Chapter 403: Unaccustomed

Chapter 403: Chapter 403: Unaccustomed

On the second day of filming, the green screen set in the suburban forest officially began shooting the two-person scene.

The morning mist in the forest had not yet dispersed.

The crew had set up a semi-enclosed green screen barrier, and some extras stood around lazily, waiting for the leads to arrive.

In the corner of the site, two 1:2 scale half-body metal props of the Autobots were placed to help the actors align their eye levels.

The plot for this scene: Sam drives the used Camaro he bought to find Mikaela, only to get entangled in the Autobots’ conflict.

Before this, Mikaela was the school beauty, while Sam was the object of frequent bullying at school.

Seeing that Sam was pitiful, Mikaela would occasionally put in a good word for him, helping him avoid being oppressed by others.

Gradually, Sam fell in love with Mikaela, who was independent and kind despite being the school beauty.

The initial realistic, casual chat scenes went exceptionally well.

Chris’s youthful, relaxed vibe fit the geeky Sam perfectly—green, shy, and fidgety, he perfectly portrayed the awkwardness of an ordinary high schooler meeting a pretty girl for the first time.

Scarlett brought her own air of aloof wildness; raising her hand to brush her hair, her sideways stance—it was all natural, arrogant, and cool.

The real-life interaction was filmed in one take, and the camera crew’s positioning had zero errors.

But as soon as it switched to the scene requiring interaction with non-existent objects, the filming immediately hit a snag, and the number of NGs skyrocketed.

The first time the clapperboard clapped and filming began, the on-site ambient sound recording finished.

The prop team simultaneously shook the greenery to simulate the movement of the mecha brushing against the leaves, and the special effects team played low-frequency mechanical buzzing background noise.

The two were required to synchronize their gaze toward a void in the upper left, showing vigilance and panic in their eyes, and leaning slightly together in defense.

Chris’s emotions were on point, his eyes tense and guarded, but his gaze was off by half a meter, looking at the top of the greenery instead of the preset mecha eye position.

The focus was misplaced, leading to a break in continuity.

"Cut!" Irene, sitting in front of the monitor, raised her hand to call a stop.

Her tone was calm, without reprimand.

She pointed to the 1:2 mecha prop on set, "Chris, remember this height. The Autobot is hiding in the tree canopy, not at the treetop. Your gaze must be fixed on the highest point of the prop. Imagine a pair of cold, mechanical red eyes staring at you, not just looking at the wind blowing the leaves."

Chris nodded apologetically, adjusted his stance, repeatedly leveled his gaze to the prop’s height, memorized the focal point, and prepared for the next take.

The second take began.

The gaze height was correct, but it was Scarlett’s turn to make a mistake.

She was used to acting against real objects.

With nothing in front of her, it was hard to conjure up a sense of crisis from being watched by an alien entity.

Her expression was too flat and cold; it lacked the layers of panic and tension.

Her demeanor was detached, completely missing the atmosphere of an imminent enemy.

Another stop was called.

Scarlett frowned subconsciously, frustration in her eyes.

Her acting empathy was extremely strong, and she was at ease when facing real-life opponents.

But acting against thin air made it hard for her emotions to land.

This was a filming dilemma she had never encountered before.

The fifth and sixth takes followed, with NGs one after another.

Problems emerged endlessly: either their body movements were not synchronized—one retreating in defense while the other stayed put, splitting the atmosphere between the two; or Chris could not help but blink and lose focus, unable to imagine the alien mechanical monster, leading to a relaxed expression that broke character; or Scarlett over-empathized, her expression too fierce, playing it like she was facing an enemy rather than a girl’s sudden fear.

In a short two-minute scene without physical objects, eight consecutive NGs occurred.

The crew on set gradually held their breath and went quiet.

The floor manager did not dare walk around, the camera crew adjusted positions at any moment, and the atmosphere on set was slightly stagnant.

Half the morning had passed, and they still had not captured a qualified shot.

If it were a commercial director like Michael Bay, he would have long since lost patience, scolded the actors, accelerated the pace of filming, or even directly lowered the performance requirements and just filmed it half-heartedly.

But Irene knew the difficulties of new actors performing without real objects.

She did not urge them, did not blame them.

She called a halt to the filming, let the crew pause the clapperboard, walked to the two leads in the forest, and broke down the performance logic on the spot.

