After seeing the first scene of Andrew, Jesse agreed to let Aiden perform his version of the character rather than just sticking to the script. In his mind, it was just making Andrew a much better character on the camera.
Aiden's version had a certain charm that was hard to reject for Jesse.
Only Aiden knew that it was because his charm had increased a lot after his last project, which was the sitcom. It was really helping him in making a timid character stick out.
One's eyes can't help but fall on him.
As the days went by, the shooting progressed too. [Disconnected] was a movie with a lot of things going on at the same time.
There were intricate plots of Mark wanting to join a major club at Harvard to get to know rich and equally talented people. Because of that, he would even break up with his girlfriend and then try to make a website to find a new girlfriend online called SnapGirl.
On the website, he would upload pics of girls from blogs and community websites, and users could join in to find a girlfriend for themselves.
Andrew would then get to know about it and then would tell him that it's a good idea, but rather than a dating site, they should go for something bigger. Something that could make communication easier for people.
It was then that they would get the idea of Snapbook.
All of it was shot one by one, and the actors present on the set gave their best in each of the scenes. Jesse was a director that knew how to get the best out of his actors.
Moreover, it seemed like he had already visualised the whole story on his own and was able to explain every scene in detail.
But currently, Jesse was pretty angry, looking at his screen.
"Seth, I told you that your emotions aren't coming in. It needs to be a gripping scene, and you need to portray a wide variety of emotions well. You are not able to do it no matter how many times we do it."
On his computer screen, a scene was playing. Both Dustin and Seth were talking in a restaurant. It was the scene in which Dustin's character Sebastian Walker would go on a monologue about how his investment ventures had gone and would impress Mark before telling him to partner with him to get a billion-dollar valuation for his company.
Hearing that, Mark would have all sorts of conflicts and excitement, but Seth wasn't able to perform it well.
He was already on the 13th take.
"I'm sorry. I will try to do it again." Seth said, frowning.
"I don't think you are even trying. You have a poker face going on for you, and it's not helping out a scene like this. Dustin is giving way better performance than you."
Jesse looked at Dustin, who chose just to stay silent.
"Let's take a break and come back to it. If we can't do it, let's shoot the scene sometime later."
He said, and everyone dispersed. Seth was constantly frowning and walked to sit back alone. There was anger and frustration on his face, and his agent and assistants were trying to calm him down and motivate him.
"It's a pretty hard scene. No wonder he's having a lot of trouble."
Tom, Aiden's assistant, muttered from beside him, and Aiden shook his head.
"No, Seth's having trouble only because he's thinking of the character of Mark in a wrong way. His analysis of the character is a bit flawed."
"What do you mean?" Tom raised an eyebrow.
"The scene is hard, but the monologue of Sebastian is a harder part, especially because it truly sets his character up as someone who's playing around in silicon valley and is arrogant to the core. Mark has a few lines, and it's more reaction, but in a way, that's more important."
Aiden chuckled. The first thing that he learned in acting was that acting is more about reacting. You need to wear the character as clothes and react the same as they would.
But Seth was going wrong in that.
"Seth is reacting like he would and not totally like Mark. Mark, as a character, is someone who does have doubts and second thoughts. There would be hesitation and conflict in his eyes because of that, but Seth shows more excitement and greed. Those emotions overshadow all the others."
When Aiden explained that, Tom's eyes widened, and after thinking about his words, he nodded his head. His words sounded professional, like he had a lot of understanding of the character.
"Do you think he would be able to give a good shot?"
"That's on him. He needs to truly become Mark and not just keep being Seth in certain scenes. He's a good actor, but he lacks character analysis. He would come through slowly."
***
Like Aiden had said, Seth did give a right take, but it was only after 19 takes. Jesse was already tired by that time alongside the other crew members, so they called the day off.
The next day, all of them were shooting around the college dormitories for the initial parts of the movies.
Starting from the scenes in which Mark Knight would build up his dating website to the scene of just him talking with his roommate.
These were very important parts of the movie, and thankfully, they got over them pretty fast.
"Are you nervous?" Dustin asked, retracting his eyes from the script and looking at Aiden.
"Why?" He asked, raising one eyebrow.
"This is literally the most important scene of the movie. The scene in which the idea of Snapbook would come out."
Dustin made a gesture with his hands, like saying, 'This is the scene!'.
"I know that, but I don't want to get too pressurised by thinking I need to really nail it down."
Aiden replied, and Dustin laughed.
"Just don't be like Seth, and it will be fine. Heard he got in trouble with hotel staff yesterday after the shooting because he was too frustrated."
Dustin glanced at Seth, who was chatting with a pretty female assistant director.
"Well, Seth's in the scene, so who knows. How did you even do 19 takes with so many lines?"
"I messed up a few times, but Jesse's attention was too much on Seth. He wasn't even focusing on me."
Both of them laughed and joked for a while, talking about Seth. They didn't notice a certain gaze on them from time to time.
***
[DisconnectedFeb 11-2017Act 3Scene 2Take 1]
The sound of footsteps came out as the door to the room opened, and Andrew walked in, draped in a black leather jacket and looked at Mark, who was typing a code on his laptop.
"Mark, how much did we get? I am hearing a lot of things about it."
"22k people are already on it from various campuses. They are rating each other on the app and writing about it on their blogs. I feel like I'm being a love guru of sorts."
Mark said, turning around. His website has truly taken off, and everyone on campus is now using his website to find their next dating partner.
"That's pretty nice," Andrew commented.
"Yeah, I am thinking about adding options like one-night stands, so people know what they are looking for and ratings for looks…"
Mark continued to talk about his ideas, and Andrew knew he had no habit of stopping once he stopped. At that moment, his attention got focused on the computer screen, and an idea started forming in his mind.
"I really want to connect all the people on the campus with this…"
"What? What did you say?"
Andrew suddenly widened his eyes.
"Which part?"
"The connect part," Andrew said and lowered his head, thinking of something. "You know what, I think I have an idea to really elevate it to the next level."
"What idea?"
Mark tilted his head, and Andrew looked for a piece of paper to explain his idea better.
"What are you doing?"
"Let me explain."
Excitement could clearly be seen in his voice, and his shoulders were moving up and down like shockwaves were going through his body.
He was sure of one thing.
This idea was going to be something that could be revolutionary.
Holding a pencil, he made a dot and looked at him. "Think of it as a person. Now…"
Andrew made several more dots with the pencil and connected them to each other. Then he looked at Mark.
"We need to connect everyone."
"That's what I'm doing by this—"
"No, the branding is wrong, and this could be much more than a dating app where people rate their looks and decide to meet. It's good because guys are having fun, and it's convenient, but we need a way better app, not for dating. Just to connect everyone."
Mark just kept staring at him as Andrew talked about his grand plan in excitement. There was an expression of confusion on his face as he slowly understood what Andrew was going for.
"Think of an app that has everyone in the world on it. They are meeting each other without meeting in reality. How convenient that would be."
"Will something like that even work?"
"Yes, Mark, it could work. Remember, you are a genius."
Andrew said, holding down Mark's shoulders, and as the scene was going on, suddenly a loud voice came out.
"Cut!"
Immersion broke in a second as Aiden stood confused.
'Did I do something wrong? I thought the flow was good.'
Aiden thought and looked at Jesse, but he wasn't looking at him but at Seth Douglas.
...
