•Familia•

Chapter 59: Hard Work

Aaron POV
Now that everyone is gone, this is where the hard work begins. I can have longer hours at work and shoot more. It might be good to get things over with, but it is very tiring and really hard work. This also means the turned up conditioning.

Conditioning is the worst. It's where we work out to look extra crazy for the movie. It's a thing that sucks because you tire yourself out just to do something to tire you out again and you don't get a break. They even make us do a couple of pushups in the middle of being on set. I don't know what it does, but they say it makes us look buffer.

I make it to work at 5:50 in the morning. Everyone is still groggy, but it's the usual. We have our usual breakfast of protein shakes and low calorie thing and we start working out. For me it starts thirty minutes on the treadmill. We go through the routine and load up in Gatorade's. We've learned that it helps with energy when you're done working out.

Hair and makeup is crazy because everyone has like five people working on them at once. I have one lady styling my hair to look like it's gelled back but not formal. For some scenes they make me have cuts and look dirty. It does take a while but it's the only relaxing period we have during work. That's also the only time we can stuff our faces with food. Even though it's not great food and it doesn't make you full, it beats being starved.

We spend hours on set today. When I say hours, I mean hours. Each scene is 10 minutes and we need to shoot 12 of them. They may not seem like a lot but we did each scene almost 4 times. These are also scenes where everything starts to go wrong. This is where the journey begins as the building started to catch on fire. So we have to have real emotions and acting as we go and go through pushing our physics to the end. We also have to do a lot of our own stunts because it would be really hard to swap out with a stuntman or woman seamlessly. No matter how much editing you do, it would be hard.

After being exhausted from shooting some of the scenes, we get to go home. Normally we would get like 2 scene a day because they take awhile to shoot, but now after that setback that we had we have to shoot 3 scenes a day. We know that a lot of these scenes will get cut out, but they still have to be shot to see what stays in and out. We're going to shot the rest of the scenes then we're flying out to Washington to film some more. But before we fly out we get to go home for a week and then we get flown out to Washington.

I meet up with my buddies Alex and Jahmir, who are in the movie, and Chris that is one of the cameramen for dinner afterwords. We talk about how much work it is to be on set. We get each other's point of view on everything.

"I had no idea how hard but stressful it is to pretend you're in a fire. Imagine how it feels to be in a real one" Jahmir complains.

"I would be ok if I never had to run down a flight of stairs again" Alex sighs his main shot in the scenes that we shot today was him fleeing down the stairs.

"Fake scaling a building is difficult with a fifty pound sand bag in your arms" I complain.

"Imagine have to follow you with the camera the whole time" Chris complains

"You almost made me laugh when you were dangling with the safety gear on the box that was supposed be the building. I could see how scared you were and you farted" I laugh.

"Hey, I was scared and scared doesn't mix well with the cereal I had this morning" he rubs his stomach.

"You're just like my wife. She knows she's lactose intolerant but still eats it" I say

"I would hate being like that. I'm so addicted to ice cream to not eat it" Jahmir says. We talk for a little while longer but then call it a night so we can get ready for the busy day that we have tomorrow. I can already feel the tiredness creeping up on me. I give everyone at home a quick FaceTime call and take off all the makeup that makes me look burnt. The shower feels so good to get all the sweat and work of the day. I tend to think a lot while I'm in the shower. It's like me free time. I do think about all the hard work that it takes to be an actor and all the struggles and things that I'm going through and putting other people through, but I change my mindset on everything. No matter how much complaining and hard work goes into this, it's a great opportunity and it's something that I've always dreamed of doing. I think about how cool it is and about how many people work to get to this point for years, including me. I realize how amazing it is for me to get this privilege and earn this. That's how I keep my head level and my mindset straight during this time. It's how I keep myself grounding during all situations. I think about the outcome and what it took to get there. Everyone asks me how it is to just be the bigger person in all situations and how I control my emotions the way I do, this is how. I reflect at the end of everyday and I look at the bright side because I know that every opportunity some how has to be a good one.