Chapter 177: 177
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February 5, 2013 – 8 AM – Half Basin Studios
Tayaw is currently sitting on his 'director's chair' inside his busy virtual set, talking to someone in his phone.
"Yeah. Sorry guys. If only I campaigned more, you must have been able to win your awards." Tayaw says through his phone, to Uranto and Iliene.
/It's fine. I don't think it would have helped anyways./ Iliene says.
/Yeah. We're on foreign land./ Uranto says.
"Alright. Call me once you guys are back. Let's celebrate." Tayaw says as he concludes the phone call.
"*Sigh*" Tayaw can only let out a relieved breath.
"I must have cost them some potential jobs. F*ck, I didn't realize how selfish and arrogant I was." Tayaw shakes his head out of guilt.
While he was watching the Academy Awards the previous night, a realization dawned on him watching Uranto and Iliene lose. He realized that the Academy Awards, despite the phoniness of it, still holds a certain prestige. While Uranto and Iliene were nominated, Tayaw realized that they would have wider opportunities had they been the winners. Thankfully for Tayaw, Uranto and Iliene did not take their loss to heart and are already content with their nominations.
"*Phew*" Noticing that he still has plenty of time before the actors and crew arrive at the set, Tayaw runs to his office, sits down in front of his computer, and logs in his social media.
"Tsk. Let me do a bit of compensation at least." Tayaw shakes his head.
|||Last night, while watching the Academy Awards, I experienced some of the biggest disappointments in my life. #septemberninth, you were too much for this world. @UrantoVirenza Steven, you were too good for this world. @IlienePartros Diwaya, you were too beautiful for this world. ||| Tayaw posts on his TLD Grimmauld social media accounts. Just to make sure, he posted his sentiment three times, each in English, Teungebian, and Italian.
Tayaw, despite his criticizing post and a bit of disappointment in the events of the previous night, he is actually not offended from not winning all the awards his film is nominated on. "Fallen Memory", the winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, is indeed an out-and-out good film in the conventional way.
When it comes to acting, the actors played their characters well. The line delivery and the graceful body language of the characters were also beautiful to watch.
When it comes to the film making aspect, the scenes are aesthetically pleasing due to the color choices of the director in the scene's sets and costumes. Tayaw was even impressed by the director's use of tracking medium-wide shots that obsessively kept the characters in the middle of the frame.
When it comes to the screenwriting, the lines are even somewhat poetic. Tayaw figured that the only reason why 'Fallen Memory' did not win the award for Best Screenplay is because the film itself is a modern re-telling of a 1950s romantic film unlike the deeper, more novel, and more philosophical nature of 'September Ninth'.
One more thing that Tayaw figured 'Fallen Memory' has an advantage over 'September Ninth', is the budget. 'Fallen Memory' producers had disclosed a $32,000,000 budget while his film only had $4,500,000 base budget. That difference in budget resulted to the difference in details.
'Fallen Memory' was able to manipulate the color of the sceneries itself that Tayaw was not able to do. The best he did to control the color of the scenes is through color contrast settings in the editing process. In addition to the filmmaking benefit of the budget, Tayaw also figures that 'Fallen Memory', and the rest of the nominees have done extensive campaigning.
To Tayaw, the two awards 'September Ninth' harvested is already a miracle.
|@tldgrimmauld. Come on. It was a close competition! While 'September Ninth' is great, it's not as beautiful as 'Fallen Memory'.|
|@tldgrimmauld So True! 'Fallen Memory' is a gorgeous film, but we see films like it every year. 'September Ninth' though is so original! Dare I say, an invention!|
|@tldgrimmauld. It's just not September Ninth's night. If it was last year, it could have won best picture.|
|@tldgrimmauld. We all know 'September Ninth' should have won. You could even hear it from the audience reaction last night.|
|@tldgrimmauld. Are you talking about the Best Actor Award? Because I agree! My Steven was robbed! |
Tayaw's TLD Grimmauld fans have come out of the woodwork from his post. Seeing the tweets and posts, Tayaw nods as his assessment of the situation coincides with moviegoers' current opinions. While most people who has seen 'September Ninth' liked it, they are divided as to whether his new style can compete with the best made conventional films.
