Scott Westerfeld - Non-Disclosure Agreement

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Non-Disclosure Agreement

Scott Westerfeld

Year: 2001

I went to Los Angeles to burn down a house.

It was a low-stress conflagration. Just a run-of-the-mill house-burning sequence for a television

miniseries. It was working-titled Tribulation Alley — set in a post-Rapture world populated by a lot of

recently reformed agnostics and the odd Anti-Christ.

Because it was television, we wouldn't be filming the fire in any serious way.

You see, real flames don't look good on TV.

Most of the high-budget holocausts you see on video these days are computer generated. With a real

fire, it's too hard to get the continuity right, even with a multi-camera shoot. It actually takes about an

hour to burn a house down properly, so you have to jump cut too many times. But the vast rendering

farms employed by Falling Man FX (mostly located in Idaho, I think) can reduce a house to cinders in an

attention deficit disorder-friendly twenty seconds.

On top of the timing issues, the yellows in a really kick-ass blaze are too sallow for digital video. They

have a sort of jaundiced reticence, which we punch up to a hearty crimson glow. It's not reality, but it

looks better.

Despite the limitations of the physical world, Falling Man still burns down the odd house now and then.

We study the results carefully, just to keep ourselves honest. For reference, basically, and to get a few

fresh ideas. So out to LA I went, matches in hand.

The Tribulation crew had evidently used the house only in exterior shots. It was empty of furniture,

completely unfinished. It had a Potemkin-village flatness, the walls paper-thin and bereft of plumbing or

wiring. For the first day and some, I had the crew install paneling, to keep the walls from burning through

too fast, and spread some rolls of old carpet on the floor, to get the smoke right. Even though most of us

haven't seen a house burn down, we know instinctively what it should look like. And if we don't, our kids

will. That's our Golden Rule at Falling Man: every generation of movie-goers needs better and more

expensive special effects.

It's a philosophy that keeps the money rolling in.

About lunchtime on the second day, I was satisfied with the flammability of things, and we wrapped until

that night. This house-burning scene was in daylight, according to the script, but we always burn at night

for better contrast. Sunlight's one of the easiest things to add: full spectrum, parallel light. An idiot can

make the sun shine.

Besides, real sunlight doesn't look good on TV. Except for the golden hours of dusk and dawn, the sun is

a tacky, garish creation, which blows out what little contrast exists on digital video.

I should have gotten some sleep before the big burn. I was still on New York time; passing out would

have been easy. Maybe if I'd been better rested, I wouldn't have gotten myself killed that day.

But I was on the company dime, so as I was driven back to my hotel, I contemplated the tiny minibar

key that was attached by a tiny chain to the smartcard that admitted me to my room, the rooftop sauna,

and the ice machine.

I've always been fascinated with mechanical keys. I guess a lot of computer geeks are. Very early

crypto. And a fascinating email screed had recently been forwarded to me. It proclaimed that one's status

in society bears an inverse relationship to the number of keys in one's possession. The lowly janitor has

rings and rings of them. The assistant manager has to get in early to open up the fast-food restaurant —

the boss comes in later. And as we climb the economic ladder, more and more other people appear to

open the doors, drive the cars, and deal with the petty mechanics of security. So here I was, boy

millionaire in the back seat, armed with only my hotel smartcard and that tiny signifier of minibar privilege,

as miniscule as the key for some diary of childhood dreams.

Much like the empty pages of a blank book, this small key had limitless power over my imagination. I felt

in its tiny metal teeth the ability to consume six-dollar Toblerone bars and twelve-dollar Coronas. To pick

through exquisitely small and expensive cans of mixed nuts and discard all but the cashews. Indeed, in my

initial reconnaissance of the bar, I'd spotted a child-sized humidor in the back, no doubt offering cigarillos

of post-Fidel provenance and jaw-dropping price. And all these miniaturized delights would be charged

to Falling Man.

Fondling that little key in the back of the car, I realized a secret truth: This moment was why I had come

to LA. To raid the refrigerator.

Later, it occurred to me that if I had somehow known that my death was nigh, I would have done pretty

much the same thing with my last hours, indulged pretty much the same sensuous pleasures and petty

revenge. Perhaps on a grander scale, but with no greater depth of spirit. And I suppose that's why I was

sent to Hell.

That night at the burn, I was woozy.

The six beers were nothing, and those airplane-sized bottles of Matusalem Rum wouldn't have inebriated

a five-year old. But I was a child of the post-smoking era, and I should have stayed away from the

cigarillos. I felt as if some pre-Cambrian 1950s dad had locked me in a closet with a carton of

Marlboros to finish off. My mouth was horribly dry, and I craved a drink. Preferably from one of the

giant hoses that drooped in the arms of the firefighters that the LAFD had sent to oversee our little

inferno.

With the desultory taste of ashtray in my mouth, I didn't even bother starting the fire myself. I left the

honors to a production assistant with a cute smile.

I just mumbled, "Action."

She threw the large, Dr. Frankenstein-style connection switch, and the gallons of accelerant we'd

sprayed throughout the doomed house ignited. A wave of comforting warmth spread from the fire,

reaching us through the cool desert air a few seconds after the first flames burst from the bungalow's

windows.

A ragged cheer went up from the crew, rewarded at last for the hot work of prepping through two

August days. Six of them held palmsized digital cameras. Four locked-down cameras shot the house

from its cardinal directions, providing x- and y-references for the shaky images from the handhelds.

We didn't bother with microphones. Real fires don't sound good on TV. Too crackly, they're just so

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