….
It was mid-October 2016.
LIE Studios main office is already into the pre-production for [Train to Catch], Regal Seraphsail's next project.
Because Regal had locked the script and production parameters with his inner circle weeks before the release of [The Dark Knight], the departments weren't starting from scratch.
But the logistics of what they were preparing to execute on this scale had pushed three of his most experienced crew members into a state of disbelief.
Emma, the senior assistant director with experience of working in the 126-day shoot of [Iron Man], sat hunched over a steel drafting table.
Beside her stood Josh, the detail-obsessed prop and armor designer whom Regal had personally brought onto the set of [Iron Man] after noticing his panel work on the Mark III Hero suit.
And hovering over a heavy rack of forty woolen business suits was….
Seren Seraphsail.
The Head Costume Designer was currently holding a red grease pencil.
"Seren…" Emma called out, rubbing her temples–
"I have spent the last three days tracking the call-sheet latencies. We have exactly sixty practical stunt performers, breakdancers, and contortionists booked for the passenger cabin sequences. If we don't use digital crowd replication or green-screen window composites, my team has to stagger sixty practical prosthetic applications, forty-seven wardrobe changes, and coordinate stunt resets inside a vibrating, physical train car on Stage 3…
"The whole thing will be an operational nightmare."
Honestly, they thought since Seren was in the team, they might be successfully convinced to choose VFX over particle extras.
However, what had happened was the opposite.
Seren sighed in defeat. "We have no choice but to give him what he asks for Emma. Either it will be done by us, or by others. That's the only matter of concern to him."
"Of course, we will do it!!" Emma blurted out.
Even though she complained just a moment ago, there is no way she could let go of a chance working in the Regal Serephsail film.
Yes, his demands and expectations are hard to meet, but the reality is that every one of them has a purpose. And most importantly, working in his film is no less than having a superior hand in Hollywood.
Not to mention the awesome pay chunk.
"It's the same thing he did to me on the Mark III." Josh added, a wry, nostalgic smile breaking through his tired face. "When we were building the armor, the prep team thought we would just polish the metal plates and let the VFX team color-correct the scuff marks and heat discoloration in post-production. He made us prepare seven different versions of the same armor."
Josh set the silicone appliance down, looking at the heavy woolen jackets.
"But even with Iron Man, we had the safety net of CGI for the high-altitude flying sequences." Josh continued, turning to Emma. "For [Train to Catch], we're talking about a closed, physical steel box. I honestly thought that Regal would finally compromise and let us use digital plates for the train windows."
In the center of the fitting area, standing flat-backed on a low, carpeted wooden pedestal, was–
Keanu Reeves.
He was dressed in the primary costume for his character, Elliot:
–A standard, mid-range off-the-rack charcoal business suit, a stiff white cotton shirt, and a simple, dark tie.
He looked like any other corporate worker returning home from a long shift.
But beneath the charcoal wool, the rigid, low-profile webbing of a custom stunt harness was tightly strapped around his thighs and lower back.
Keanu let out a patient chuckle as he watched the three of them debate–
"The thing you are all forgetting is that… if you don't make it, Regal will do it himself. Which is going to be an even tougher watch. I mean, just imagine? You have worked, studied, dedicated your lives to build your craft, and then come Regal doing a better job than you guys?"
"Please stop…" Emma almost begged. "....we understand."
"Hheehe…" Josh gave an awkward smile.
Seren tried to cheer them on. "At least look at the bright side, our work is a little easy since we have already made quite the different types of suits for Kenau during John Wick filming."
"Oh, did I make your job easy by hiring Keanu as the lead?"
Regal Seraphsail walked in, catching their conversation.
Seren jabbed him with a counter. "Don't say as if you made that decision because you wanted to do a favour for us."
"Regal…" Emma said, her assistant director's clipboard coming up like a shield. "Did you review the VFX budget proposal I sent to your desk yesterday? Unique FX is ready to draft a preliminary crowd-simulation pipeline for the station platforms. It would cut our stunt-extra payroll by forty percent and save us twelve days of physical filming."
"I read it, Emma." Regal said smoothly, leaning his shoulder against the edge of a heavy cutting table. "And the answer is still no. There are no digital crowd simulations for the platforms, and there are no digital blood splatters in post-production."
Seren let out an exhausted, disbelieving huff. "Regal, be reasonable. This isn't The Dark Knight where we have a two-hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar budget. Our budget is eight point five million."
Yes, the budget of [Train To Catch] was locked under ten million dollars; which would have been possible in normal circumstances, especially with Keanu himself charging more than five million dollars for a film.
But Regal asked him to have a percentage share.
"Doens't make a difference, if you ask me."
Regal took a slow sip of his coffee, his sharp blue eyes locking onto Josh–
"Josh, when you worked on the Mark III, why did we spend three weeks weathering the armor plates instead of letting the digital team handle it?"
"Because the light…" Josh answered instinctively, his designer's mind catching Regal's direction. "The way practical light reflects off hand-scratched titanium is completely different from a digital texture map. A rendering engine can mimic the mathematics of reflection, but it can't mimic the microscopic irregularities of manual labor."
Regal nodded, a faint, proud smirk touching the corner of his lips. "And the same rule applies to wool and cotton. When the infected extras crash against the glass doors of the train cabins, their fingers have to smudge real sweat, greasepaint, and matte blood onto the physical set.
"If we use a green screen for the windows, the light reflecting off Keanu's face will be static. It won't have the green-and-grey ripple. But on Stage 3, we are surrounding the train set with a three-hundred-foot, curved LED wall playing real-time background footage at sixty frames per second. The physical light of tunnels, and the sky will literally wash over their skin. Every stitch, tear, and drop of sweat must be real to survive that level of exposure."