"Well. At least my next film's gonna be better." Tayaw drowns out the littlest bit of disappointment left.
|@tldgrimmauld There's still next time for Isaac.. How about the winner of the night? Nielg Dilla! The guy's f*ckin crazy, I love him!|
|@tldgrimmauld. Have you seen this? /youtube link of Nielg's impression of Tayaw/ This alone deserves a nomination!|
Tayaw, seeing the posts about Nielg, chuckles. At first, he felt sorry for Nielg for accepting his award for him without preparation, but to his surprise, Nielg unwittingly turned it into a great marketing opportunity. Nielg's popularity soared as he gained quite a bit of popularity in social media.
Even the YouTube channel of the Academy posted Nielg's two speeches first before posting other people's speeches. The YouTube video of Nielg's speech that contains his impression of Tayaw, especially is the most viewed clip of Academy Award's most recent uploads.
"Good morning Isaac!" Frank, one of the supporting actors, arrives in Tayaw's office and interrupts Tayaw's social media play time. Frank is playing the film's version of Gonzalo's second-closest friend in the Coniglio Syndicate.
"Good morning Frank. How are you today?" Tayaw asks. Had it been another day, Frank would have taken Tayaw's greeting and question for granted. Today however, is different.
"Great. I'm sorry I can't get it right last night." Frank says.
"It's fine. It's a rare scene after all. Do you think you can do it today?" Tayaw asks.
"I don't know but I've prepared. It might work." Frank says.
"Good. I've seen you hang out late in one of the prop cars last night. Was that the prep?" Tayaw asks.
"Yeah. Heh. Figured it would help." Frank says, hiding his embarrassment at being caught.
"It makes sense. Don't sweat it." Tayaw nods.
"How about your friend though? Juliana, was it?" Frank asks, with a smirk.
Juliana has been watching the latter part of the filming process the previous day.
"She became bored. Haha. She said she'd rather see it on film." Tayaw says.
"Alright then. I'll go change." Frank excuses himself.
Half an hour later, Tayaw is back in the dome. All the required actors and extras are also present and getting ready, all in their 50s style costumes and are all geared up with fake prop guns. They are now all in position, all in standby, ready for the first shoot of the day.
Around a third of the dome is now full of prop sets. There are wooden tables with leather – cushioned wooden chairs laid out. There is also a bar counter, some leather cushioned stools in front of it, and liquor cabinet filled with fake liquor behind it. There is also a fake wall and door frame acting as the backdoor leading to a barren part of the dome.
The main actors including Luca, Warren, and Frank, and various secondary actors and extras, are positioned as if they are sitting randomly inside the dome's leather cushioned chairs and stools.
Steven, the virtual set team leader, then turns on the monitors. With the combination of the virtual backdrop and the props, a third of the dome transforms into a fancy looking 1950s Las Vegas bar, and right after the fake walls, is a fake alleyway.
"Ready?" Tayaw asks the fireworks people, to which the fireworks people nod in response.
"Giovanni, Nico, Reece… Ready?" Tayaw addresses Luca's, Warren's, and Frank's characters.
Luca switches himself to become Giovanni, Warren takes Nico's mindset, and Frank immerses himself to be Reece. The three main actors have taken their seat at the table in the middle of the 'bar', ready for action.
"Good. Let's start." Tayaw orders everyone.
"Gold, Blood, and the Deer, Part 2, Scene 83, take 8." A crew member claps the slate.
||| "How'd it go?" Giovanni asks Nico.
"Hah. While them Teungebians were disappointed that we don't like their cocaine, they'll start working with us in their docks." Nico tells Giovanni and Reece proudly.
"Are you sure they weren't just 'disappointed'?" Reece asks, wary of Nico's easy negotiation with the head of the Teungebian-American Mafia.
"They operate like us. Don't worry." Nico assures.
Suddenly, *Rattatatatata* *Bang* *Bang*. The three leaders of the Cervo Syndicate and their men is assaulted by all sorts of guns from outside the bar. All sorts of bullets of varying calibers start shredding the leather-bound chairs, the stools, and the bottles of liquors in the liquor cabinet.
"F.u.c.k! The Russians!"
"How'd they even find us here?"
The Cervo subordinates exclaim as they find their nearest cover. Being war veterans, they all are all quick on their feet.
