Chapter 83: Real Human Actors

Chapter 83: Chapter 83: Real Human Actors

Half a month later, the official channels of the three Martinez siblings all posted a recruitment notice at once, which made everyone looking at it think their eyes were playing tricks.

#RECRUITMENT NOTICE#

The film crew of [The Love Song on the Rooftop] is recruiting for the following positions:

REAL HUMAN ACTORS (Long-term contracts under consideration)

+) Registration period: three days from the issue of this recruitment notice

+) Number required: 24

+) Experience: not required

+) Gender: no restriction

+) Mental power grade: Not required

+) Age and appearance: from sixteen to fifty-six, taller than 1m65, pleasant to look at

+) Special requirements: free of cardiovascular and gland disease, able to withstand psychological pressure and the pressure of high-intensity training

+) Free training, 100% of living costs covered during the training period. Base salary on a long-term contract: 10 million silver stars/month. Pay per shooting day: 2 million silver stars/day, with commission based on revenue after release: lead roles 0.5%; supporting roles: 0.2%.

+) Application submission period: beginning at 2pm this afternoon through the official recruitment channel @New Generation Film Producers, with no limit on the number of registrations. A successful audition registration will be scheduled for an audition within three days.

POST-PRODUCTION STAFF (Long-term contract)

Requirements: over five years’ experience in image processing and building digital sets. Salary: 12 million silver stars a month, with an allowance for good work.

III. MAKE-UP AND COSTUME STAFF (Long-term contract)

Requirements: experience in cosmetics, special make-up and styling for actors. Choosing costumes suited to the actor’s scene. Base salary 8 million silver stars a month, with an allowance for good work.

SOUND AND LIGHTING TECHNICIANS (Long-term contract)

Requirements: able to build background sound and lighting to suit the setting, priority to those with experience in multi-style sound mixing. Salary 20 million silver stars a month, with an allowance for good work.

#We look forward to your taking part, our sincere thanks!#

The moment this notice came out, the whole Galactic network exploded. The comment section collapsed in under a minute.

[What is a real human actor? Like an AI actor but made of a person?]

[Meaning they make a real person stand there pretending to be somebody else? Sounds a bit... odd?]

[Real human actors have been extinct for at least three hundred years, who still works in that trade now? What is wrong with this family of siblings?]

[I want to take part so badly but I am only 1m64, could I get the height lowered just the tiniest bit?]

[Hahaha! I thought 1m65 was already the lowest height there was, I never imagined there were people who do not even reach 1m65!]

[Er, why do the actors only get 10 million while the sound technicians get 20 million? Exploitation?]

[Read it properly. The 10 million is what they pay you for sitting idle waiting for your scene. Add 2 million a shooting day, shoot twenty days and that is fifty million. Not counting commission.]

[Hold on, 0.5% commission of the revenue? OF AN ENTIRE FILM? Mother, I want to go and be an actor!]

[I have followed brother Sunflower’s channel for two months now, there is nothing he has set out to do that has failed. I am registering. I do not know what an actor is but I am registering.]

That same day, the official channel of New Generation Film Producers received more than four thousand application files for the actor positions, the staff in charge of registration had to work overtime until eight in the evening to sift through them.

After filtering out three thousand applications sent in for a laugh, a thousand people were left, and these they divided into two forms: in-person auditions for those in the Polaris star system and online auditions for those in other star systems. These people would be sent a short section of the screenplay chosen according to how well their appearance suited the character, to learn by heart, with the auditions starting three days later.

While the outside world was discussing it in an uproar, the film world reacted in an entirely different way.

There were a great many opposing opinions, among which not supporting the use of real people to act in films took up the greater part.

A well-known AI director in the Solaris star system posted a piece three thousand words long, the gist of it being that the art of cinema had already passed through its primitive period, and that trying to revive a form of labour that had been weeded out was not creation but a stunt put on by a few moneyed outsiders.

The piece received more than two million likes.

Elijah finished reading it and was angry enough to go red in the face, meaning to charge in for a war of words, but Liam held him back.

"Let him talk." Liam waved a hand: "The more he talks, the more people get curious. We are saving ourselves a fairly handsome advertising bill."

Elijah snorted a laugh: "You really are good at making use of things."

Benjamin was looking over the recruitment information, there was no telling what he had read but his eyebrows twisted into one knot:

"Someone has posted their section of the screenplay publicly on the network. The number has already risen to fifty-seven."

Liam’s face went cold: "They signed a confidentiality contract for the audition, yet this lot act as though nothing has happened, do they?"

He immediately contacted the person in charge of the Interstellar Connection platform to take down every one of the posts, at the same time requesting the Hall family’s law office to send letters of suit to every person who had violated the terms of the contract.

