My Hollywood System

Chapter 198:

Will’s pair of dark black eyes focused closely on the monitor screen right in front of him. His pupils moved left and right, up and down, and then concentrated on the main scenario in the middle of the screen.

He was inside a studio now, and around him, there were green screens all around him. With the cameras placed in the necessary positions of the studio, the studio was ready to take the shots of the Green Goblin.

Apart from green screens, there were also blue screens designed and placed to film the shots. The Green Goblin’s suits were green, due to that, they had to use blue screens too.

“We should retake the shot, your body is too rigid, and it needs to relax,” Will said after playing the scenario twice, over and over.

The scene which they were filming was one of the scenes where Peter was jumping from buildings. Andrew was already bound in wires, and his body was safely up in the air with necessary professional precautions.

An entire stunt crew member was present every day when Spiderman performed stunt scenes. Even more, there were so many choreographers presented for the up-air flying and fighting scenes. In fact, they helped Andrew a lot to sort things out.

The shot was Spiderman shooting the web and going from the top of the building to another building. Since it has been months in, and Andrew was already comfortable doing his own stunts, it was much easier for Will to take shoots.

“….Action!”

As soon as the words slipped Will’s mouth, Andrew jumped from the built-up prop, which was supposed to be a building top, and had his arms in the air, as if he was holding onto a web. His legs were connected at the leg soles, and he actually looked like the image in the comics.

He swiftly jumped off of it and took a hold of the cable that practically was connected to him, and jumped off of where he was. As his face was covered in a mask, it was not a scene where his facial features were important. But, the body and the movements should be flexible enough to get a confident Spiderman.

“Cut!”

The scene was short compared to others because it was just a simple jump. This was the first retake, and Will looked at it from the screen to check if the shot was neatly taken.

Will nodded before replying, “That was a good one—but can we retake the ending? Because your leg movement was almost invisible. Can we retake?” Will asked while everyone looked at him.

“Focus on it please,” he added, turning towards the cameraman.

“Sure,” Andrew said and everyone got back to their positions.

“Quiet on the set, please?!….. Camera!…. Sound!…. Roll camera!….. Roll sound!…. And…. Action!”

One of the cameras focused on the Goblin who let out a blood-curdling cackle and also revelled in the mayhem unfolding, but the laugh was cut short, and suddenly hesitation was clear in his actions. It was because he heard something—and then, he turned around.

Spiderman in his costume was revealed to the cameras. He swung down from a building above and with a sound smacked right into The Goblin. Spiderman was able to successfully knock the villain clean off his Glider.

Since there was no sound effect, only voiceovers like grunts, sounds, and body movement noises were clearly audible. It was something that people would love to see, therefore—the crew who aimed to shoot scenes behind the screen, kept recording everything.

The way Andrew’s cables held him, and how Will kept watching at the scene observantly and along with it—every interesting thing was caught on camera.

The next thing that happened was the Goblin plummeted, from six stories up, except that he landed on one of the passing floats, and bounced off it, making a nifty mid-air twist.

Since Damon was well-practised with the stunts, and he was doing his own stunts, the scene looked almost real. Except—instead of the buildings, there was a green screen which was not that bad, but made Damon get into the role more.

After the swift kick from Spiderman, the rest of the scene was divided between Damon and Andrew.

“Cut! Let me check if it would be a perfect shot!” Will said and looked at the screen, replaying the actions.

It took him a while to keep watching the actions, and everyone was firmly in their own positions. Andrew was on the floor, yet cables were still buckled to his body, and even Damon stood next to him.

Some of the crew brought them water, seeing how Will was taking some extra minutes to watch the scene.

“It sure is a perfect cut. We can take it from there. Damon, the camera’s focus will be on you for some more time, I need to give out some more body expressions—which could be seen naturally you know,” Will said and everyone nodded, preparing to get the rest of the scene.

The next thing which happened was the Goblin crashed feet first into a large object below, which broke his fall. But in reality, there was nothing but a created object which was supposed to look like a large tent after the process of CGI.

***

Amanda was in a meeting room and was occupied with a bespectacled man who had a square-shaped face. Amanda stood in front of this man, and in his hands, there was a t-shirt with Spiderman’s face on it.

Ray Orchid was a chief designer of the Spiderman merchandise which was about to be on sale after Amanda approves them. Amanda made deals with the XYZ company; XYZ company was popular for the customised products they made based on the preference of the customers, and was extremely famous in and out of the country, considering their sales target was not just locally—but also internationally.

It has been several minutes since Ray came in, and he kept showing different types of designs in t-shirts one by one, which Amanda first kept nodding and checking out on the designs.

They had previously sent what sorts of designs they wanted—which were created by the department which drew the comics, and Amanda was first content with how the t-shirts looked, considering how good the portraits they wanted looked exactly the same.

On the table in between them, there were t-shirts—and a lot of them, from different patterns, designs, materials and even sizes.

Since [Ultimate Spiderman] was released and [Spiderman] movie was in its final bits of filming, Will and Amanda decided to place their foot in the market for merchandise.

In Will’s previous life, Marvel had basically earned billions of dollars just from the merchandise. When compared, most of the profits earned for the franchise [Spiderman] was from merchandise, according to the statistics.

In fact, that was the main reason why Sony and Disney agreed to include [Spiderman] in the MCU. It was reported that Sony took most of the profits from the box office cut, but Disney got the merchandise profits of [Spiderman] which raked in billions of dollars, because undoubtedly Spiderman was the most famous and popular superhero to exist in his previous world.

Will, who was completely aware of the whole statistic, was not willing to let the opportunity and the money go, even after knowing its advantage.

Another reason for choosing merchandise in [Spiderman] was how he had planned Dream Vision to move into other markets. Netflix, video games and merchandise was just the start. Other than Marvel, they also had [Sherlock Holmes], [Grand Theft Auto], [The Blair Witch Project] were already at the top of the projects that would have merchandise. Other than that, Will had plans to create more great franchises which could easily make great merchandise.

“Hand it over, the blue and the black ones, please,” Amanda asked while taking the t-shirt to her hand and checking while turning it over left and right. She took the other t-shirt and did the same.

“How are they, miss, the space to change or expand the number of designs could always be done. And, these are just samples, I’m sure once they are out on the internet, people would be thrilled to buy them, because why not—they are always interested in these types of stuff,” Ray said with a smile which looked fake and convincing; fakely convincing.

“To be honest, this is not what I expected and these t-shirts have very less quality than I thought,” Amanda said while keeping the t-shirt she took back on the table. The disappointment was clearly layered on her face.

The bespectacled man visibly paled. Ever since he got here, he had been nervous about the exact same thing coming out of Amanda’s mouth. It was mainly because of how big Dream Vision is, and if he ended up not being able to get the deal, it would be a great loss for their company.

“This quality is the most affordable one. The main goal was to use less money and create more profits. And ma’am, with the company going to be more popular, the demand for the products would be high.” Ray said how the demand would be high—again. His job was to somehow convince the client, and sign the deal off. But, his attempt was in the drain, considering the poor clothing material.

“I understood the reason as soon as I touched the material. But, Dream Vision aims for high quality before everything else,” Amanda said. “But actually, you know what? If we really liked the product, and the quality of it, XYZ company would be getting one of the biggest contracts they ever got. So…” Amanda said with a meaningful smile.

…

//DreamNote//

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