Giovanni, Nico, and Reece hurriedly flip their table and use it as cover. They then draw out their handguns from their holsters and they start returning fire. The Cervo subordinates also dive behind the walls near the windows and also start firing their guns to the enemies outside the bar.
Soon, the table that Giovanni and his two friends are using as cover, starts to be targeted, and before it is peppered with bullets, the three hurriedly scamper to take another cover behind the bar counter. A few more seconds of returning fire, Reece, who is exposed from his cover while returning fire at the enemies, suddenly runs out of ammo.
"Damn it." Reece curses out as he miscounted his bullets. Before he can duck for cover once again, *bang* *Bang* he is shot two times in split-second succession; once in the right side of his chest, once in the center.
Reece then looks down at his chest. Seeing the two bullet wounds start oozing with blood, he shortly collapses to the floor, at the same time achieving cover behind the bar counter once again.
Giovanni and Nico, seeing Reece's state, attend to him immediately. Giovanni immediately presses his hands on Reece's wounds while Nico peeks out of the bar counter to look for an opportunity for them to get to safety. Seeing the enemies reload their weapons, Nico then signals Giovanni and they start dragging Reece to the backdoor.
The Cervo men, looking at their leaders' actions, immediately provide cover fire for them. Unfortunately, *Bang* *bang* "AH!" "UGH!" two of the five subordinates are also shot and they drop to the ground.
However, the two being hardened veterans of the Korean War, are not going down easy and they are still returning fire despite their conditions, using every single last bullet they have left to fight side-by-side with their brothers, fighting until their last breath to protect their brothers.|||
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February 5, 2013 – 8 AM – Half Basin Studios
Tayaw is currently sitting on his 'director's chair' inside his busy virtual set, talking to someone in his phone.
"Yeah. Sorry guys. If only I campaigned more, you must have been able to win your awards." Tayaw says through his phone, to Uranto and Iliene.
/It's fine. I don't think it would have helped anyways./ Iliene says.
/Yeah. We're on foreign land./ Uranto says.
"Alright. Call me once you guys are back. Let's celebrate." Tayaw says as he concludes the phone call.
"*Sigh*" Tayaw can only let out a relieved breath.
"I must have cost them some potential jobs. F*ck, I didn't realize how selfish and arrogant I was." Tayaw shakes his head out of guilt.
While he was watching the Academy Awards the previous night, a realization dawned on him watching Uranto and Iliene lose. He realized that the Academy Awards, despite the phoniness of it, still holds a certain prestige. While Uranto and Iliene were nominated, Tayaw realized that they would have wider opportunities had they been the winners. Thankfully for Tayaw, Uranto and Iliene did not take their loss to heart and are already content with their nominations.
"*Phew*" Noticing that he still has plenty of time before the actors and crew arrive at the set, Tayaw runs to his office, sits down in front of his computer, and logs in his social media.
"Tsk. Let me do a bit of compensation at least." Tayaw shakes his head.
|||Last night, while watching the Academy Awards, I experienced some of the biggest disappointments in my life. #septemberninth, you were too much for this world. @UrantoVirenza Steven, you were too good for this world. @IlienePartros Diwaya, you were too beautiful for this world. ||| Tayaw posts on his TLD Grimmauld social media accounts. Just to make sure, he posted his sentiment three times, each in English, Teungebian, and Italian.
Tayaw, despite his criticizing post and a bit of disappointment in the events of the previous night, he is actually not offended from not winning all the awards his film is nominated on. "Fallen Memory", the winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, is indeed an out-and-out good film in the conventional way.
When it comes to acting, the actors played their characters well. The line delivery and the graceful body language of the characters were also beautiful to watch.
When it comes to the film making aspect, the scenes are aesthetically pleasing due to the color choices of the director in the scene's sets and costumes. Tayaw was even impressed by the director's use of tracking medium-wide shots that obsessively kept the characters in the middle of the frame.
When it comes to the screenwriting, the lines are even somewhat poetic. Tayaw figured that the only reason why 'Fallen Memory' did not win the award for Best Screenplay is because the film itself is a modern re-telling of a 1950s romantic film unlike the deeper, more novel, and more philosophical nature of 'September Ninth'.
One more thing that Tayaw figured 'Fallen Memory' has an advantage over 'September Ninth', is the budget. 'Fallen Memory' producers had disclosed a $32,000,000 budget while his film only had $4,500,000 base budget. That difference in budget resulted to the difference in details.