Benjamin posted an announcement as well:

#The audition eligibility of the following individuals is revoked (@ the names of fifty-seven people) and letters from the Law Office have been sent to these individuals at the same time. Every act in violation of the confidentiality contract signed with the New Generation Film Producers Studio carries legal responsibility, we hope everyone will think before they act.#

[Bloody hell! Meaning the people who received this audition screenplay had already signed a confidentiality contract, right? And they dared to post it publicly?!]

[Are these people’s brains waterlogged with shit?]

[Good, now they not only lose the audition, they lose money on penalties too! Haha, sorry everyone, I let a laugh slip.]

[Hey, does nobody else find this screenplay gripping? I read a few disconnected sections, it was so compelling that I wanted to read every single section right that moment!]

[+1, here is a kindred spirit. I am curious about this film’s story too. Suddenly I want the film in cinemas as fast as possible.]

In a short space of time, the comments shifted from criticising the people who had broken the contract towards commenting on the screenplay. The actors had not been found yet, the film had not started rolling yet, and its heat was already hanging at the top of the number one chart for days on end.

After three days given to the applicants to prepare, the first audition session began.

"Out! Next."

"Out!" "Out!" Fifty "Out"s in a row within the space of a single hour. The people waiting outside for their audition were unsettled by the string of "Out"s, while Benjamin and Elijah inside the assessment room felt even more unsettled. The first fifty people to walk in had certainly come to make fun of them, because when they were not overacting wildly they were as stiff as corpses, so that it was impossible to choose a single one.

"Next." Benjamin said listlessly over the loudspeaker.

A small-framed female Beta stepped in timidly. At the sight of her, Elijah’s back immediately straightened, a little light of hope in both eyes. Benjamin glanced over the girl’s appearance for a moment, then said:

"Hello, please introduce yourself."

"Hello... hello, everyone. My name is Natalie Joe, twenty years old, currently unemployed. I received section sixty-four."

Elijah nodded, saying: "Very pleased to meet you, Miss Joe. Please act out the scene where Ella is shut in the lavatory."

Natalie nodded tensely, after that she went out to the open space in the middle of the room. She took out of her bag a pair of thick black glasses for people with genetic defects along with a bottle of water. Natalie put the glasses on, after that she stripped off the climate-control jacket she was wearing then poured the bottle of water straight over herself.

Benjamin’s grip tightened on the pen in his hand, Elijah along with several of the crew’s official staff all drew a breath inwards at once.

It was winter now, on the planet Altair snow was already drifting down, and the Film Academy’s audition room had no climate control system at all!

Natalie was cold enough to shake, but she paid it no attention at all. She shook her hair out into a tangle, after that she dropped to her knees on the floor, her hand knocking ceaselessly at the air as though there really were a door in front of her.

Natalie wept, not the showy, screaming kind but the utterly despairing kind of a person in circumstances of fear, exhaustion and failing strength:

"Please... I beg you... please let me out... I want to go home... It is so dark... It is so cold... Mother... I am so cold... so hungry..."

Ella was a person with a genetic defect, her health and her mental power far weaker than an ordinary person’s. Section sixty-four is the scene where Ella is doused with dirty water and shut in the lavatory in the freezing depths of winter. At first she too cried out very loudly, hoping someone would hear and come to save her. But by that hour everyone in the school had gone home, so who was left to come and save her?

In the end, after calling for help again and again in vain, Ella could only breathe out a few sounds as faint as a mosquito’s whine, after that the hand beating at the door gradually went slack. Ella’s body slid down along the door panel, she lay on the cold floor, holding the body that was slowly going numb with cold.

The following day happened to fall on a weekend; no one was at the school except for a security guard. Ella’s mother had come to the school, begging the guard to help her find her daughter, but he had angrily shooed her away as if she were a beggar.

A two days later, once classes had resumed, Ella’s body was discovered. She had died from hunger and cold...

Everyone looked at Natalie curled motionless on the floor, as though they were seeing an Ella who had died in fear and despair, and every pair of eyes went red. Benjamin called cut, Natalie still lay there without stirring.

Elijah immediately stood up, picking up the climate-control jacket Natalie had thrown aside, draping it over her. He smiled: "Natalie, all right, the scene is over."

Natalie’s eyes snapped open at once, scrambling to her feet. She asked Elijah tensely: "Have I, have I passed the audition?"

Benjamin nodded in satisfaction: "Passed! Natalie, welcome to the crew of The Love Song on the Rooftop." He signed an appointment slip, stamped it and handed it to Natalie: "I will see you next Monday on the planet Sirius. Please come at exactly the time on the slip."

Natalie was dumbfounded for a moment, after which she was wild with joy. She bowed over and over in thanks to Benjamin and the crew’s staff.

A member of the logistics team immediately took Natalie through to the room next door, helping her dry herself off and take cold medicine before she went home.