A shoofly automatically implies action — a “story in progress”
if you will — by its very existence as a temporary structure dur-
ing a specific construction project that’s “on the clock.” Raising
questions draws viewers in and allows them to participate in
the scene: “What happened to the old wood trestle? Was there
a washout? How long is it going to take? What are they going
to replace the wood trestle with?”
In addition to having a scene the viewer enters en medias
res (“in the middle of the action” and, according to Aristotle,
the only way to start a successful story), I wanted the scene
to show the story of bridge construction in itself. So just as a
comic book artist can frame close-ups, freeze time, and offer
an “exploded view” of specific details in the middle of intense
action, I set up the Shoofly to focus the viewer’s eye certain
sections of the scene which, taken together, tell a larger story
of replacing the bridge than a single frozen picture.
Any construction crew building a bridge would pour both abut-
ments at the same time, but I wanted to show the wooden
frames and rebar before the concrete pour on one abutment.
Solution? One abutment was miscast and demolished. So
within the same scene we see the remains of the wooden piles,
a railcar crane helping build the rebar and form-framing of one
“Creating a scene with people in the middle
of a job helps increase realism as the eye,
following the train, catches enough cues to
allow the brain to "fill in" the scene with the
appropriate movement, sounds and smells of
action just outside of the train's path. ”