'Fallen Memory' was able to manipulate the color of the sceneries itself that Tayaw was not able to do. The best he did to control the color of the scenes is through color contrast settings in the editing process. In addition to the filmmaking benefit of the budget, Tayaw also figures that 'Fallen Memory', and the rest of the nominees have done extensive campaigning.
To Tayaw, the two awards 'September Ninth' harvested is already a miracle.
|@tldgrimmauld. Come on. It was a close competition! While 'September Ninth' is great, it's not as beautiful as 'Fallen Memory'.|
|@tldgrimmauld So True! 'Fallen Memory' is a gorgeous film, but we see films like it every year. 'September Ninth' though is so original! Dare I say, an invention!|
|@tldgrimmauld. It's just not September Ninth's night. If it was last year, it could have won best picture.|
|@tldgrimmauld. We all know 'September Ninth' should have won. You could even hear it from the audience reaction last night.|
|@tldgrimmauld. Are you talking about the Best Actor Award? Because I agree! My Steven was robbed! |
Tayaw's TLD Grimmauld fans have come out of the woodwork from his post. Seeing the tweets and posts, Tayaw nods as his assessment of the situation coincides with moviegoers' current opinions. While most people who has seen 'September Ninth' liked it, they are divided as to whether his new style can compete with the best made conventional films.
"Well. At least my next film's gonna be better." Tayaw drowns out the littlest bit of disappointment left.
|@tldgrimmauld There's still next time for Isaac.. How about the winner of the night? Nielg Dilla! The guy's f*ckin crazy, I love him!|
|@tldgrimmauld. Have you seen this? /youtube link of Nielg's impression of Tayaw/ This alone deserves a nomination!|
Tayaw, seeing the posts about Nielg, chuckles. At first, he felt sorry for Nielg for accepting his award for him without preparation, but to his surprise, Nielg unwittingly turned it into a great marketing opportunity. Nielg's popularity soared as he gained quite a bit of popularity in social media.
Even the YouTube channel of the Academy posted Nielg's two speeches first before posting other people's speeches. The YouTube video of Nielg's speech that contains his impression of Tayaw, especially is the most viewed clip of Academy Award's most recent uploads.
"Good morning Isaac!" Frank, one of the supporting actors, arrives in Tayaw's office and interrupts Tayaw's social media play time. Frank is playing the film's version of Gonzalo's second-closest friend in the Coniglio Syndicate.
"Good morning Frank. How are you today?" Tayaw asks. Had it been another day, Frank would have taken Tayaw's greeting and question for granted. Today however, is different.
"Great. I'm sorry I can't get it right last night." Frank says.
"It's fine. It's a rare scene after all. Do you think you can do it today?" Tayaw asks.
"I don't know but I've prepared. It might work." Frank says.
"Good. I've seen you hang out late in one of the prop cars last night. Was that the prep?" Tayaw asks.
"Yeah. Heh. Figured it would help." Frank says, hiding his embarrassment at being caught.
"It makes sense. Don't sweat it." Tayaw nods.
"How about your friend though? Juliana, was it?" Frank asks, with a smirk.
Juliana has been watching the latter part of the filming process the previous day.
"She became bored. Haha. She said she'd rather see it on film." Tayaw says.
"Alright then. I'll go change." Frank excuses himself.
Half an hour later, Tayaw is back in the dome. All the required actors and extras are also present and getting ready, all in their 50s style costumes and are all geared up with fake prop guns. They are now all in position, all in standby, ready for the first shoot of the day.
Around a third of the dome is now full of prop sets. There are wooden tables with leather – cushioned wooden chairs laid out. There is also a bar counter, some leather cushioned stools in front of it, and liquor cabinet filled with fake liquor behind it. There is also a fake wall and door frame acting as the backdoor leading to a barren part of the dome.
The main actors including Luca, Warren, and Frank, and various secondary actors and extras, are positioned as if they are sitting randomly inside the dome's leather cushioned chairs and stools.
Steven, the virtual set team leader, then turns on the monitors. With the combination of the virtual backdrop and the props, a third of the dome transforms into a fancy looking 1950s Las Vegas bar, and right after the fake walls, is a fake alleyway.
