My Hollywood System

Chapter 173:

Working with newbies was constantly exhausting for directors, even if they were talented. In Will’s case, he had to experience this quite a lot. In [Sherlock Holmes], Robert had a lot of experience working in movies but never in a significant role.

And in [Liberty city], Leo was trained and mentored by Robert, and his talent was immense. Both the cases weren’t similar to [Friends].

It was because most actors had never worked on the set before, and they were feeling quite nervous with the entire live audience thing in their minds.

Will had to pay special attention in some scenes to calm their nerves. And then, with time, the actors improved quite a lot.

After a few days, the crew got used to it and tried to do every scene as smoothly as possible. At first, they had this issue of not knowing the personality of the role they’re playing, but later on, the character became a part of them. Will felt it through their dialogues and acting, and the main reason was how adaptive they were as actors.

The next scene was Ross’s and Monica’s parents being introduced to the show for the first time. The scene was hilarious, considering how perfect they expect Monica to be.

“So, the character’s personality was explained before, but I’ll go again. Judy Geller is someone who affects Monica a lot. She can be taken as someone who is cheerfully critical of Monica. From Monica’s body parts to everything, if she sees something lacking, she’d make fun of it,” Will explained.

The actors that Will had finalized for Judy and Jack Geller were two actors who both were experienced in acting in TV shows. Marina Walt, who acts as Judy Geller, was funny even if met in person, and Frank James, who was chosen to be Jack Geller, looked to be in his 40s and had a similar personality as Jack. They were A-list actors.

They both had reputations for being funny and making the jobs of directors easy in the field they acted in, which was TV shows – sitcoms.

“Okay, are we ready?” Will asked.

Everyone, including Monica, Ross, Judy and Jack, said yes to Will. He walked back to get his seat in the chair labelled as ‘Director’ right in front of the screen and got ready to start the scene.

“Quiet on the set, please,” Will commanded while everyone, including the people present as a live audience, went into pin-drop silence.

After three-four commands, he finally gave it in to start the scene.

“Action!”

“Oh, Martha Ludwin’s daughter is gonna call you,” Judy said and tasted a snack. “Mmm! What’s that curry taste like?” She asked.

“Curry,” Monica said dead serious, but everyone laughed.

“Mmmm!”

“I- I think they’re great! I, I really do,” Ross said in support of his sister. Ross bent down to taste what his sister made.

“Do you remember the Ludwigs? The big one had a thing for you, didn’t she?” Jack, seated with a leg on top of the other, asked Ross. Ross stood up with a low grunt, and his mom answered for him.

“They all had a thing for him,” Jude chirped in.

The camera caught how smug Jude looked, and then the camera focused on Ross, who sat beside his father on the couch.

“Aw, Mom..” Ross said, chewing what he was eating before.

“Camera 02, Monica,” The cinematographer said while the camera focused on Monica.

“I’m sorry, why is this girl going to call me?” Monica said while working on the dish she was making.

Judy turned to look at Monica.

“Oh, she just graduated, and she wants to be something in cooking, food, or… I don’t know. Anyway, I told her you had a restaurant-”

“No Mom, I don’t have a restaurant, I work in a restaurant,” Monica said in annoyance, trying to correct her. Her facial features were on the point, and Will was content.

“Well, they don’t have to know that… ” Jack shook his head in annoyance while Judy started to fluff the same pillow Monica fluffed multiple times earlier.

“Ross, could you come and help me with the spaghetti, please?” Monica asked, already annoyed with how her mom was nitpicking.

“Yeah,” Ross said and walked around to go near his sister.

“Oh, we’re having spaghetti! That’s…. Easy,” Judy, who heard that said in a sarcastic tone. The audience laughed at how her character is.

“I know this is going to sound unbelievably selfish, but were you planning on bringing up the whole baby-lesbian thing? Because I think it might take some of the heat off me.” Monica said, feeling irritated and uncomfortable already.

“Cut!” Will said while stopping the shooting for a short while. Taking some time, he watched the clip over and over to see if there was any flaw or if something was missing to add.

