Elfhome snippet
They cautiously looked for the river monster the entire next day, careful not to stray too close to the water's edge. Jane kept hold of the whistle and refused to let them use it.
"We could call Nessie to us." Nigel pointed out many times.
"No!" Jane kept shouting back.
"Okay, but can you explain why?" Nigel finally broke the pattern.
Jane growled. God, she hated being outnumbered. This was like riding herd on her little brothers, only worse because "I'll beat you if you do" wasn't an acceptable answer. "First rule of shooting a show on Elfhome." She grabbed Hal and made him face each of the two newbies so there was no way they could miss the mask of dark purple bruises across Hal's face. "Avoid getting 'The Face' damaged. Viewers don't like raccoon boys. Hal is out of production until the bruising can be covered with makeup. We've got fifty days and a grocery list of face-chewing monsters to film. We have to think about damage control."
"Second rule!" She let Hal go and held up two fingers. "Get as much footage as possible of the monster before you kill it. People don't like looking at dead monsters if you don't give them lots of time seeing it alive. Right now we have got something dark moving at night in water. No one ever seen this before, so we can't use stock footage to pad. We blow the whistle and it will come out of the water and try to rip your face off - violating rule one - and then we'll have to kill it and thus break rule two."
"We could call Nessie to us." Nigel pointed out many times.
"No!" Jane kept shouting back.
"Okay, but can you explain why?" Nigel finally broke the pattern.
Jane growled. God, she hated being outnumbered. This was like riding herd on her little brothers, only worse because "I'll beat you if you do" wasn't an acceptable answer. "First rule of shooting a show on Elfhome." She grabbed Hal and made him face each of the two newbies so there was no way they could miss the mask of dark purple bruises across Hal's face. "Avoid getting 'The Face' damaged. Viewers don't like raccoon boys. Hal is out of production until the bruising can be covered with makeup. We've got fifty days and a grocery list of face-chewing monsters to film. We have to think about damage control."
"Second rule!" She let Hal go and held up two fingers. "Get as much footage as possible of the monster before you kill it. People don't like looking at dead monsters if you don't give them lots of time seeing it alive. Right now we have got something dark moving at night in water. No one ever seen this before, so we can't use stock footage to pad. We blow the whistle and it will come out of the water and try to rip your face off - violating rule one - and then we'll have to kill it and thus break rule two."