NOVEL WEB Chapter 30
Chapter 30
So Seo-jun created them. The clues were a teddy bear, a mother, and a smile.
From afar, he heard the voice of director Ryan Will.
-Ready, action!
As he thought it was a small sound that didn’t match his size,
‘William’ was now four years old.
The teddy bear in his hand was the gift he received for his fourth birthday.
He liked this teddy bear more than any other gift, because his dad gave it to him.
Talking to the teddy bear in the yard was William’s favorite game.
It wasn’t a great story.
The breakfast was delicious, and the snack was always cookies.
What should he play with today? This or that?
It was another ordinary day.
The weather was chilly, so his mom dressed him warmly.
He sat in the yard where he played every day with the teddy bear under his arm.
“William!”
His mom called him.
William lifted his head at the sound of his mom’s voice. His mom opened the door and looked at the baby. William liked his mom.
He was so happy to hear her call that he smiled brightly and got up from his seat.
“William!!”
His mom ran to him.
William stretched out both hands holding the teddy bear, wanting to hug his mom’s cozy embrace, as he saw her running towards him with her arms outstretched.
William liked being hugged by his mom more than the delicious cookies, and he smiled happily more than ever.
And then everything went dark. His body was cold.
“Cut! OK!”
Ryan Will’s voice, like a shout, pierced Seo-jun’s ears.
Seo-jun opened his eyes wide.
“Huh?”
What? What’s going on? When did the filming start?
As he stood there with a blank face, he saw Barren’s worried face in his sight.
“Did I scare you? Did I pull you too fast?”
Barren hugged Seo-jun and rocked him.
Seo-jun stretched out both arms towards Melissa, so Barren thought it was good timing and quickly grabbed Seo-jun’s side and pulled him into the chroma key cloth.
And then he checked Seo-jun’s condition right away.
In the previous filming, the other child actors started crying when they heard Melissa scream.
Even after they passed that scene, some of them cried out in fright when Barren tried to grab the child actor’s side.
But Seo-jun didn’t cry and kept his eyes closed. His lips were slightly blue.
Was he cold? But Seo-jun’s body, cuddled in Barren’s arms, was warm enough.
Barren was worried about the difference and asked again.
“Are you okay? Jun?”
“What’s wrong, barren?”
“No, Jun…”
“I’m fine!”
Seo-jun came to his senses and shouted at Ryan’s voice.
Barren, who was patting Seo-jun’s back, put him down on the ground. The two of them held hands and headed towards Ryan.
“Weren’t you scared?”
“No. It was fun!”
He didn’t remember anything.
Seo-jun just thought about William. Happiness, mom, and the wormhole that pulled him in.
It was cold and dark.
Seo-jun tilted his head.
‘What was that?’
Ryan and the camera director were talking seriously while looking at the monitor.
On one side, Melissa was wiping her tears with a handkerchief. Barren was surprised to see her.
He knew she was working hard, but he didn’t expect her to be so immersed that she would cry.
And she had been repeating the same act all day long.
He didn’t think she had that much energy left.
“Did you get that into it?”
“Uh, that’s…”
Melissa, who was about to answer Barren’s question, saw Seo-jun holding Barren’s hand and started crying again.
Barren and Seo-jun didn’t know what to do.
“Why are you crying?”
“Melissa, why are you crying?!”
“Uhuhu. William is so pitiful…”
In the end, the other staff members took Melissa to the waiting room instead.
The staff members who took Melissa had bright expressions.
Finally, the OK sign came from director Ryan Will.
They all looked at Seo-jun with proud eyes once in a while.
Barren looked at Melissa’s back, leaning on the staff members, and shook his head.
“Method acting is not all good, I guess.”
“Method?”
“You don’t know, Jun?”
“Yes.”
How do you explain this to a four-and-a-half-year-old baby?
Barren thought for a moment, but decided to trust the smart Seo-jun.
He explained slowly and easily.
“Method acting is when an actor becomes the character they play.
For example, Melissa is usually Melissa, but when she films, she forgets herself and becomes William’s mom.”
“William’s mom…”
Seo-jun thought hard. Wasn’t my situation the same?
Seo-jun forgot that he was Seo-jun and became William.
He knew he was being sucked into a wormhole, but even though he knew beforehand that it wasn’t a wormhole but Barren, it was cold and dark inside.
Was that method acting?
“Method acting is good when you act, but it’s not easy to get out of the character like Melissa when the filming is over.”
“Get out?”
“Melissa forgets that she is William’s mom and becomes Melissa again.”
That was different. Seo-jun got out of it as soon as he heard Ryan’s ‘cut’ sound. Seo-jun tilted his head.
Seo-jun asked Barren how to do method acting.
Barren cleared his throat and answered in a serious voice without answering.
“The basis of all acting is understanding. The role of the character…”
“Understanding the situation!”
“Understanding the situation?”
“Swalin Arnham!”
At Seo-jun’s words, barren’s neck and face turned red.
“…You saw it too, Jun?”
“CAN Channel ‘People Who Loved Movies’!”
“…You saw it.”
“I love Swalin Arnham.”
Barren smiled sheepishly.
“He’s my favorite actor too.”
Seo-jun also giggled…
Slap!
Seo-jun slapped both cheeks hard.
He hadn’t laughed yet!
Slap! Slap!
He didn’t laugh!
Fortunately, his ability didn’t activate when he heard Seo-jun’s scream.
