My Hollywood System

Chapter 200:

The darkness had long shrouded the sky, and it was around 9.30 pm. It was time to shoot the scene which was quite the turnover in the movie itself, and Will had kept the specific moment for it.

Outside a library, on the side of a street, the lights, cameras and everything were set, only the shoot remained to begin.

There were a bunch of people gathered far away from the location, watching what was happening. Some were recording from the phones, and others were simply watching.

It had been nothing more than thirty minutes since they reached the location and prepared all the necessary details for the shoot.

And since it was the last scene, Will had selected the specific part due to how special the scene was for Peter Parker. In fact, the scene itself made Spiderman who he became.

The death of Uncle Ben, made Peter realise the depth of the words, ‘With great power comes great responsibilities’. The special advice which Ben had given to Peter earlier, pulled strings of the hearts of so many fans in Will’s previous world, considering how deep the quote was.

It was true that the majority of the population on Earth had heard the wise words at least once in their lifetime.

The saddest part of the scene was how Peter and Ben would meet after the little argument they had, and that too while Ben heaved the last breath of his life out of his mouth, which was the main reason that turned tables for Peter’s life.

Andrew and the actor who is playing the role of Uncle Ben stood in front of Will who had his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Okay, so this is the deal, I want this scene to be shot with a single take,” Will said. The confused look was written in Andrew’s face. “I feel like, if we keep making the scene with several attempts, it would lose its weight,”

Andrew was clearly surprised and confused, yet nodded at Will’s words. Since Andrew recently started to feel confidence in his acting, he was sure that he would be able to pull off the act in a single take.

“Leave it to him,” The actor who played Uncle Ben muttered.

Mike Martino was a 70-year old actor, who did not have much of a popularity in the field. But the reason he ended up playing Uncle Ben was how he gave solid performances in a lot of movies he did before.

Beside the three of them, Jeffrey stood with a camera in his hand, and was recording the scene for quite a while.

“Do you think it would be possible to get it in a single shot?” Jeffrey questioned.

“It’s hard, but I need to trust in the actors now. The scene is too emotional and impactful to try so many cuts and finalise one. It would be one of the major turning points in the movie itself, so we just have to trust,” Will said and walked back to the director’s seat.

He had explained the scene of how he wanted it to be, and Andrew mentioned that he would not need fake tears to complete the scene due to how he had grown with the character throughout the entire shooting process. After that, Will made sure to explain all the other background characters to get their roles right, and they practised two-three times before the cameras processed the shooting.

Nevertheless, the next few minutes made people who were far away from the shooting scene to wonder what would happen next.

“Quiet on set, everyone!….. Action!”

The clapperboard came in front of the camera, and showed the scene and Take number. It had [Spiderman] written on the top and thus, the final scene started.

He looked around for uncle Ben’s car. The sirens took off from the road, and rode towards the scene of crime. Peter, who had a frown looking at the vehicles, shifted his gaze to see the people crowded in front of his eyes. Police and Ambulance sirens were faintly audible in the background.

He walked towards the crow. And his steps kept on getting faster as uneasiness gripped his heart. The cameras swiftly took over at every step he took. People kept running towards the crime scene, and the police officers inside the circle kept chanting, ‘Stay away’ ‘Get back’ over and over. Male voices and female voices of police officers were clearly heard.

“What happened?” Someone asked in the distance.

“Someone got hurt,” Another person replied and the crowd around the body just kept increasing.

Peter elbowed his way through the back of the swelling crowd.

“Excuse me,” He muttered and walked.

Then· the middle. As a desperate conviction grew in his mind, he thrashed, breaking through the front of the crowd and looked down at the ground.

“Uncle Ben!” He shouted but a cop stopped him from going anywhere forward.

“Stay back, stay back. Hey, stay back,” A female cop kept pushing Peter to the back.

“Uncle Ben! That’s my uncle,” He managed to go to the front and kneeled before Ben.