She stood at the camera position herself, replicated the wind in the forest and the low-frequency mechanical buzzing, and corrected their gaze angles hand-in-hand.

"The core of acting without objects is never to perform for the camera, but to trick yourself. Chris, set your mindset that you have been afraid of unknown monsters since you were a child. The mechanical vibration in your ears is causing bone conduction numbness, your back is instinctively tingling and stiff. You do not need to deliberately widen your eyes; a slight stiffness in your body is enough."

Turning her head, Irene patiently guided Scarlett, tailoring the performance method to fit Mikaela’s character.

"Mikaela is proficient in mechanics and can understand the frequency of abnormal mechanical noises. She is not afraid of the monster; she is anticipating danger, anticipating mechanical anomalies. Your emotion is not panic, it is alertness—predicting danger, protecting the companion beside you. Contain the outward emotions, sink your gaze, and that is it."

To lower the difficulty of the performance, Irene specially arranged for two tall floor managers to wear gray full-body tights, stand at the green screen void points, and temporarily act as virtual Autobot references, providing the two with real objects to look at and weakening the disjointed feeling of acting in thin air.

After a twenty-minute break, the ninth take began.

The mechanical buzzing sound effects on set played again, the breeze in the forest brushed the branches, and the floor manager in tights froze at the side of the canopy.

Afterward, the NG situation improved.

Chris’s eyes could lock onto the reference point, his fingertips curled slightly, and the boy’s panic felt real and natural.

Scarlett’s chin tightened slightly, she took a half-step sideways, subconsciously blocking in front of Sam.

The sense of defense and desire to protect were both present.

The two subconsciously leaned their shoulders together, their breathing rhythms synchronized, and the atmosphere of sharing adversity was natural and seamless.

The composition, emotion, and gaze in the monitor frame were all up to standard.

Irene did not interrupt and let the scene finish completely.

"Cut!"

As the word fell, the whole set breathed a sigh of relief.

Chris immediately let out a long breath, a thin layer of sweat already on his back.

He walked to the side to drink water and adjust his state, admitting his shortcomings.

"I finally understand where the difficulty of special effects blockbusters lies. Without an opponent to act with, it all relies on imagination. It is much harder than acting in teen movies. Several times I could not help but feel that acting against thin air was too ridiculous, and my emotions broke character."

Scarlett also rarely showed fatigue and spoke bluntly about her difficulties.

"Under the empty green screen, all the fear, tacit understanding, and heart-pounding moments have to be fabricated out of thin air. It is hard for me to grasp the proportions. Either I act too heavily, or the emotion is too light. It is very hard to control the scale."

Irene had long anticipated these problems and adjusted the subsequent filming plan, thoughtfully reducing the difficulty of the adjustment period.

For the next two weeks, all arrangements would be for two-person daily life connection scenes and low-difficulty, micro-amount non-object scenes, occasionally adding some special effects plots, allowing them to adapt gradually.

After work every day, Irene set aside an hour to take the two of them separately to practice fixed-point gaze, imaginary empathy, and non-object body reaction training, borrowing script segments to simulate mecha confrontations, alien invasions, and sudden crisis scenes, polishing their belief in special effects filming.

At the same time, the special effects team provided simple hand-drawn mecha images daily, allowing the two to mentally visualize the final product in advance and adapt to the performance scale beforehand.

Under slow adjustments, the progress of the two was visible to the naked eye.

Three days later, the forest fragment movement scene was passed in just two takes; a week later, during the small mechanical insect raid scene, the two could detach from the floor manager references and independently complete the gaze-dodging, hand-in-hand escape, and crouching to avoid danger—a full set of non-object coordination.

The number of NGs decreased significantly, adapting to the rhythm of green screen industrial filming.

In their spare time on set, Chris felt deeply and privately admitted: previously, failing the audition for Pirates of the Caribbean made him think it was because his appearance did not fit.

Now that it was his turn to shoot a special effects blockbuster, he understood that appearance is not the first choice for commercial films; it also requires acting skills that match industrial blockbusters.

Scarlett also completely believed in her choice.

Compared to Michael Bay’s rough rush of progress and letting the actors’ acting skills crash, Irene’s step-by-step, individualized teaching method was the best growth platform for actors.