Seren sighed, her defensive posture softening slightly as she looked at her brother.
She knew that when Regal went into this 'visionary' zone, arguing against him was like trying to block a moving locomotive.
For her, he is a fool who genuinely believed that the audience deserved nothing less than absolute honesty on the screen.
"Alright." Seren said, picking up a heavy roll of double-faced stretch elastane from her table. "But if we are doing this practically, we need to completely re-engineer the construction of these suits. Josh, I need your help with the joints."
Josh walked over, his eyes narrowing as he examined the sleeve of Keanu's charcoal jacket. "What are we thinking?"
Seren explained, pointing at the tension lines on Keanu's trousers. "I want to cut out the standard cotton lining and replace it with a hidden, three-way elastic spandex gusset."
"We can do the same for the armholes of the jacket." Josh suggested, his fingers tracing the seam line. "If we split the shoulder seam and insert a hidden accordion-fold of flexible micro-weave under the sleeve cap, it will give Keanu an extra three inches of reach without pulling the body of the jacket out of place. It will look like a slim-fit Italian suit when his arms are at his side, but the second he raises his hands to block an attack, the fabric will expand naturally."
"Write that down, Emma." Seren ordered, her voice regaining its sharp, professional efficiency. "Double-stitched nylon thread for all structures. We are building forty-seven custom-gusseted suits for Keanu's character, plus thirty-five identical versions for the stunt doubles. That's eighty-two suits in total, and each one needs to be cataloged by its specific stage of decay."
Emma's fingers flew across her tablet, her pen scratching rapid entries into the production schedule. "I am adjusting the wardrobe stagger now. If we are tracking five distinct stages of decay… clean, first contact, tunnel scramble, barricade defense, and final platform… we need to align the wardrobe calls with our shooting order. Regal, are we shooting chronologically?"
"As much as the Stage 3 LED setups allow us, Emma." Regal said. "The first-act clean sequences must be wrapped entirely before we start spraying the methocel blood. Once the set gets stained, there's no going back. We can't afford the time or the money to scrub eighty tons of steel and plastic back to condition."
"And what about the blood formula?" Seren asked, looking at her twin. "If it's the standard theatrical syrup, it's going to ruin the spandex gussets soon after a few takes."
"It's not syrup, Seren." Regal smirked. "Standard corn-syrup blood is a disaster under our 3200K tungsten key lights. It goes sticky, it starts to sweat, and it dries with a high-gloss, plastic shine that looks incredibly fake on a 35mm lens.
"I have had the prop department mix a custom water-soluble methylcellulose base with organic red dye and a flatting agent. It has a high viscosity and matches the density of real human blood, but most importantly, it dries completely flat and matte, giving the wool a dry, crusty, dead appearance while still washing out with cold water so we can reuse the stunt suits for secondary takes."
Josh let out a low, admiring whistle. "A flat-matte blood formula. You really did do your homework, boss."
Regal walked over to Keanu, reaching up to adjust the hang of his tie.
"Let's do this one more time, man."
"Always, comrade." Keanu fist bumped him.
"Good." Regal smiled faintly, then turned to Emma. "Emma, have the stunt team ready for the first-unit rehearsals on Monday morning. I want the breakdancers and the contortionists to practice their body-contorting movements inside the corridor set before we even bring the cameras in.
"If they can't navigate the space blind in those eighty-percent opaque contact lenses, we're going to lose shoot days to injuries."
"On it." Emma nodded, her pen locking in the Monday morning schedule. "The schedule is set, with stunt rehearsals starting at eight and staggered makeup calls beginning at five."
Regal turned back to his sister, offering a sincere nod of appreciation. "Thanks, Seren. I know I am asking for an impossible amount of manual labor. But I promise you, it will all be worth it."
"It better, writer boy." Seren smirked, a warm, genuine look of sibling pride breaking through her. "Otherwise, I am going to make you wear one of these spandex-gusseted suits to the premiere."
Regal chuckled, taking a final sip of his coffee as he walked toward the door. "I will keep that in mind. Alright, Keanu. Stunt briefing with Jack in Stage 3 starts in five minutes. Let's see if those new trousers can handle a fifty-mile-per-hour slide."
"Lead the way, director." Keanu laughed, stepping off the wooden box and reaching for his wool jacket–
"Should we go catch this train?"
As the two men walked out of the double doors of the sub-level wardrobe workshop, their voices fading into the busy, echoing hum of Stage 4, Seren stood by her worktable for a long, silent moment.
She looked down at her continuity log, her fingers tracing the silver-embossed title [Train to Catch] on the cover.
Beside her, Josh was already sorting through his toolbox, selecting the shears and nylon threads needed to begin the re-engineering of the suits, while Emma was already dialing the stunt coordinator's office to finalize the safety padding.
'This is going to be hectic…'
She sighed, getting to work.
.
….
[To be continued…]
●──────●◎●──────●
A Small Announcement
Hey everyone!
If you've been enjoying [Hollywood: Lights, Ink, Entertainment!], I wanted to let you guys know about another story I've recently released under OrgoWriters.
🔥 [MHA: I Became Endeavor, Now I'll Fix Everything]
It's a completely different kind of story from Hollywood, but I'm really excited about how it's turning out. If you're a fan of MHA, or just want to give another one of my stories a try, I'd really appreciate you checking it out!
Thanks, as always, for reading and supporting my work! ❤️
— OrgoWriters
●──────●◎●──────●
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 chapter for free, available for Free Members as well.
For additional content please do support me and gain access to +18 more chapters.
--> [email protected]/OrgoWriters