Behind the Scenes

It was something about the way he held the camera, like it was guiding him. Trevin swept the camera through the trees, and Aline stood back, confident that he was getting the best shots.

She watched his blonde head pass through the trees, the shoulder-length strands of his hair wafting gently in the breeze. Aline glanced up at the sky, which was growing dark, just like they wanted.

“I’ve got something over here!” Trevin called out, and Aline flew into action.

“What?” she asked, jumping through grasses and flowers, following the sound of his voice.

He tossed his head back when she reached him, successfully flopping his hair out of his eyes. Aline could also see the glimmer of his new earring, which matched perfectly the glimmer in his eye.

“We should do the fire here, really small, and I’ll get up close and it’ll look way bigger than it is!” Trevin spoke with one hand pointing and waving in the air, the other cradling his camera.

He squatted, running a hand through the short grass he’d found. “These tiny flowers, they’ll really sell the effect! And I’ll do some editing in post if I need to.”

Aline stood silently until he looked back up at her. She made a show of thinking about it, leaning left and right to see the flowers he was talking about. “Sounds good,” she finally told him.

Trevin sprang up with a grin, his fingers tightening over his camera. He was always itching to film.

Naturally, she grinned in response. Then, Aline threw back her shoulder, tossing her backpack onto the ground. She dug through it: pad of paper, felt-tip markers, sunglasses, water bottle, extra batteries, and finally, matches. She held the small box up triumphantly.

Trevin was already holding the camera up, focusing on her.

Aline angled away from him saying, “You’re not supposed to be filming me.” Nonetheless, she smiled down at the matches.

She heard his boots crunch as he stepped toward her. “Documentary is just as important as any other part of a project. And, I like filming you.” Instead of responding, Aline made a sound of dismissal. “Behind the scenes with Aline!” he said in a newscaster-type voice.

She laughed lightly. “Ok, back up,” she told him. “I’m only gonna light this once and we’ve got to get a good shot.”

Trevin hummed in agreement, and stepped back.

Aline lit the match and carefully lit a small twig, then threw herself backwards to get out of the shot.

But instead of giving them the small fire they desired, the flames quickly ate up the surrounding grass and dry leaves.

Aline yelped, and Trevin swung the camera on her. “Small fire! I said to set a small fire! This is not small!”

She ran to her backpack. “I didn’t mean to do this!” she shrieked back, fumbling for the water bottle.

Trevin, however, was paying her no mind. He was instead laying on his stomach in the grass, unflinchingly filming the fire eating up the plants.

In the meantime, Aline ran back and doused the fire with the water bottle, then stomped out the remaining flickers of flame. Luckily, the gallon-sized water bottle was packed just for this purpose, so it was enough. A little even remained, sloshing loudly in the bottle as Aline swung it.

“Wow! That was actually awesome footage!” Trevin exclaimed from his position on the ground.

“Awesome? That was almost a forest fire!” Aline said, her heart still beating frantically. How had they not thought that through? “And yeah, it has to be good because we’re not setting any more fires. We’re out of water.”

Trevin pulled the camera away from his eye. “You used all of it?”

Aline smiled at him, tilting the bottle. The remaining water spilled onto his head and neck, but she was careful to avoid the camera.

Trevin yelled in gleeful indignation, and grinned toothily at her. “You’re not gonna want to see these behind the scenes,” he said, clutching his camera and scrambling upright. He lunged toward her, but she had already begun to run, laughing.