Chapter 85: Music Video Shoot
...
(5:03 PM — Friday, June 15, 2019 — Brooklyn Warehouse, New York)
The black SUV sent out by Vanguard pulled up to the rear loading dock of the massive industrial complex. Von stepped out into the late-afternoon air, pulling the collar of his jacket up.
The sheer scale of the operation was imdiately apparent. Thick black cables snaked across the asphalt like giant serpents, feeding power from three diesel generators into the belly of the warehouse.
Inside, the environnt was a hive of controlled activity. Dozens of crew mbers dressed in all black darted around with walkie-talkies and rolls of gaffer tape.
Before Von could even take off his sunglasses, Arthur Lincoln was marching toward him.
"Von! You’re here. Let’s walk and talk," Arthur said, barely breaking his stride as he gestured for Von and Emily to follow him toward the video village.
"We’ve got the fans drilled and resting. The lighting grid is balanced. But we made a slight adjustnt to the choreography of the walkout."
"What kind of adjustnt?" Von asked, stepping over a thick bundle of wires.
"We are doing the transition in one continuous Steadicam shot," Arthur explained, pointing toward a burly cara operator wearing a complex chanical vest that held the massive Arri Alexa cara.
"From the mont you break out of the white room, down the dark hallway, and straight through the double doors into the mosh pit. There won’t be any cuts. It keeps the raw, visceral energy intact and saves us a fortune in post-production splicing."
Arthur stopped and turned to face Von. "But one-takes are a nightmare. If the focus puller sses up, if a fan trips, or if you drop your intensity for even a split second, we have to reset the entire warehouse. It all depends on you, Von. You need to give
a flawless performance right out of the gate. I don’t want to do multiple takes of this."
"You won’t have to," Von said smoothly, though he was acutely aware of his ticking EXP clock. He only had 230 EXP left. At 20 EXP a minute, he had exactly eleven and a half minutes of absolute perfection in him.
"Good. Now co et your army," Arthur smirked, leading them toward the holding area.
Two hundred fans were currently lounging on folding chairs and tal crates, drinking water and resting their legs after an exhausting hour of stunt coordination. They all wore the dark, heavy Vanguard Nightshade gear, their pristine white masquerade masks resting on their laps or pushed up onto their foreheads.
When Von walked around the partition, it took exactly three seconds for soone to notice him.
A girl in the second row gasped loudly, dropping her water bottle. The sound echoed, and suddenly, two hundred heads snapped in his direction.
"Oh my god... Von!"
The holding area erupted. It wasn’t a stadium of thousands, but the sheer, concentrated volu of two hundred die-hard V-Stans screaming his na was deafening.
They jumped to their feet as disbelief and euphoria washed over them. Even though they had signed the NDAs and knew exactly why they were there, the reality of Von Varley actually standing ten feet away from them, wearing the sa streetwear they were wearing, broke their composure.
Von grinned, letting his natural aura flare just enough to warm the room. He didn’t hold back his appreciation. He gave a deep, theatrical bow, straightened up, and blew a kiss to the crowd.
"Thank you, y’all. It’s an absolute pleasure to work with you for real. You fought for this budget, so today, we’re making history together."
The fans cheered again, their faces practically glowing with pride and adrenaline.
"Alright, save the bonding for the wrap party!" Arthur’s voice bood over the PA system, cutting through the excitent. "We are losing daylight, and we have a movie to make! So, masks on! Get to your marks in the main floor! Von you’ll head to the White Box!"
The atmosphere instantly shifted from a fan et-and-greet to a high-stakes Hollywood set. The fans, highly disciplined from their earlier training, imdiately fell silent, slipped their eerie white masks over their faces, and marched out to the main warehouse floor.
Von was led in the opposite direction, stepping into the Sterile Box.
It was a brilliantly constructed,nightmare. A perfectly square room built with blindingly white, seamless walls, flooded with harsh, shadowless fluorescent light. In the dead center sat a single white chair.
"Take a seat," a wardrobe assistant whispered, adjusting the collar of Von’s jacket.
Von sat down. Five professional stuntn, dressed in white corporate suits and wearing blank white masks, surrounded him. One placed a hand heavily on Von’s shoulder, pressing him firmly into the chair, almost as if he were shackled to it. Another stood in front of him, holding a makeup brush, ready to paint sothing on his fact.
"Cara is rolling! Sound speeding!" the First Assistant Director yelled from the shadows outside the box.
Von closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, visualizing the oppressive weight of the Star Mansion.
[Skill: Emote (Rank B) — Activated. -20 EXP/Min.]
When Von opened his violet eyes behind his golden mask, the shift was terrifying.
A thin layer of sweat broke out on his forehead and the air in the white room seed to plumt in temperature. The actor holding Von’s shoulder actually flinched, feeling a deeply unsettling aura radiating from Von’s body.
"Action!"
