I’m in Hollywood

Chapter 134 – Rival show 

 

 

“Hi, Tom,” Eric warmly welcomed Hanks when he appeared in the studio, compared to Cruise who was always acting polite attitude when interacting with the crew, Eric preferred the mild tempered Hanks.

“Hi, Eric, I'm not late, am I?” Hanks asked as he gave Eric a hug.

“Of course not,” Eric said as he gave a nod to Hanks's assistant, and turned back to hanks and said: “It will probably take us fifteen minutes to set up the scene.
giving us enough time for you to do your makeup.”

The two men talked as they walked up to the dressing room, but they stopped from time to time for hanks to greet the crew members.

Looking around, Hanks curiously whispered to Eric: “Where is Cruise?”

“Maybe he went to put on his make up,” replied back in a hushed voice.

In their previous meetings, Tom Hanks also didn't have a good impression of Cruise, he found him too arrogant, Cruise was polite, but at the same time, he was giving him the feeling that he was just doing it to be nice.

Hanks didn't take too long to finish his makeup, he was able to come out before the crew finished setting the new scene.

After the scene layout of the pub was arranged, the photographer Nicole went to Eric who was talking to Hanks and Cruise and told him: “Eric, you'd better come and take a look.”

Eric apologized to the two star and followed Nicole to the corner of the pub, where the camera was placed.

“Eric, you see here, I'll have to do a quick sweep with the camera, but I can only stand in this position to operate the camera,” Nicole awkwardly demonstrated what he meant to Eric: “You see, it is difficult to operate the camera in this position.”

Although Eric wasn't as professional as Nicole, he still have some shooting skills, so he stepped forward and tried operating the camera himself, finding that it was very awkward to control, Eric reached the conclusion that the best place to put the camera for the optimal operation was in the place occupied by the wall.

“Nicole, what do you mean?” Eric asked as he let go of the camera.

“I can only try a few times, this is the best shooting angle I could find if it doesn't work,” Nicole pointed to the wall behind: “Then we will have to take down this wall.”

“Let's try it a few times first,” Eric said, he wouldn't mind demolishing the wall.
After all, this is a studio, not a real location, and Columbia will certainly cooperate, but they will have to waste at least another hour.

“Okay,” Nickel nodded.
“let's get started.”

This scene in the restaurant has three acts, the first act is where they eat breakfast separately like strangers, of course, according to the story, this is the time Andy has begun paying attention to Sean, who was completely unaware of him.
The second act is where the two pass each other, where Andy will write the number 13 on a paper and leave it to Sean.
The third act is the longest scene, where he takes more than a minute trying to persuade Sean, to let the police cooperate with him to arrest the villain, instead of him taking revenge for the death of his father.

“Running Out of Time, Act 12, Action!”

Sean stared at the newspaper while eating a cake, hearing someone open the restaurant door, Sean looked up naturally, and quickly turned his eyes back to the newspaper.

“Good!” Eric give Hanks a thumbs up, next is the part where Cruise eat something while staring at the TV with a slightly dazed look, this shot too wasn't difficult for Cruise, so Eric fairly gave him a thumbs up too.

In the original scene, the TV was showing a few shots from a cartoon show, which was a show he loved when he was a kid, but because he only had four weeks to live, every time he saw the familiar pictures, he will get sad and have a dreary feeling.

In this shot, Eric didn't intend to find a random cartoon show to show on the Tv, instead, he intends to use a few shots from 《Friends》.

Although 《Friends》 didn't exist yet, but Eric is planning to start shooting 《Friends》 after 《The Others》 and 《Scent of a Woman》 are on track, probably in April, so long as he can identify 《Friends》 six leading characters, he has plenty of time to shoot some footage for the movie.

In the publicity of the new film, Fireflies will release the news to the media that shots from Eric Williams new TV show will appear in 《Running Out of Time》, this will be a good publicity gimmick that will help promote the film and the TV show, which will create a win-win situation.

After the completion of the two shots, the most difficult shot began.

Laying his clapperboard to the side, Eric stared at the monitor, Nicole who was operating the camera first took a slow shot of Hanks' face, then rapidly swung the camera to Cruise side, Eric who was concentrating on the monitor clearly felt the dull and uneven lens conversion.

Although Nicole was able to accurately make the camera concentrate on Cruise face, but Eric who wasn't satisfied quickly shout out cut.