"Ready?" Tayaw asks the fireworks people, to which the fireworks people nod in response.
"Giovanni, Nico, Reece… Ready?" Tayaw addresses Luca's, Warren's, and Frank's characters.
Luca switches himself to become Giovanni, Warren takes Nico's mindset, and Frank immerses himself to be Reece. The three main actors have taken their seat at the table in the middle of the 'bar', ready for action.
"Good. Let's start." Tayaw orders everyone.
"Gold, Blood, and the Deer, Part 2, Scene 83, take 8." A crew member claps the slate.
||| "How'd it go?" Giovanni asks Nico.
"Hah. While them Teungebians were disappointed that we don't like their cocaine, they'll start working with us in their docks." Nico tells Giovanni and Reece proudly.
"Are you sure they weren't just 'disappointed'?" Reece asks, wary of Nico's easy negotiation with the head of the Teungebian-American Mafia.
"They operate like us. Don't worry." Nico assures.
Suddenly, *Rattatatatata* *Bang* *Bang*. The three leaders of the Cervo Syndicate and their men is assaulted by all sorts of guns from outside the bar. All sorts of bullets of varying calibers start shredding the leather-bound chairs, the stools, and the bottles of liquors in the liquor cabinet.
"F.u.c.k! The Russians!"
"How'd they even find us here?"
The Cervo subordinates exclaim as they find their nearest cover. Being war veterans, they all are all quick on their feet.
Giovanni, Nico, and Reece hurriedly flip their table and use it as cover. They then draw out their handguns from their holsters and they start returning fire. The Cervo subordinates also dive behind the walls near the windows and also start firing their guns to the enemies outside the bar.
Soon, the table that Giovanni and his two friends are using as cover, starts to be targeted, and before it is peppered with bullets, the three hurriedly scamper to take another cover behind the bar counter. A few more seconds of returning fire, Reece, who is exposed from his cover while returning fire at the enemies, suddenly runs out of ammo.
"Damn it." Reece curses out as he miscounted his bullets. Before he can duck for cover once again, *bang* *Bang* he is shot two times in split-second succession; once in the right side of his chest, once in the center.
Reece then looks down at his chest. Seeing the two bullet wounds start oozing with blood, he shortly collapses to the floor, at the same time achieving cover behind the bar counter once again.
Giovanni and Nico, seeing Reece's state, attend to him immediately. Giovanni immediately presses his hands on Reece's wounds while Nico peeks out of the bar counter to look for an opportunity for them to get to safety. Seeing the enemies reload their weapons, Nico then signals Giovanni and they start dragging Reece to the backdoor.
The Cervo men, looking at their leaders' actions, immediately provide cover fire for them. Unfortunately, *Bang* *bang* "AH!" "UGH!" two of the five subordinates are also shot and they drop to the ground.
However, the two being hardened veterans of the Korean War, are not going down easy and they are still returning fire despite their conditions, using every single last bullet they have left to fight side-by-side with their brothers, fighting until their last breath to protect their brothers.|||
February 5, 2013 8 AM Half Basin Studios Tayaw is currently sitting on his 'director's chair' inside his busy virtual set, talking to someone in his phone. "Yeah. Sorry guys. If only I campaigned more, you must have been able to win your awards." Tayaw says through his phone, to Uranto and Iliene. /It's fine. I don't think it would have helped anyways./ Iliene says. /Yeah. We're on foreign land./ Uranto says. "Alright. Call me once you guys are back. Let's celebrate." Tayaw says as he concludes the phone call. "*Sigh*" Tayaw can only let out a relieved breath. "I must have cost them some potential jobs. F*ck, I didn't realize how selfish and arrogant I was." Tayaw shakes his head out of guilt. While he was watching the Academy Awards the previous night, a realization dawned on him watching Uranto and Iliene lose. He realized that the Academy Awards, despite the phoniness of it, still holds a certain prestige. While Uranto and Iliene were nominated, Tayaw realized that they would have wider opportunities had they been the winners. Thankfully for Tayaw, Uranto and Iliene did not take their loss to heart and are already content with their nominations. "*Phew*" Noticing that he still has plenty of time before the actors and crew arrive at the set, Tayaw runs to his office, sits down in front of his computer, and logs in his social media. "Tsk. Let me do a bit of compensation at least." Tayaw shakes his head. |||Last night, while watching the Academy Awards, I experienced some of the biggest