The Safe Place (Bridge To Terabithia) || ✓

Ch. 11 - After production

There were a lot of confusing things that they had to do. Special effects came in, the green screen and even the blue, which Jess was thrown off at first until Leslie brought it down on him and explained the use for those two colored screens. The director told them to imagine a big and ferocious monster in front that in reality was just a tennis ball hanging from a string. In the beginning, Jess couldn't really deliver the facial expressions that they were looking for whenever the scene was being done so during their break, Leslie dragged him to the side to where Mason was and snatched his phone from him then showed Jess a picture of two combined monsters she was imagining in her head.

After the break, Jess returned back on set and was asked if he was ready. He simply nodded and went to his position with the image that Leslie showed still fresh in his mind. There were two things that he just had to ask Leslie when she showed him the picture which was first, 'where did you find them' and 'what is wrong with you'. Sometimes it was just strange how Leslie's mind would work and it freaked him out at times. He used those thoughts when doing the scene which proved to be a big help in completing it.

At the fourth day of filming, Leslie joined the boys and showed great potential in being a permanent child actress. Like the two in the beginning, she was hesitant and fumbled for the first few takes but by the 12th take, she had it all figured out and performed extraordinary well for someone who did not have any experience whatsoever. It was easy to film with Leslie by Jess's side. He knew how she would just casually throw her lines and when one of them would do something wrong she'd laugh it off to reduce the embarrassment that Jess was already feeling.

For the next few weeks they had been traveling around to other locations and even busy streets where sometimes they'd gain the attention of the public and have trouble with filming as they would get disrupted. Fortunately, Jesse's scenes were shot at night and at the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado where they stayed for at least a week before flying back to New York for the rest of the shooting.

While they were on a break from set and in their trailer doing their own separate things, Leslie asked Jess the most ridiculous thing that he had ever heard come out from her mouth. In a foreign language even.

     "Je suis la fille d'Athéna." She said suddenly, while Jess was playing at the foosball table with Scott. "Jess, what do you think is the acronym of suis in French?"

Jess stopped and looked at her, allowing Scott to score a point. "Why are you suddenly speaking French?"

"Fifth win. Poof." Scott made a whistling sound and laughed when Jess groaned and dragged himself to the couch next to Leslie and Mia. "Leslie–" she turned to him at that point "Alors que vous êtes un demi-dieu, je suis un satyre."

Taking French as well, Mia understood and laughed with the two other French speakers whereas Jess, was left dumbfounded as he was not yet fluent in it even though he had been learning the language for a month now.

Although he and Leslie were almost the same age, she really acted wiser than him and seemed to have a whole lot of knowledge that sometimes even the older two didn't possess. Times like when doing an interview after a couple of scenes you'd think that the interviewer was speaking to a grown up instead of a twelve year old. She'd be able to join the discussions of adults without making a fool out of herself which was such a big deal for the other three because they couldn't even match half the topics that the adults would be talking about.

     "Me does not understand whatever you all are saying." Jess said with a thick Italian accent that he had heard from a movie, earning the laughs of his friends as he added the hand gesture and even the face expression which was so iconic in the movie.