Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

[You have improved your comic timing]

[You have gained a lot of experience.]

[Your understanding of the character has increased. Your affinity with the character has increased.]

[You are close to breaking into Intermediate Grade 2.]

Aiden let out a smile seeing those notifications in front of him.

As the shooting was going on, it had become a habit for him to check every system notification at the end of the day.

It was like opening a box of rewards after a hard day's work.

He felt it was very similar to how people would check their phone notifications the first thing in the morning after waking up.

But sadly for him, his work was far from over now.

'I am still stuck at the middle part of the song.'

He thought, pulling up a chair and sitting down on it while staring at the DAW (Digital audio workstation) in front of him. Next to him, there was a keyboard attached to it.

Every day after the shooting, he was trying hard to finish up 'Lost in the sky', and although he could complete most of the first part of the song, he was stuck after that.

The worst thing was that time was running out for him.

One of the last scenes of [30 days of Happiness] was Arthur singing 'Lost in the sky' in front of a small audience. Leo had told him that he wanted to shoot it in the end, and it was best if Aiden could sing it live on the set for a very realistic experience.

For some reason, Leo didn't want to add a recorded version of the song in the movie during post-production and wanted to keep it genuine and live.

Aiden was fine with the request, but the problem was clear. He wasn't sure if he would be able to finish the song in time.

"Ah, it's getting frustrating."

He muttered and played the part that he had already recorded. The simple sound of a guitar came out but the tone wasn't bright at all. It was like a melancholic sadness was attached to it.

The sound of the piano layered on top of it was just like a whisper, making people doubt if it was even there.

At that moment, Aiden's voice came out, his tone very soft with gentility and fragility written all over it.

???

"Please tell me if this is an illusion."

"Why am I still finding the reason?"

"Oh, am I just searching for something that isn't there?"

"Reaching my hand out to nowhere."

???

Aiden wrote the first verse purely thinking of Arthur's mentality at the start of the movie.

He was someone who always wondered if everything he thought was a lie he had told to himself and there was no reason for him to live life.

His dream was to be a musician but he would often feel like someone who is trying in vain, reaching his hand out to touch nothing because he never had the talent to succeed.

These were very common doubts in everyone's mind and the first verse was just to portray that.

???

"Is it worth it to take the arrow?"

"Can I still believe in a better tomorrow?"

"I'm trapped in between the darkness of your sorrow."

???

Aiden's voice became more restrained instead of opening up in the next verse as the piano in the background became louder.

When he was thinking of 'Lost in the sky', he was never trying to make a song with the passion of love that could be sung in front of a whole crowd. He wanted it to be like the song that one would only sing in front of their special someone.

It didn't have anything fancy, and instead, Aiden had focused a lot on the words, trying to create a deeper meaning behind each and every sentence.

Singing it, he felt like he was just speaking out about Arthur's character with the use of the song, as all these lyrics were just his thoughts.

But the melody coming out of the speakers soon stopped as it ended.

'I need to think beyond this.'

Aiden had a few ideas as to how to make the chorus part and then the end parts of the song, but no matter how much he tried to think, it wasn't working out.

Frowning, he rubbed his forehead before picking up his pen.

For the next two hours, he tried to write several lyrics to continue the song but wasn't able to come up with something concrete. Everytime he would think that he got it, the next thought would be that it wasn't good enough.

Aiden wanted 'Lost in the sky' to be the saddest song that he had written till now but only the first part was going to be full of questions.

It was because as the movie would go, Arthur would change bit by bit and his perspective about life and love would become brighter, becoming the inspiration for him to finish the song.

So, the second part of the song was like that.

Even though Aiden had nailed down the sad parts, he struggled in the other part.

'Is it because I still didn't have a good enough character affinity with Arthur?'

Aiden suddenly thought, opening up the Character list in front of him.

[Character list:

*Arthur Reeves

-70 percent affinity.

-You understand the role very well and your charisma truly shines in some scenes but you are still lacking a bit.

-You need to make a little more push to completely get into the skin of your character according to your level.

-Affinity could be improved for the role.]

Reading that, he wondered if he would be able to complete the song if his character affinity increased. He had experienced that increased character affinity had made him think like the character.

In the past, when he had played Kai, his affinity with him had reached the utmost he could do at his level and on those days, he would feel like he was slowly not being himself.

Even his mannerisms were changing a bit.

Thankfully, he knew how to get out of the mentality of the character. It was even easier because of his system.

Back then, it was dangerous as Kai was a killer, but with Arthur, he felt like increasing affinity would really help him with the song.

"I guess in the end, it's all on my acting."

Muttering that, he leaned against his seat and took a deep sigh.

***

The days of rigourous shooting continued as May turned to June. Now, the crew was on the final parts of the shoots.

The last 25 minutes of the movie.

Today, they were shooting a scene in which Claire and Arthur will get in a fight as even after roaming all over Europe, they won't be able to find Charles Dunkin.

The fight would mainly be because Claire would accuse Arthur of only coming to the trip to try to win her over.

It was a pretty dramatic scene but it would happen in a restaurant, and the next shot was one where Claire would splatter Arthur with wine.

"How many takes do you think it would take to get the scene right?"

An old man wearing a blue cap asked Leo, who was standing next to him. The old man was the cinematographer that was working on the project. He was a major part of the independent crew Omar had hired.

"I'm hoping for one take. But scenes like these are pretty tiring to shoot as the expressions really need to be on point. We would be lucky if we can get the right reactions till the fifth take."

Leo replied, scratching his beard that was slowly growing over the course of the filming.

"That kid's going to get drenched in wine." The old man laughed. "Does he like wine?"

"I don't know. Never saw him drink that."

"Then, he surely won't enjoy the scene."

Leo shook his head lightly, hearing that he hoped that the scene would go right.

Some distance away, both Katie and Aiden were sitting and discussing the scene. Through the course of the filming, Aiden realised how good of an actress Katie was and how much she knew about movies.

So, they would often go through the scenes together.

"I'm sorry from the start if the wine goes in your eyes."

Katie said, her words seemed like she was sorry but there was a smile on her face as if she couldn't wait to get on with the scene.

"Just try to aim at my mouth. Your aim is pretty good anyway."

Aiden replied, thinking back to the egg scene.

"I will be careful." Katie smiled and then, suddenly, glanced around the set before looking back at Aiden. Her face was like she was thinking of something. "We only have ten days of shooting left. What are you going to do after the shooting?"

"I'm still going to be there in the post-production as I'm doing the soundtrack. Need to record the songs and go through with the editor and Leo about fitting it in the movie."

"Sounds tough. What after that?"

Aiden thought for a while about this question. He didn't really have anything to do as the movie would be submitted to film festivals, and until then, he didn't have anything more to do.

Maybe he would test out his writing skill?

"I don't really know. My schedule will be pretty free, I guess. Anyway, I am not thinking about it currently. I want to just focus on the shooting for now."

...