There were just the two of them on the beach. The director and the camera man. The rest of the crew was having a break. The director had the script in his hand. They were shooting the pre-title sequence. The camera man was telling him what a marvellous location this was. The director nodded and read from the script.

“A family enjoying themselves on the beach,” he said, waving his hand around. “Two boys playing marbles, here on the tarmac in front of the telephone box. The man and woman are setting up the barbie, the woman brings out a box. She opens it. Marshmallows from the market. Thought the kids would like to cook them on the barbie. Then off stage, there would be the sound of the plane flying into the mountain, behind us. Man says something like ‘jesus’ and whips out his mobile, but he can’t get a signal and he runs to the phone booth. That’s the shooting schedule for today.”

The camera man checks the ground. He says, “we will do it all with a hand-held camera, give it a sense of immediacy, as agreed.”

The director calls the crew back to work.

When all the actors are in place and all the props are ready, the director calls for a take. The child actors are ready and the director calls ‘action’. The camera is focussed on the marbles and draws back to show two boys playing.

A female voice is heard to say “Boys, look I have got some marshmallows. Do you want to come and put them on these skewers.”

The boys look up and leave the marbles and come over to their mother. The elder boy says ‘goodie’. The camera moves over to the father who has the barbecue under control and the camera picks up hamburgers on the griddle. The man says “I used to have marshmallows when I was your age. I loved them. The burgers are nearly done. Mum, can I have the buns!”

At that moment, there was a large explosion, and everyone turned to their left looking up at the mountain. That is where in the screenplay the plane is seen crashing into the mountain. There was another explosion and yet another and yet another. Everyone stared at the mountain looking confused. Nothing was happening there.

The elder child actor said. “We are not doing that scene today.”

The father actor said, “I don’t understand.”

The Cameraman was the one person who was looking in the opposite direction as he was filming the hamburgers on the griddle. He could see that the explosions were coming from the water, out there in the bay. The ocean floor was rising in a series of explosions. He could see new land being created in the most violent way and he could see the level of the water rising and coming their way.

He shouted, “Mary, mother of god, we are in the wrong movie. Everyone! Run!”