar bill.

One of the camera-jocks knelt just in front of me, his little camera a whining, frightened bee.

"Give me that thing," I said.

Nice last words, don't you think?

I pressed one eye to the viewfinder, clenched the other shut to protect it from the heat, and moved
forward. I pushed in close, the heat a strong wind against me now.

Objects in viewfinders are closer than they appear.

Someone shouted a warning, but this was my shoot.