Low Budget Movie Set
True Story of a Barking St. Bernard on a Low Budget Canadian Horror Movie Set.
A suave stranger wearing a Versace tuxedo steps out of a Winnebago. A note above its door is scrawled in red a now-famous name. He takes off his Gucci sunglasses, revealing Romeo Desilva.
Romeo is the only child of Hungarian heritage. In a previous incarnation, he attended a private art school in Queens, New York, where he accompanied his mother on her photo assignments for a respectable publication. An odd European style nose that endows him with an exotic entreaty, or with an element of comic appeal.
Romeo travels on the broken pavement up an embankment to a porch, where he adjusts his bow tie. Desilva then produces a set of red roses from an unkempt garden, which he sniffs, and taps on a weather-beaten door. A bathrobe-clad and mud-faced covered Juliet answers the door.
“Romeo!” she shrieks. “You said 7:30! What time is it?”
An annoyed and inexplicably chagrined Romeo stops, and frowns.
“Line!” he beckons.
A twenty-one-year-old Elleen Smart, who is just fresh out of an 8 month privately run film school, which had abruptly gone bankrupt and was now being sued by its perpetually, unemployed alumni. Smart is following the words on the coffee-stained script.
Elleen, who recently dumped her boyfriend. One year previous, she went to a popular fortune teller, Anthony Carr, who predicted that the man she was seeing would be the next Bill Gates. After a year went by, a tech meltdown ruined everything, and Mr. Right never left his shelf stalker job at the grocery store, which he held since graduating from York University and previously from that high school.
Smart found herself riding Mr. Gates in favor of the vicissitudes of a life in a no budget, Canadian film production.
“Darling, you and I are meant for each other,” cries Elleen from behind the set up.
Suddenly, a dog starts to bark. Its bark induces other dogs to join its chorus.
“Cut!” orders the Director. “Shut that damn dog! Will somebody!” he adds after pausing to furrow his eyebrows at the monitor. Romeo cringes, puts on his Gucci sunglasses, and goes back to his Winnebago. Ellen finds herself accompanying the Production Assistant to a nearby backyard, which is adjacent to the movie set. They walk along a path through a garden to a crudely constructed plywood dog house, inhabited by a slobbering St Bernard. Inscribed above it is the word ‘BENSON.’ They face the root of their concern.
“Oh! Man!” whines the P.A. “What do we do!”
The life-size dog greets his unexpected visitors with a cacophony of woofs.
“Get him some food from craft service!” orders the A.D.
“Right!” moans the other.
Ten minutes later, a slab of meat is thrown at the dog and it gulps it down in one second. P.A inhales reefer and blows it on the St. Bernard.
“Where’s your master, boy!” coos the assistant, who frowns.
Back on the porch, Romeo finishes off a quick cigarette and throws it away. A myriad of hurried voices can be heard emanating from walkie-talkies. This is how it sounded like:
“Picture!”
“Picture has been called!” calls out a crew member.
“Sound is rolling!”
“Sound is rolling!” repeats a voice.
“Camera is rolling!”
“Camera is rolling!” reiterates another voice.
“Action!”
Romeo exits the hearse, adjusts his necktie, gets daisies from the garden, goes upstairs, and knocks on the door and the mud-faced actress faces him.
“What!”
Romeo loses himself in her eyes and the dog again starts to bark.
“Cut!”
“Cut has been called!”
“That was a cut called!”
The Director, P.A., and Elleen are staring at an even eye level with the infamous beast.
“How much meat do we have?” quizzes the General to his over-worked, underpaid, and undersexed underlings?
“I’ll have transport take Kathy from craft service to a nearby grocery store,” Offers Elleen with a sigh, grimacing at a possible chance encounter with her ex.
Half an hour later, the St. Bernard is tossed another slab of meat which it again wolfs down. Assistant diligently tosses another piece, hoping this would buy them a little shooting time.
“Four years of film school, student loans, and debt collectors just for this moment. You better enjoy it, Boy!” muses the future Spielberg in between the animal’s grunts. He throws another portion of nourishment to his newfound friend.
Meanwhile, back on the porch the production is back in full swing.
“Sorry I don’t go out with strange men!” theatrically shudders the B Movie Queen to the lead actor.
“I am not one of those men, Darling. My name is Romeo!”
Once again, a myriad of hurried voices can be heard emanating from walkie-talkies. This is how it sounded like:
“Picture!”
“Picture has been called!” calls out a crew member.
“Sound is rolling!”
“Sound is rolling!” repeats a voice.
“Camera is rolling!”
“Camera is rolling!” reiterates another voice.
“Action!”
Once again, Romeo exits the hearse, adjusts his necktie, gets daisies from garden, goes upstairs, and knocks on door and the mud-faced actress faces him.
The St. Bernard‘s dissonance of howling causes the director’s face to tighten and the actors to share a much-needed laugh.
“That does it! That is a cut!” screams the Tyrant.
“How much am I paying you assholes!” adds the weasel-like producer, who stands like a Leopard to pounce on its prey.
This time the actors, the director, the producer, their whores, and all the crew members are all facing the obstinate fiend. The Producer exposes a handful of hundreds.
“His master is not home. What do you think his price is!” muses the Hollywood type. The cast and crew glower on their newfound enemy.
“Benson, everyone has a price! What is yours!” so questions the industry insider.
Half an hour later, the St. Bernard is loaded into a taxi; cab driver is awarded a princely sum of hundreds. As the Production continues to roll, the Master returns to see a movie shoot across the street and watch his pet being driven away.
“That couldn’t be our little Benson!” jokes the Master.
“No! Don’t be silly!” cackles his Mistress. “Oh! I wonder if anybody famous is in the area!”