After Omar came aboard to invest in the project, things were finally moving in the right direction for both Aiden and [30 days of Happiness].
The contract between Leo and Omar was soon signed, and it was also when Aiden found out that Omar's private investment firm was called 'Green Finance'.
After they had signed the contract and Omar was officially the producer for [30 days of Happiness], they had a lot of meetings.
Upon thinking a lot and cutting down on some budget here and there, they decided that five million dollars were more than enough to make the movie.
Omar wanted to limit the budget for the movie-making because he felt they should keep a more considerable portion for the marketing of the movie as he felt like the movie could be a massive success if promoted the right way. Although, the main worry was Aiden not being a well-known actor yet.
During all this, Aiden also signed up as the movie's lead.
Usually, he would have gotten around 200-300k dollars for the movie as his value in the industry has increased after [Black Saints], and this pay scale was very average for the lead of an independent movie.
Actually, it should have been more overall, as Aiden was also doing the soundtrack.
But after a discussion with Wade, he didn't decide to take money upfront. Instead, he opted to take a share in the profits once the movie hits the big screen.
This way, the movie could have a better budget and Aiden would also earn more if it did well at the box office. Again, though, he knew that it was a significant risk.
Only A-listers would opt for the profit-sharing model instead of directly taking away the payment upfront because they are confident that with their stardom, the movie was bound to do well.
One actor had even gotten more than a hundred million dollars due to him opting to go with the profit-sharing model, instantly making him one of the wealthiest actors in Hollywood. Still, at the same time, a lot of actors had taken a loss due to this model.
In the end, he took the risk because of his gut feeling.
Omar and Leo didn't mind doing that, as it meant that Aiden would only earn if the movie would earn. After a few negotiations, they concluded that Aiden would get 9 percent of the profits.
Although 9% sounds low, it was actually a high range. Even A-List actors would get at most 15% in the profit share. In fact, Leo had offered just 7% at the start of the negotiation, but Aiden had a big bargaining chip in his hand since he was doing the movie's score too. So, in the end, both parties agreed on 9%.
After this was done, the pre-production for the movie quickly started with Green Finance and Leo hiring a freelance crew, picking out the filming locations and having discussions on the movie's cast.
Aiden was not involved a lot with the pre-production of the movie as he started practising for the role of Arthur and analysing it further.
At the same time, he started making the soundtrack of the movie.
Normally, a soundtrack is mainly made after the filming is concluded. It is done to make an appropriate soundtrack that would suit the movie, and the editor revises the soundtrack in post-production.
But it depended a lot on the film composer and the director as to how they wanted to go with it.
In many movies, a composer had minimal on what he could incorporate in the movie as a soundtrack was one of the major parts of a movie.
A famous film composer once said, "Music on the screen can seek out and intensify the characters' inner thoughts. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, happiness or misery. It can propel the narrative swiftly forward or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry, and in the end, it connects the audience with the characters on the screen. Good music often stays with the audience even if the movie doesn't."
Aiden also felt the same about film composing, and that's why, after talking about it with Leo, he started working on the soundtrack.
He felt like he already had a good amount of understanding of the characters and themes of the movie, so he would be able to make a good soundtrack for [30 days of Happiness].
"Um, I need to really nail down the soul of the movie. Without it, it's basically nothing…"
Aiden muttered and glanced between the guitar he was holding in his hand and the sheets of paper on the desk.
He has already created a bit of an idea as to how he was going with the soundtrack of [30 days of Happiness], and for him, the soul of the soundtrack needed to be the song that Arthur was in the middle of writing before taking the journey to Europe with Claire.
In the modified script, Arthur was slowly going to complete the song after coming across a lot of people and hearing their experiences.
It helped him give the final touches to the song, and for Aiden, the whole song would be the soul he was looking for.
For the last two hours, Aiden was just sitting at one place and trying out different tunes and thinking more about what kind of song would suit Arthur.