disappointments in my life. #septemberninth, you were too much for this world. @UrantoVirenza Steven, you were too good for this world. @IlienePartros Diwaya, you were too beautiful for this world. ||| Tayaw posts on his TLD Grimmauld social media accounts. Just to make sure, he posted his sentiment three times, each in English, Teungebian, and Italian. Tayaw, despite his criticizing post and a bit of disappointment in the events of the previous night, he is actually not offended from not winning all the awards his film is nominated on. "Fallen Memory", the winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, is indeed an out-and-out good film in the conventional way. When it comes to acting, the actors played their characters well. The line delivery and the graceful body language of the characters were also beautiful to watch. When it comes to the film making aspect, the scenes are aesthetically pleasing due to the color choices of the director in the scene's sets and costumes. Tayaw was even impressed by the director's use of tracking medium-wide shots that obsessively kept the characters in the middle of the frame. When it comes to the screenwriting, the lines are even somewhat poetic. Tayaw figured that the only reason why 'Fallen Memory' did not win the award for Best Screenplay is because the film itself is a modern re-telling of a 1950s romantic film unlike the deeper, more novel, and more philosophical nature of 'September Ninth'. One more thing that Tayaw figured 'Fallen Memory' has an advantage over 'September Ninth', is the budget. 'Fallen Memory' producers had disclosed a $32,000,000 budget while his film only had $4,500,000 base budget. That difference in budget resulted to the difference in details. 'Fallen Memory' was able to manipulate the color of the sceneries itself that Tayaw was not able to do. The best he did to control the color of the scenes is through color contrast settings in the editing process. In addition to the filmmaking benefit of the budget, Tayaw also figures that 'Fallen Memory', and the rest of the nominees have done extensive campaigning. To Tayaw, the two awards 'September Ninth' harvested is already a miracle. |@tldgrimmauld. Come on. It was a close competition! While 'September Ninth' is great, it's not as beautiful as 'Fallen Memory'.| |@tldgrimmauld So True! 'Fallen Memory' is a gorgeous film, but we see films like it every year. 'September Ninth' though is so original! Dare I say, an invention!| |@tldgrimmauld. It's just not September Ninth's night. If it was last year, it could have won best picture.| |@tldgrimmauld. We all know 'September Ninth' should have won. You could even hear it from the audience reaction last night.| |@tldgrimmauld. Are you talking about the Best Actor Award? Because I agree! My Steven was robbed! | Tayaw's TLD Grimmauld fans have come out of the woodwork from his post. Seeing the tweets and posts, Tayaw nods as his assessment of the situation coincides with moviegoers' current opinions. While most people who has seen 'September Ninth' liked it, they are divided as to whether his new style can compete with the best made conventional films. "Well. At least my next film's gonna be better." Tayaw drowns out the littlest bit of disappointment left. |@tldgrimmauld There's still next time for Isaac.. How about the winner of the night? Nielg Dilla! The guy's f*ckin crazy, I love him!| |@tldgrimmauld. Have you seen this? /youtube link of Nielg's impression of Tayaw/ This alone deserves a nomination!| Tayaw, seeing the posts about Nielg, chuckles. At first, he felt sorry for Nielg for accepting his award for him without preparation, but to his surprise, Nielg unwittingly turned it into a great marketing opportunity. Nielg's popularity soared as he gained quite a bit of popularity in social media. Even the YouTube channel of the Academy posted Nielg's two speeches first before posting other people's speeches. The YouTube video of Nielg's speech that contains his impression of Tayaw, especially is the most viewed clip of Academy Award's most recent uploads. "Good morning Isaac!" Frank, one of the supporting actors, arrives in Tayaw's office and interrupts Tayaw's social media play time. Frank is playing the film's version of Gonzalo's second-closest friend in the Coniglio Syndicate. "Good morning Frank. How are you today?" Tayaw asks. Had it been another day, Frank would have taken Tayaw's greeting and question for granted. Today however, is different. "Great. I'm sorry I can't get it right last night." Frank says. "It's fine. It's a rare scene after all. Do you think you can do it today?" Tayaw asks. "I don't know but I've prepared. It might work." Frank says. "Good. I've seen you hang out late in one of the prop cars last night. Was that the