Chapter 23:

“I, I don’t know… hiccup!”

“Calm down. I’m here with you. It’s all over.”

“Sob… sob…”

In the woods, the ending scene for the [The Blair Witch Project] was finally shot, and it has left June crying and too scared that Will has to hold her in his arms.

The ending of the movie was scary, even to Will, and in the end, his improvisations left June so scared that she wasn’t able to stop crying.

Finally, after consoling her for a long time, June stopped sobbing, and in the warmth of his hands, she started feeling better.

“Hey, June. You okay now?”

Will asked, his eyes looking into hers, but she shook her body and snuggled more.

“I’m still scared. Let me be for a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t know if it was just because of her feelings for him or if she was really too scared, but he let her stay in his arms for a while.

Jeffery and the other crew members didn’t say anything seeing that and just chuckled. They left Will and June alone and tended to Marcus and Zach.

Both of them were in much better shape than June, but they were scared nonetheless.

The next morning, all of them have a compulsory meeting with a psychiatrist that Will has called.

After all, actors would often get traumatised after the shooting of a horror movie. And [The Blair Witch Project] was even shot really realistically.

In this world’s Hollywood, there was even a conspiracy theory about a popular actress in the 90s who was found dead in her apartment after shooting a horror movie.

There were reports that she was having mental health issues due to her character in the movie and ended up taking her own life.

Will didn’t want any of his actors to have any problems like this, so he has prepared everything in advance.

The following day after the meeting with the psychiatrist, they shot the final scene and like Will had said at the beginning of the shooting, all three of them were glad to shoot the scene.

* * *

It was a young girl’s room filled with books and posters. Heather was standing in front of the camera, and Mike was shooting her.

This was the first scene that the movie started with, and Heather smiled as Mike asked.

“You look a little blurry. Let me zoom out, okay?”

“Okay. Huh.”

“Okay, got you.”

“This is my home, which I am leaving the comforts of, for the weekend. To explore the Blair Witch.”

She said, and Mike closed upon a pile of books. There were some books that were famous in the 90s.

“Some essential reading. How To Stay Alive in the Woods, cause you never know what’s going to happen.”

She said, picking up one book. Her words were enough to show how excited she was about her upcoming adventure.

Turning her head, she picked up one book and showed it to the camera.

“And this is a very important book, because it has the article about what happened at Coffin Rock.”

“That’s pretty old.” Mike remarked, and Heather nodded.

“Yeah, it’s totally old.”

“And this is my field notebook.”

With that the scene ended, and they finally got more than 20 hours of footage which was enough to edit into a great movie.

“Cut! That’s a wrap!”

As Will’s voice resounded, all the cast and crew took a sigh of relief.

The shooting was finally over!

* * *

As the shooting had finished, everyone, including the crew and the cast, finally took some breather. It was time to fly back to Los Angeles.

Although it was a fast and lively city without much peace, they were already missing it after this horror ride.

Everyone started packing up. June, who had finally calmed down after the lively last scene shoot, kept glancing at Will after every minute.

As the whole cast and crew readied themselves to depart themselves from the same bus they had come from, Will told Jeffrey that they both would go in a car.

Although June wanted to complain, she decided not to be nosy.

On their way to the airport, Jeffrey was all smiles. Nobody can compare this guy to the one Will had first met. His temperament and atmosphere had changed a lot.

“You seem especially happy for someone who rejected the idea of recording a movie in a camcorder.”

Will teased, making Jeffrey laugh as he patted his shoulder and said.

“Haha, you know it just as well as I do, just how crazy that idea sounded at first.”

Will didn’t refute it, of course, for an alternate universe like this without any success in such a type of movie; the found footage technique would seem like a fool’s errand at first.

As he thought that, he suddenly remembered something and said,

“Ah yes, Jeffrey. Do we have any good editors in our crew? We need to cut out these 20 hours of raw recording into a movie. We need to add many types of sound effects and such; I’d really appreciate a good editor.”

Will was really worried about this. He didn’t know where this world’s technology stood; although he had researched it, he didn’t know how hard it’d be to find a good editor. So he couldn’t help but ask Jeffrey.

Jeffrey, who heard this, smiled as he said,

“About that, actually, my wife is an editor too. She is the best one I know of. Why don’t you give her the work? You can make her edit a short clip and check her capabilities.”

Will was surprised after hearing that. He knew Jeffrey was married as Jeffrey would mention his wife in almost every talk. What surprised him was that she was an editor too, a good one at that.

Will knew Jeffrey wasn’t the type to lie about someone’s capabilities just because they were his family or friend, so Will couldn’t help but sigh in relief that his last concern related to the movie production was taken care of.

“By the way, have you decided which distribution company you’re going for?”

Jeffrey asked. Since the movie was produced, now the main concern would be its distribution. Thousands of movies are produced every year in Hollywood, but not all get the chance to be played on big screens due to their distribution methods.

“Don’t worry about that; I’ve decided to send them to some distribution companies after the final clip is ready.”

Will replied, and Jeffrey didn’t ask more about it.

As they reached the airport and showed their boarding passes to get entry, Jeffrey couldn’t help but comment.

“Don’t forget your promise, okay?”

“Yeah, I won’t.”

Will chuckled in his reply. He had promised Jeffrey that he’d organise a big afterparty if the movie crossed the 100 million mark at the box office.

Although Jeffrey didn’t believe in that promise before since he didn’t think the movie would earn so much after the movie was ready, he somehow just couldn’t stick to his previous opinion.

…

//DreamNote//

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