Barren didn’t know what to do when he saw Seo-jun suddenly hitting his own cheeks.
“Are you okay, Jun?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Really!”
His cheeks hurt, but he was fine. Really. Seo-jun shed a tear on his hot cheeks.
‘I have to sleep as soon as the filming is over.’
***
“Ready!”
Director Ryan Will shouted loudly.
A tightly closed door appeared on the monitor screen.
On another screen, seo-jun was sitting on the floor.
“Action!”
Bang!
The door opened and Melissa appeared.
The camera showed Melissa’s face.
Ryan saw her face. It looked desperate, but it was a bit lacking in his eyes.
She was a mother who ran out after watching the breaking news.
Among many people, she had to be full of faith that her son wouldn’t disappear and anxiety that maybe, maybe, but Melissa’s face only had urgency to find her son.
Was it because she filmed too much?
He knew the staff and actors who had been struggling all day long, so director Ryan Will decided to watch Seo-jun’s acting first.
If this kid was also bad, he thought he would just delete this scene.
“William!”
Melissa’s scream was heard and Seo-jun got up on the screen. No,
“That’s…”
William got up.
The little boy smiled brightly and got up from his seat and hugged Melissa.
[The illusion of the smiling face mushroom is activated.]
The people and Seo-jun, who were immersed in acting, couldn’t hear the sound.
When a close-up of Seo-jun’s smiling face was shown, director Ryan Will and James Landon, who were filming directly, swallowed their breath.
Melissa, who was acting, was also speechless with a choked breath. Jonathan, who was among the tall staff, opened his mouth wide.
It was a bright smile of a child, it looked happy, but it made them breathless and their hearts trembled.
It felt like their insides were clogged.
They couldn’t bear to see the child who would soon disappear into the wormhole.
“William!!”
Melissa, no, william’s mother screamed.
Oh, my child! My precious child!! She screamed.
No! It didn’t come out of her mouth. Her insides were burning like she had eaten a fireball.
She couldn’t make a sound as if her throat was blocked.
William disappeared into the wormhole with a smiling face until the end. He only left one shoe behind.
The mother, who was emotional, collapsed in the yard. She couldn’t take her eyes off the place where the wormhole disappeared. Tears fell.
The first to come to his senses in the suffocating situation was director Ryan Will.
He forced his throat, which was tightly blocked, and shouted loudly. No one knew the moisture hidden in his voice.
“Cut! OK!”
As if that was a signal, everyone who had stopped breathing while watching Seo-jun and Melissa’s acting took a breath.
The staff who were waiting went to Melissa who was crying on the floor.
Meanwhile, director Ryan Will and James the camera director secretly wiped away the tears that were falling unconsciously and Jonathan went to the corner and cried.
While the staff cleaned up the scene, the two directors watched the scene again.
“Too…”
“Well done.”
Ryan Will nodded his head and leaned back on the back of the chair at the words of James Landon, the camera director who had been with him since his first short film.
They had filmed all day long.
He was left with only the youngest child actor scene and nearly gave up on it because he didn’t like any of them.
He was unsatisfied, but fortunately, the last kid did well.
No, not well.
He showed an amazing performance.
Ryan chuckled.
He couldn’t believe that the little kid’s acting made him cry, something he couldn’t have imagined an hour ago.
“When he first sat on the floor, I thought his legs were hurting…”
“His smile as he got up from his seat seemed more like greeting his mom.”
“…Was it a coincidence?”
“He could be a genius.”
It was Seo-jun’s smile that made his heart ache and made him want to cry even when he saw it again.
His heart pounded in his burning chest.
He couldn’t help but laugh when he thought about how people would react to this scene.
James, the camera director, nodded as well.
“A five-year-old actor who can make his co-star be immersed in their role. No one would believe it if they heard it.”
“He’s not five, though.”
Ryan Will laughed. James asked.
“What? How old is he?”
“He’s 58 months old now. He’s been four for 10 months.”
“Well. He’ll be five in two months, anyway.”
***
“OK in one take?”
“Jun did well. I was moved too.”
“Melissa’s acting was amazing too. Especially the last expression!”
“I saw a movie that Melissa was in before, and it was completely different from today. It was a similar role, but today it was like she broke out of her shell, you know?”
“But, did you see that?”
A staff member’s voice lowered.
The ears of the staff who were moving the equipment perked up.
“What?”
“Director Will and Director Landon crying.”
“…Was Melissa’s acting that good?”
“No, it seemed like they were crying after seeing Jun’s acting.”
The staff tilted their heads.
“It seemed good, but not enough to cry, right?”
“Jonathan seemed to be crying too.”
The staff looked at each other.
Jonathan Will was Ryan Will’s nephew and was studying to become a film director under his uncle.
He was a promising boy who had won a prize at a film festival for middle school students.
“…Is there something we don’t know?”
The makeshift tent that was used as the child actor’s waiting room was not soundproof.
Seo-jun nodded his head as he drank orange juice at the staff’s conversation outside.
And he recalled the number of people who were watching him during the filming.
About 30.
And the people who seemed to be affected by [The Illusion of the Smiling Face Mushroom] were.
Melissa, Director Ryan, Director James, and Jonathan Will.
These four people.
‘[The Illusion of the Smiling Face Mushroom] is low-grade, so it only affects these people.’
The top-grade skill, [The Tempting Packaging of the Small Mimic], which had an effect on all the targets, was an incredible skill that couldn’t be compared to [The Illusion of the Smiling Face Mushroom].