After that, Nicole made another six consecutive attempts, but the results still ended up in failure.
Eric know the reason the reason why he failed, so he patiently let Nicole try again and again.

But after the eleventh attempt failed, Cruise finally got impatient, he has eaten a lot of cream cakes continuously, he felt that the shot was simple, so he didn't understand why he failed so many times,

while the staff was transferring the camera back to its place, Cruise stood up, scornfully glanced at Nicole who was sweating profusely and said to Eric: “Eric, maybe I can introduce a better photographer to you.”

Cruise didn't lower his voice, he said it out loud in front of everyone as if trying to directly embarrass Nicole.

Because of awkward posture, and the Continuous operation of the camera for more than 10 times, Nicole began to have some pain in his waist, he didn't expect that after all his effort he will get such evaluation.
He wanted to glare at Cruise, but he was afraid by doing so he will make things hard for Eric, so he could only helplessly stand there.

A lot of people in the crew were dissatisfied with Cruise's rude remark, They have cooperated with Nicole for many years, and they know how good he is at his work.

Although he just experienced a dozen consecutive failures, more or less they understood how hard it was to operate the camera in that posture, so they patiently waited as Nicole tried again and again.

In the face of everyone's gaze, Eric knew that he has to handle this situation with caution and care.
Otherwise, this situation will cause a rift between the crew and the actors, it was necessary to appease and soothe Cruise's feelings, while at the same time not let the staff members get dissatisfied with him.

After thinking about it for a moment, Eric got up and walked to the camera as he patiently explained to Cruise why this shot was so hard.

As Cruise listened to Eric's explanation, he also realized he has wronged Nicole, shrugging he showed the photographer a faint smile and said: “I'm sorry, let's continue.” Then he sat back in his seat.

Patting his shoulder, Eric whispered to Nicole: “Try for another two or three times, if you aren't able to do it by then, then let's tear down the wall.”

Nicole knew that Eric could have explained the reasons to Cruise in private, and not in front of everyone, after all, Cruise is a big superstar, so seeing Eric being protective of himself, he felt grateful to Eric, he didn't even mind Cruise insincere apology.

Nodding his head, Nicole replied: “I'll do my best.”

Although this little incident was quickly resolved, it was destined to leave some traces in the hearts of many people.
At first, the crew members were looking forward to working with Tom Cruise, but after this incident, most of them were no longer enthusiastic about working with him.

Perhaps because of luck or some other reason, in the next second attempt, Nicole was finally able to succeed, when Eric shouted 'Good,' a lot of people couldn't help but applaud.

Feeling relieved Nicole started massaging his sore left arm.

—— ——

(TN Note: I really didn't know how to translate the next part, so I downloaded film and the subtitles of the film and searched for this part, to make sense of what is happening.)

Next, the second scene was quickly passed, and finally, the first interaction between the two protagonists was going to start for the first time.

“You're early, inspector.” a young waitress warmly greeted Sean when she saw him enter through the restaurant door.

“Yes, I've got a date.” answered Sean, as he came up to the bar.

Andy who was stuffing his mouth with pastry, proudly smiled when he heard what Sean words, because these days the former all-powerful police elite officer was running all over the city chasing his shadow.
 

Andy took a sip from a glass of water and said: “Sit down.”

Sean slowly sat down in the chair opposite Andy and took a photo from the pocket of his suit put it on the table and said: “You're made some accurate predictions, Mr.
Lo.”
 

“Have you checked that out?” Andy asked.

“You've stolen the diamond and, you've avenged your dad.
So, why do you want to see me?”

“l told you before, this game lasts for three days.
Did you forget?”

Sean patted the badge in his pocket and said: “Not today, you're not in charge anymore, Remember, I'm the police.”

…
…

After a long dialog between the two protagonists, Eric shouted stop.

“Well, Cruise, your smile should be more sarcastic,” Eric first went to Cruise, and gave him his opinions, and demonstrated to him what he wanted to see from Cruise?

Then he turned to Tom Hanks: “Hanks, when you hear Andy's ridiculing you, you should show that you are embarrassed.
But you also have your own pride, so you need to add some body language, Such as nodding, to cover up your embarrassment.”

“Ok, Eric, I'll make sure to pay attention,” Hanks nodded.