If Aiden was being truthful, he had almost forgotten about the Oscar ceremony this year. It had nothing to do with the relevancy of the award show and was more so because of how busy Aiden's schedule was.
It was so hectic that he was living in a circle, from the set to making songs from his album. Those were the only two things relevant in his life, and he was not even in contact with his friends and relatives.
Still, the Oscar nominations were one of the surprises that he had liked a lot.
For a while, Aiden had not been able to believe that he actually had been nominated. It was kinda funny because, in his early days in America, he would often dream about winning an Oscar for Best Actor. Although he was nowhere near that category for now, 'Best Original song' was still a very big deal.
After all, he was one of the youngest to be nominated.
A nomination was a nomination no matter in which category.
Interview calls flooded him, and Sasha and Lia kept gawking, seeing the social media response. Of course, a lot of other nominees in more famous categories got way more hype, but on Aiden's social media handles and some celebrity forums, it became a huge deal.
Even in Aiden's home country, India, the news spread in the film fraternity and a lot of media houses covered it, even deciding to go to America to get an interview with Aiden.
After all, it had been over a decade since someone from India had been nominated in any category at the Oscars, so it was bound to be a big deal.
At least on social media, a lot of people were hoping for Aiden to bag the award.
Still, the chances of it were pretty low.
One of the journalists from Pop Zap magazine who covered the Oscar nominations wrote in his article, "For the 'Best Original Song' category, nominations were pretty good, and it's entirely on merit. The surprising part was still Aiden Silvereye, who composed and sang the song 'Lost in the Sky' that's now on the brink of winning an Oscar, but the chances of it are pretty low. Aiden, while talented, is pretty new to the industry and other nominees have more experience with equally great songs. He might just lose out because of those reasons, but the young man should be very proud of what he has achieved."
A lot of other people agreed with the point the journalist made, but the results were only going to be out in April.
Till then, all this was just speculation.
Aiden was already happy with the sudden nomination, and his mood brightened up quite a lot due to that. For a whole day, he was just busy handling the calls that were congratulating him.
"Yeah, Uncle Sam. I did see the list. Thanks. Yes, yes, I have a suit. What? It's pretty expensive too. I don't need another one."
"Hello, mom, you heard it too? Yeah, I will be attending the ceremony. I do think it's going to be broadcasted in India too."
"Leo, thanks. Did you get the invitation to the Oscars? Nice, then, let's meet there. I'm going to be busy this month with my album release. Otherwise, I would have come to LA to meet you."
Like that, a lot more phone calls came.
Omar, Cameron, Linchol, Zavier Lamb, Jesse, Dustin, Ray Hardy, Katie and even Rachel — Everyone congratulated him on the nomination.
Even his cousins from India called to congratulate him on the nomination.
It was that big of a deal.
Though the Oscars ceremony still had a month, the excitement was already building up.
***
Aiden's fan group was also very excited when they got to know that he had gotten an Oscar nomination. It was something that the majority weren't expecting.
Though, it was not the case with all, as some people were hoping for a nomination due to the People's choice award won at TIFF.
Older members such as Skyneves, Moaning Frodo, Chad Putin, Hollywood Insider, Young Fruit smiley were the ones that were the happiest. They had followed Aiden's journey since the beginning when he was just a fledgling on X-Star.
Just in two years, his destiny has completely changed.
The saying that life could turn any day was indeed true, as it was almost unfathomable that someone would go from driving taxis to getting an Oscar nomination in two years.
It was really a rags-to-riches story.
[Pikachu is my gf: What is happening? Why are there so many notifications? It happened as soon as I got my hands on the leaked video of— Anyway, what is going on here?]
[Papa Gorilla: Aiden apparently got nominated for Oscars. At first, I thought it was a joke, but it's actually true. It's on their official site and, by the way, link, please?]
[Pikachu is my gf: Damn, that's big news and no links, you horny bastard.]
[Skyneves: Yeah, it's very big news. I can't believe something like this happened. I really hope he wins.]
[Nacho Nacho: I doubt he would. The other nominees in the same category are pretty great. It's actually his bad luck that last year, there were few good musicals, so a lot of good songs were used in movies.]
[Husky Elon: Just a nomination is good enough, really. Knowing the academy, you need to be over 30 to be considered for the awards. Those jury members have some fetish in which they think inexperienced people can't win Oscars. I know young people have won it, but those are very rare, and at the time of winning, they already have an illustrious career.]
[Uncle Ben's soul: A happy day for me. Been following him since 'Hold onto me', and really glad his talent has been acknowledged. It gave me a reason to watch the Oscars this year.]
[Chad Putin: Ah, I don't care if he doesn't win. I will get him an award myself if he ever comes to my country. On this auspicious day, I might as well have a drink with my buddy 'The man from North Korea'.]
[Brother Suk yu: Is it only me, or are there too many political leaders here? The next is probably that white guy from Canada.]
[Reporter Huff: From what I'm hearing, Aiden could actually win the award. In the category he's nominated, it's mostly on merit and 'Lost in the Sky' was also a huge commercial hit, topping charts.]
[Hollywood Insider: Win or not, this is a big moment in his career. Until now, he was a guy who's everywhere, but people are waiting for him to fade as most eventually do. His Oscar nomination again made people realise his talent, and the performance of his upcoming album would decide if he's here to stay or not. In this industry, one bad project and you start struggling. #HappyFan]
***
Although the Oscar nomination was a pretty great thing for Aiden, he didn't really get a lot of time to celebrate it, and from his point of view, there was no point celebrating it until he had actually won.
So, from the next day, he focused on his album.
After the songs were completed, they still needed to get a good theme for the album cover and a name for it. Many singers would just go with their artist name as the album name these days, but Aiden didn't want that.
He wanted to show the theme of the album more in the name.
In the end, after a meeting, they decided to name the album 'Stories'.
It was named such because of the stories that Aiden had based the songs on. Some of the stories were inspired by his life and some by others, but the main theme was just that, and it suited the whole narrative quite well.
For the photo on the cover, they just decided to go with a dusky colour pallet with Aiden standing on a cliff. It was an artistic decision, and Aiden didn't mind it too much.
It took a whole day at a studio that they had booked to get the album cover done, and after that, he got busy shooting the music videos.
Music videos were very necessary to any album as if they got famous, a lot of people would go check out the album or at least stream them on Melody and other apps like that.
They decided to shoot music videos for 'Firefly', 'Shiver' and 'Day'. These were the main songs in the album, with two of them featuring other artists.
As Grey had other works, they just decided to hire two actors to shoot the music video for 'Shiver', and for 'Firefly' and 'Day', Aiden himself was going to feature in it with Rachel accompanying him for the former.
Wade hired a professional crew that was very experienced in shooting music videos.
Truth be told, if Aiden hadn't gotten the money from [30 days of Happiness], it would have been a bit difficult to shoot high-quality music videos.
It would have been fine still, as he was earning quite well with his movies and endorsements. Just for [Disconnected], he had gotten 300k dollars which was his highest paycheck from a movie till now other than [30 days of Happiness].
But having the backup of millions in his account, he was able to go for the best production team to shoot his music videos.
...
⚠️ There will be a change in privilege pricing for the upcoming months!