The haunting, lancholic piano intro of Masquerade began playing softly over the speakers.
The five executives hovered over Von like vultures, aggressively powdering his neck, adjusting his collar, and trying to physically force his posture into a submissive slouch.
Von let his body go rigid, projecting the exhaustion of a captive.
(You put the weight on my back, and I let you...)
Von sang the slow intro with fatigue. For a while, he continued struggling to leave the stool but all his efforts were useless. So he continued singing in defeat.
Until the turning point arrived.
(Dancing with the lie ’til the party’s over... Masquerade.)
The piano vanished and the heavy, distorted 808 trap beat slamd into the soundstage.
The beat seed to give Von confidence as he imdiately exploded from the white stool.
He grabbed the wrist of the executive trying to fix his jacket and twisted violently, shoving the man backward into the stark white wall. Because they were seasoned stuntn, the actor took the impact with perfection, throwing himself into the drywall to sell the hit.
Von didn’t stop. He ducked under a grabbing arm from a second executive and drove a harsh, choreographed elbow into the man’s chest. He shoved the remaining three aside, throwing them off balance, and kicked the white stool out of his way.
Leaving the executives groaning on the floor, Von marched straight out of the blindingly bright set.
The Steadicam operator backpedaled smoothly to keep him in fra. Von stalked down the dimly lit, concrete hallway of the warehouse.
The lighting above him flickered violently. He was rapping now with an aggressive flow.
Still wearing the golden mask, he clawed at the edges of it as he walked but he just couldn’t get it off his face no matter how much he yanked at it.
It was a struggled that seed so real and horrifying.
(Caught up in all these lights and caras... But look what that room did to manners...)
Von reached the end of the corridor. Ahead of him was a set of steel double doors. With a violent kick, Von forced them open and stepped out onto a raised tal that overlooked the massive main warehouse floor.
Below him, it was pure chaos. The lights glowed frantically and the two hundred V-Stans, decked out in their black Vanguard gear and white masks, were thrashing and moshing to the heavy trap beat.
Von stepped to the edge of the platform railing and began watching them in confusion. They danced to the song for a while and he sang like he was in a trance, until he shook his head. Sothing wasn’t right.
Von held the sides of the golden mask and with a full-body groan, he ripped it off his face.
Instantly, the playback music was killed and there was only silence in the massive warehouse.
Below him, the two hundred fans froze completely. Mid-sway, mid-shout, mid-thrash, they turned into breathless statues under the dimming lights.
Standing on the raised platform, Von stood frozen as well. His chest was heaving violently and his forehead was coated in sweat.
Through the active [Emote] skill, he channeled terror through his face. He now looked like a man who had just escaped a psychological torture chamber.
He panted heavily, his eyes wide and trembling as he stared into the hollow inside of the golden mask in his hands.
Slowly, horizontally, he looked down at the sea of frozen, white-masked faces below him. The horror on his face deepened. He looked terrified of the reality he had uncovered.
He looked back at the golden mask and his fingers trembled.
Then he let it drop.
clack
The sound of the heavy prop hitting the tal grating echoed through the dead-quiet warehouse.
Von stared at it for a fraction of a second before the fear vanished, instantly replaced by explosive rage. He raised his heavy combat boot and brought it down with a furious, devastating stomp.
CRACK.
The specialized breakaway material of the mask shattered instantly, sending golden shards scattering across the tal platform.
Von slowly raised his head, looking back down at the frozen fans. Then, as if a dark spell had been broken by the shattering of the gold, the crowd moved.
In perfect unison, two hundred hands reached up, grabbed their white plastic masks, and tore them away, revealing their true, flushed faces.
Two hundred heavy combat boots raised into the air and stomped down simultaneously, crushing the white plastic into dust against the concrete floor.
A slow, manic smile began to stretch across Von’s sweaty face. The fear was entirely gone, replaced by unhinged euphoria of liberation.
He stepped right up to the edge of the railing and spread his arms wide, like a conductor welcoming a symphony of chaos.
?? ??
The 808 trap beat exploded back to life through the massive subwoofers.
The strobe lights went hyperactive. The mosh pit below went completely feral. Von held the railing, leaning over his screaming, unmasked army, rapping the final, aggressive verses directly to them as they jumped, threw water into the air, and roared the lyrics back at him.
Von began to use [Reasonance] right away, and under the influence of his emotion, it felt like the birth of a revolution.
After a while, the beat abruptly cut out.
The frantic strobes snapped off, plunging the warehouse into pitch darkness. A single, harsh white spotlight slamd down from the rafters, illuminating only Von on the platform. Below him, the fans froze once more, panting heavily in the dark.
(Dancing with the lie ’til the party’s over... Masquerade.)
Von delivered the final outro directly with his head face down and his chest rising and falling. He held the final note, letting it echo into the darkness before Arthur’s voice ca through.
"CUT!"
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