“That was a perfect shot, everyone; take a break of five, and we’ll do the dinner talk scene,” Will said while dismissing the actors from their positions.

During the break, they arranged the dinner table, and the actors went over their dialogues over and over. Jake, who had the most lines to act, had to put an extra effort into keeping them in mind. Since he was an experienced actor, he felt like it was a piece of cake for him.

“Ready?” “Action!” Everyone was back in their positions, but now the Geller family was at the dining table.

The shot started with Jack rolling his spaghetti around the fork.

“What that Rachel did to her life…. We ran into her parents at the club, they were not playing very well.” Judy said.

“I’m not gonna tell you what they spent on that wedding… but forty thousand dollars is a lot of money!” Jack Geller exclaimed.

“Well, at least she had the chance to leave a man at the altar…” Judy said in sarcasm, hinting at something.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Monica asked, totally offended.

“Nothing! It’s an expression.” Judy said in a loud pitch.

“No, it’s not,”

“Don’t listen to your mother. You’re independent, and you always have been! Even when you were a kid… and you were chubby, and you had no friends, you were just fine! And you would read alone in your room, and your puzzles…” Jack started to talk about Monica’s sad past.

It was evident from Monica’s expressions that she was not entirely happy with the whole situation as they thought she was.

“Cut!” Will stopped the cameras. “The camera is fully focused on Monica. Can you give me some more emotions? More anger, please, and I want a small sarcastic laugh at the end. Can we retake it? The laugh should die in a split second as if it was almost not there,”

“Yeah, okay… Sure,” Monica answered while everyone else nodded.

The scene was harder to cover up than Will thought. They had to do it four times before getting the perfect scene. There were little misplacements Will caught while watching, things like emotions out of place or taking wrong breaks while repeating the lines. Sometimes the false pause gave an unfunny expression to the scene. Therefore due to all these situations, Will finally got a shot. He was content in the fifth take.

Ross pulled his hand away while wanting to reveal the truth,

“Okay! Okay.” He looked at his parents, “Look, I, uh- I realise you guys have been wondering what exactly happened between Carol and me, and, so, well, here’s the deal. Carol’s a lesbian. She’s living with a woman named Susan. She’s pregnant with my child, and she and Susan are going to raise the baby,”

Everyone in the audience laughed at the expressions.

–

‘The Legends’ was a top music band that created music and theme songs for many famous shows. Will thought of hiring them to create the [Friends] theme song. It was an entire piece of art that can make all the fans of [friends] hum along or sing along. Therefore, he wanted to do it right, so Will took matters into his hand and tried to compose it.

He had to go through a lot while talking with the band and studio and adjusting every instrument now and then. Even though a slight string was played differently, Will demanded to change it.

Will, Oliver, the music producer; Liam, who sang and Joseph, the editor, sat in front of the final product they made.

“Let’s go,” Joseph said, and music started tuning in.

So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Your job’s a joke, you’re broke

Your love life’s DOA

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear

When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month

Or even your year, but

I’ll be there for you

(When the rain starts to pour)

I’ll be there for you

(Like I’ve been there before)

I’ll be there for you

(Cause you’re there for me too)

Will paused the song right there.

“Can we reduce the volume of the lines ‘When the rain starts to pour’? I mentioned before, too, that I want them to add up to the main voice in the background. Also, can we make it four claps at the start instead of five?”

“Oh yes, sir, sorry, my bad. I remember you emphasizing the claps; I will edit it,” Joseph said and started doing things on his computer.

In the original theme song, the claps were iconic. The four claps took a considerable turn which wasn’t entirely intentional while the music engineer was trying to compose it. It was just the producers trying to put the finishing touches on the song, and near the start of the song, according to their first plan, it was supposed to be a drum fill. That was a super short drum solo that fills in a gap between musical phrases.

But since they couldn’t find the drum fill that had been recorded, the recording engineer came up with the idea to do the hand claps.

Since Will was a fan of [Friends], he couldn’t let the mistake of five claps happen at the start.

…

//DreamNote//

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