To make the song, Aiden knew that he needed to completely get into the character of Arthur. After all, the song is what Arthur has written and completed through his journey. Aiden was just playing him.
'I needed to let go of my style of music…'
He thought, a bit restless as to how he was going to do it. His style of music was very soft, peaceful and anything that might give a smile to a person listening to it.
But the character of Arthur was different.
He never wrote music for someone else but himself.
He was a teenager obsessed with telling stories through his music, and more often than not, Aiden felt like he was the type to integrate a lot of his personality or experiences into his songs.
A budding musician was exactly like that.
It was always hard for an artist to separate his thoughts, opinions and characteristics from the piece of art that he was creating.
To do that, Aiden felt like he needed to go back to the days when he was just starting to write songs.
"Knowing Arthur, he's more likely to ask questions through his Music than anything else. He's confused about life, so the song needs to be sad, but as the movie goes, it needs to become brighter and brighter."
Muttering that, Aiden strummed the strings of his guitar as a weak white light burst forth. His mind was filled with many ideas, but choosing the right one would be a hard job.
Just then, a system notification came up in front of him.
[Your understanding of the character has increased. Your affinity towards him has increased.]
Smiling at the system notification, he knew he was going on the right path.
'A song with a sad theme, something that is asking questions…'
He thought that repeatedly in his mind and went through a few ideas. Finally, in the end, something struck him.
He put away his guitar, picked up a pencil and wrote down some words on paper.
'Lost in the sky.'
He decided that this was going to be the soul of the movie.
***
Over the next few days, Aiden mainly focused on composing 'Lost in the sky'.
From morning to evening, he would work on it, adding different things to the song, trying to write down several lines of lyrics only to change it to something else in the end.
The process was very complex, but Aiden was surely enjoying it as he felt like he was creating something that was probably the most complex piece of writing he had done.
When he was making 'Revolution', rather than the lyrics, it was the music that had troubled him, but this time, the song was all about words, containing a story of their own in each line, and the music was just easy access for the words to affect a person.
Aside from making the song, Aiden would read the script and act out a few scenes at night. Sometimes Wade would help him by reading out the lines of other characters, mostly Claire, as most of his conversations as Arthur were with the female lead, Claire, in the movie.
But Aiden had to say that it was tough for him to imagine a bearded bear-like guy as a girl, and he would often chuckle when Wade read out her lines.
Aside from that, one more thing to mention was that the script score had elevated to 74 after the modifications.
The score was the same as [Black Saints], so he was confident it would do well.
The casting for [30 days of Happiness] was also concluded in the meantime. Aiden didn't know much about the other actors cast in the movie as he hadn't taken part in the auditions or heard a lot about it.
Most of the phone conversation between him and Leo was about the soundtrack.
Once the casting was completed, Leo and Omar decided on a meeting between the cast members to get to know each other.
The script reading sessions were also going to begin in a few days, so it was good to know each other a little before that.
They hosted the meeting in a cafe in Greenwich Village, New York.
'I hope I'm not the only one late.'
Aiden thought as he entered the cafe. Wade was not with him as he was busy with some personal matters and he had come alone to the cafe, but due to the traffic, he had gotten late.
He looked around the cafe and found most of the seats vacant. After a while, his eyes finally gazed over a table where both Omar and Leo were sitting.
There were other people there, too, and as Aiden walked over, they noticed him.
"Aiden, you are finally here!" Leo, who saw him first, waved his hand and called him out.
"I'm sorry I'm a bit late. The traffic—"
As Aiden was speaking, his words suddenly stopped like he had seen something too shocking. His eyes darted over to look at the person sitting next to him.
A familiar face that he had seen a lot before was sitting there. He had not seen her in almost two years, so he was very surprised.
It seemed like the girl reacted similarly to seeing Aiden as she repeatedly blinked her eyes.
'Katie Brooks. Why is she here?'
He thought in his mind, thinking of the time when he had first landed in New York and had gone to an audition.
There, he met Katie for the first time.
...