prep?" Tayaw asks. "Yeah. Heh. Figured it would help." Frank says, hiding his embarrassment at being caught. "It makes sense. Don't sweat it." Tayaw nods. "How about your friend though? Juliana, was it?" Frank asks, with a smirk. Juliana has been watching the latter part of the filming process the previous day. "She became bored. Haha. She said she'd rather see it on film." Tayaw says. "Alright then. I'll go change." Frank excuses himself. Half an hour later, Tayaw is back in the dome. All the required actors and extras are also present and getting ready, all in their 50s style costumes and are all geared up with fake prop guns. They are now all in position, all in standby, ready for the first shoot of the day. Around a third of the dome is now full of prop sets. There are wooden tables with leather cushioned wooden chairs laid out. There is also a bar counter, some leather cushioned stools in front of it, and liquor cabinet filled with fake liquor behind it. There is also a fake wall and door frame acting as the backdoor leading to a barren part of the dome. The main actors including Luca, Warren, and Frank, and various secondary actors and extras, are positioned as if they are sitting randomly inside the dome's leather cushioned chairs and stools. Steven, the virtual set team leader, then turns on the monitors. With the combination of the virtual backdrop and the props, a third of the dome transforms into a fancy looking 1950s Las Vegas bar, and right after the fake walls, is a fake alleyway. "Ready?" Tayaw asks the fireworks people, to which the fireworks people nod in response. "Giovanni, Nico, Reece Ready?" Tayaw addresses Luca's, Warren's, and Frank's characters. Luca switches himself to become Giovanni, Warren takes Nico's mindset, and Frank immerses himself to be Reece. The three main actors have taken their seat at the table in the middle of the 'bar', ready for action. "Good. Let's start." Tayaw orders everyone. "Gold, Blood, and the Deer, Part 2, Scene 83, take 8." A crew member claps the slate. ||| "How'd it go?" Giovanni asks Nico. "Hah. While them Teungebians were disappointed that we don't like their cocaine, they'll start working with us in their docks." Nico tells Giovanni and Reece proudly. "Are you sure they weren't just 'disappointed'?" Reece asks, wary of Nico's easy negotiation with the head of the Teungebian-American Mafia. "They operate like us. Don't worry." Nico assures. Suddenly, *Rattatatatata* *Bang* *Bang*. The three leaders of the Cervo Syndicate and their men is assaulted by all sorts of guns from outside the bar. All sorts of bullets of varying calibers start shredding the leather-bound chairs, the stools, and the bottles of liquors in the liquor cabinet. "F.u.c.k! The Russians!" "How'd they even find us here?" The Cervo subordinates exclaim as they find their nearest cover. Being war veterans, they all are all quick on their feet. Giovanni, Nico, and Reece hurriedly flip their table and use it as cover. They then draw out their handguns from their holsters and they start returning fire. The Cervo subordinates also dive behind the walls near the windows and also start firing their guns to the enemies outside the bar. Soon, the table that Giovanni and his two friends are using as cover, starts to be targeted, and before it is peppered with bullets, the three hurriedly scamper to take another cover behind the bar counter. A few more seconds of returning fire, Reece, who is exposed from his cover while returning fire at the enemies, suddenly runs out of ammo. "Damn it." Reece curses out as he miscounted his bullets. Before he can duck for cover once again, *bang* *Bang* he is shot two times in split-second succession; once in the right side of his chest, once in the center. Reece then looks down at his chest. Seeing the two bullet wounds start oozing with blood, he shortly collapses to the floor, at the same time achieving cover behind the bar counter once again. Giovanni and Nico, seeing Reece's state, attend to him immediately. Giovanni immediately presses his hands on Reece's wounds while Nico peeks out of the bar counter to look for an opportunity for them to get to safety. Seeing the enemies reload their weapons, Nico then signals Giovanni and they start dragging Reece to the backdoor. The Cervo men, looking at their leaders' actions, immediately provide cover fire for them. Unfortunately, *Bang* *bang* "AH!" "UGH!" two of the five subordinates are also shot and they drop to the ground. However, the two being hardened veterans of the Korean War, are not going down easy and they are still returning fire despite their conditions, using every single last bullet they have left to fight side-by-side with their brothers, fighting until their last breath to protect their brothers.|||
