Shuck Face (A Dylan O'Brien Story)

Chapter 7

When my alarm went off at 11am on Saturday, I wanted to cry. After Monday, we spent every night with Dylan and that crowd. It had been in someone's room at their hotel until last night. No, last night we decided to go enjoy the Nola night life. Hart and I got back to our room around 4 this morning. Luckily, we both fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. That doesn't mean 7 hours is enough sleep after a night like that. It's not that we drank too much. None of us actually drank much at all. We just DANCED and laughed and walked all around the French Quarter. Which is even more exhausting after a long day of filming.

    "What time do you have to be there again?" Hartley groggily asked, rubbing her eyes.

    I slid out of bed and stretched. "1. Are you still gonna tag along?" She barely nodded. "I'm gonna go shower then. We'll get dressed and grab food on the way."

    Everyone got Saturday and Sunday off after a successful first week of filming. Kaya said they rarely get a full weekend off, so we better enjoy it while we can. Wes did ask me to come in for a few hours today to go over some details for the next few days of filming. I told Hartley she could stay at the hotel, go explore the city, or hang out with the group. She insisted on coming to set with me. Wes said he didn't mind. I think she only wants to come so she can know ahead of time what scenes we are doing. SPOILER ALERT, Newt dies. When we read the script, we both started crying. Thank goodness we were the only two in the room. She said she wants a heads up when we film that scene because she'll need to "mentally prepare". As close as we are with this group, I think I'll need to mentally prepare as well.

    Hartley hopped in the shower while I finished getting dressed. Wes put us in a hotel that was only 10 minutes from set. When we were ready to go at 12, we decided to walk to the restaurant next door and eat lunch. We sat there until the last possible minute trying to fully wake up. We walked on set and found Wes a couple minutes before 1. He took one look at us and laughed.

    "Late night, huh?"

    Hartley grunted. "Don't remind me."

    "Braxton is here. He said if you wanted, you could go to his office and ya'll can go through this week's pictures."

    "Oh, perfect. I'd rather go ahead and get it out of the way now. I'll see you guys later."

    After she left, Wes led me over to a mess of papers.

    "These are the scenes we are doing this week."

    I shuffled them around, carefully reading which scenes he had picked.

    "I gotta ask... When are we doing Newt's death scene?"

    Wes took his baseball cap off and ran a hand through his hair before putting the cap back on. "I wish we weren't doing it ever. But you don't have to worry about that for another few weeks. We are hoping to stick to a schedule of 8 week shooting. If we are on schedule, we will shoot that scene sometime during week 6."

    Nodding, I finished sorting through the papers. "I know he dies close to the end of the movie."

    Wes plopped down in a chair and slid one out for me. "Yeah. We will probably do it early week 6, use the rest of that week and part of week 7 for the last few scenes, and then the rest of the time we will do any retakes and preparing to put everything together."

    This seemed to be a good time to ask any questions I had about the whole producing thing. You can only learn so much in school, I'd rather get firsthand information.

    "Can you explain the whole process to me? I know we learned about this in class, but my teacher said every movie and producer is different. Different timelines, different ways of doing things. So I just want to make sure I fully understand what's going on here."

    I got a look of approval from Wes. "I'm glad you asked me that. I was cool if you were just gonna go with the flow, but I prefer to be prepared, so I'm happy to see you want to know everything now. In about an hour, we are going to go and watch the scenes from this past week. That's what we are going to do every 5-6 days. We have to make sure everything in each scene is just right. No crew members showing up in frame or anything out of place. After we finish filming and doing retakes, that's when everyone, except the producers, animation and special effects department, editorial department, and music department, will go their separate ways. We will sit down and cut all the scenes together. Once we do that and put in any effects and music needed, a few of us will go in and watch the film. And... hope to God that it turns out okay."

     I leaned back in my chair, processing the information. "So all the stuff after filming takes... how long?"

    "Usually about a week at most as long as we work thoroughly and do it all right the first time. I plan on keeping you around until we're finished, Chuck. With the first week of filming down, our part still has another 8-9 weeks left. You'll be done before graduation, so you won't have to worry about that. But you will be with me every step of the way. I want you to learn this job inside and out. And..." He paused leaning forward and propping his arms on the table. "After the film is completely finished, I want you with me when we do the press tour."

    "Wes, you usually only take Eddie, if anyone."

    He nodded. "Yes, and I'm sure Eddie will be with us on some things, but you have a much bigger role in this movie than you think. You are part of this, and as I said, you'll be with me every step of the way. Ready to get started?"

    I nodded as we stood up to make our way to the viewing room.