“What happened?” He questioned as soon as he got ahold of his uncle. His eyes were teary and it showed that everyone else around them kept looking at who it was on the floor with confused expressions.

“Carjacker. He’s been shot.” The same female cop who asked him not to go near the body, said. But the camera was still focused on Peter. “But, we just called the paramedics, they are on the way,”

Peter’s eyes widened and focus was set on Ben, who had his eyes closed. Peter’s eyes were teary. “Ben?” He questioned.

“Now…” Will commanded and Uncle Ben slowly started to open his eyes. His eyes were filled with tears, and he looked up at the crowd and then saw Peter in front of his eyes.

“Uncle Ben…?” Peter questioned again.

“Pete,” Ben said, although it was not completely clear. Ben had tears streaming down in his eyes, and when the camera focused on Peter, he was tearing up too.

“Over here, uncle ben,” Peter said while teardrops fell down his cheek.

Peter then took a hold of his hand, and Ben muttered out, “Peter,” which sounded as if he was in heart-wrenching pain.

In the next moment, his head fell to the side, and Ben’s hand slowly dropped as it got heavier.

Peter’s expressions were clearly caught on camera, and it became emotional for everyone to watch. Andrew’s face reddened, and tears kept streaming down. Silent sobs were visible.

Another cop in the background said, “They got the shooter! He’s headed south on Fifth Avenue!”

In a milli-second, Peter’s face stoned and a frown appeared. He was angry and sad. Both the expressions were clearly visible. Peter stood up, and walked away from the scene where Uncle Ben’s dead body was shown in the camera after he left.

“CUT!” Will’s excitement was clearly laced in his voice as he shouted the word, cut. Everyone turned to see Will, who had a grin dancing around his lips.

“It’s a wrap y’all! Let’s all meet up at White Ruby Hotel to celebrate the ending of the filming. Thank you!”

Everyone clapped, cheered and shouted things that couldn’t decipher what they mean, yet the hype was all around because the shootings just ended.

***

“Yeah, a small office space would be fine. Monthly, yeah,”

June was on a call with John, who had been her assistant for a long time. She was talking about the idea of the new studio, and told him to rent a small office. John agreed to help her in the studio due to their sibling-type friendship.

Since they were just starting it out, a large space would be a waste of money, she knew.

“Okay, I’ll look and talk with real estate agents and go with the most profitable properties. I looked into a few more already, I emailed them to you, I’ll check more,” John said through the phone line.

“Are you sure that you are aware of what you’re getting yourself into? I mean, this is going to be a totally different path from what you have been doing, you know,” John asked again.

June nodded although the person on the line could not see it. “Well, if anyone knows how I started, it’s you, John. I started out in Hollywood pretty young and have seen a lot— in fact, too much for my own good. My opinion on it is, Hollywood doesn’t treat actors right until they prove themselves, and to make it more annoying, actresses have it the worst. I thought about this a lot before coming to the conclusion, and as I see it, it’s the best way to stand on my own feet,” June replied with the same answer she once gave him.

“You have repeated this to me ten times already, June. I really want to know if you can make it. As I said, the path to keep up with the other studios is not flowers and rainbows. I hope you thought about this more, because once you’re in, there’s no way out unless something happens that could ruin your reputation forever as a persona happens, and trust me, no one wants that,” John explained the depth of details which June was getting herself into.

“Yeah, well. The first movie I’ve in mind is pretty experimental. 200k dollars is a really low budget and if things go right, we can move ahead. I earned more than that just from Terminator, so it won’t be that much of a big deal even if the movie failed, which I hope not,” June said and chuckled.

“Yeah, I get it. Hope things turn out fine for you, I’ll contact you once I find a good deal, you can check out the stuff I sent meanwhile,” John said and June muttered a thanks before hanging up.

…

//DreamNote//

Resuming daily updates. The surgery went well ????

Thank you for your luck! I have almost recovered. Let’s get back to daily chapters ????