Chapter 019: Director Williams
Chapter 019: Director Williams
“I don’t like you, Mr. Williams.”
Taking advantage of his daughter going to the restroom, John Aniston, sitting across from Eric, spoke with a slightly stiff expression.
Eric was somewhat at a loss for words and could only shrug. “May I know why, John?”
John Aniston said, “For all these years, Jenny has hated me in her heart. I’ve always felt guilty about what happened back then and hoped she would forgive me. Last night, she called me. Do you know that? It was the first time she had ever taken the initiative to call me. I was so happy I nearly jumped up.”
“And the reason my daughter called was actually to ask me to help her boyfriend. The guy who might steal my daughter away from me.”
Alright then. That reason was powerful enough.
The saying that a daughter was her father’s lover from a previous life was not just empty talk. Under normal circumstances, fathers-in-law and sons-in-law rarely had good relationships.
Eric could only shrug again.
The two men immediately fell into awkward silence.
Aniston returned from the restroom very quickly and sat down beside Eric with a smile. The intimate way she leaned close to him made John Aniston even more displeased.
Still, it had not been easy for his daughter to reconcile with him voluntarily, so he was not foolish enough to lose his temper on the spot.
With Aniston smoothing things over, the meal remained fairly pleasant on the surface.
Whenever John Aniston tried to put on the airs of an elder and lecture Eric about things like being too ambitious, his daughter would immediately glare at him in annoyance.
In the end, John Aniston still agreed to help Eric contact actors as much as possible.
With the help of John Aniston, who had extensive connections in the television industry, Eric quickly found actors for most of the roles.
And because John Aniston mediated the negotiations, the salaries were not high, which made Eric greatly relieved.
Only the role of one of the two dumb burglars, Marv, left Eric somewhat hesitant over several candidates.
That was until Aniston brought one of her classmates and friends before him.
Looking at that naturally unlucky-looking face, Eric made the decision almost immediately after a brief screen test.
Because the guy’s name was Matthew Perry, one of the six main cast members from Friends in Eric’s previous life.
Afterward, Eric and Jeffrey Hansen flew to Canada several times.
Eventually, they found a small town suitable for filming Kevin’s home scenes.
The nonstop work caused Eric to lose several pounds within just a week.
When Aniston learned about it, she felt both distressed and envious.
On October 17, Eric officially began filming the first movie he would direct after his rebirth.
Several crew members had already been sent ahead to the selected Canadian town to decorate Kevin’s house set, while most of the team remained in Los Angeles to shoot scenes such as the airport and police station that did not require snowy scenery.
After all, this was the world’s largest film production base, making filming far more convenient.
From the lighting crew to the actors, nearly everyone on the crew had agreed to participate mostly because of money and the reputation of Jeffrey Hansen and John Aniston.
Although they had many concerns about Eric, deep down they also had their own thoughts.
To put it in Eric’s previous-life terms: What if it unexpectedly became a hit?
They had already learned the contents of Home Alone and were relieved that this absurdly young director was not trying to shoot some pretentious arthouse film like many young directors did.
As a result, they felt Home Alone actually had a decent chance of succeeding.
With a one-million-dollar production budget and the halo Eric currently possessed from Back to 17 and Jurassic Park, the film might even make a respectable profit.
Furthermore, Eric had promised during production that if the movie made money, everyone would receive additional bonuses.
Because Eric had provided work for the crew his wife left behind, Jeffrey Hansen showed up punctually on set every day once filming began.
Originally, Jeffrey had intended to use his years of experience to help Eric, this “newbie.”
But after just one day, Jeffrey began doubting life itself.
God was truly unfair.
Eric showed none of the frantic confusion of a first-time director.
From the moment filming started, he behaved exactly like a seasoned director with years of experience behind him.
He discussed prop placement methodically with the set designers, used highly professional terminology when discussing upcoming shots with the cinematographer, instructed the lighting crew to create the exact effects he wanted, and patiently explained scenes to the actress playing Kevin’s mother, despite her being more than ten years older than him…
Of course, whenever repeated mistakes occurred during filming, he also displayed the innate racial talent of directors everywhere:
The Director’s Roar.
“Ms. Leslie, what I need is a confused expression. Confused, not curious! From my observations, you definitely have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies. So this expression should be very easy for you.”
“Imagine yourself lying in bed at night, thinking you may have forgotten to lock the front door or that the kitchen faucet might still be dripping, but you can’t be certain what exactly is wrong. That kind of conflicting emotional state. Imagine those scenes!”
“Oh, damn it! We only rented this airplane for three hours. Three hours! Alright, everybody get ready, one more take! Nickel, are you trying to see the clouds through the airplane’s titanium alloy ceiling? Focus, damn it!”
Because of Eric’s earlier outstanding performance, the entire crew had already begun acknowledging his authority as director.
So when the actress playing Kevin’s mother, Ms. Leslie, repeatedly made mistakes in the scene where she remembered Kevin being left home alone aboard the airplane, Eric became anxious that the filming schedule might be disrupted and instinctively exploded in anger.
Everyone unconsciously forgot Eric was only eighteen years old and fell silent in fear.
The thirty-something cinematographer named Nickel Frank, when scolded by Eric, completely forgot the young man before him was just an eighteen-year-old kid.
Subconsciously, he apologized:
“Sorry, Director Williams. I’ll pay attention.”
Many years later, when Nickel Frank stood on the stage of the Kodak Theatre receiving the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, the first thing he recalled was this exact moment.
He said:
“At that moment, in my subconscious, I completely regarded Eric as an authoritative master director rather than an eighteen-year-old young man. It was as if he had been born to command an entire film crew.”
After another NG, the shot finally passed.
Eric also let out a sigh of relief, then immediately regretted losing his temper and proactively apologized to Ms. Leslie.
“I’m sorry, Leslie. My tone was too harsh just now.”
“It’s alright, Director Williams. I really didn’t perform well enough. I should be the one apologizing. Besides, the way you looked when you got angry was actually pretty charming.”
“Uh…”
Eric very much wanted to remind her that this was the beginning symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome and she really needed treatment.
Over the following days, Eric noticed that the crew members who originally addressed him directly as Eric had unconsciously changed the way they referred to him.
Now they all called him “Director Williams.”
Even Jeffrey Hansen was no exception.
Eric understood this meant the crew had completely acknowledged him as their director from the bottom of their hearts.
As a result, commanding the crew became increasingly effortless.
In only four days, the crew completed all the Los Angeles scenes and moved entirely to the Canadian town.
A few crew members had already arrived earlier to decorate Kevin’s house.
Although Eric had only directed them over the phone, when he saw the completed apartment layout, he was extremely satisfied.
At the same time, he became even more determined to recruit the team Jeffrey’s wife had left behind under his own banner permanently.
No one had ever filmed a movie in this small town in northern Canada before, so the residents were both enthusiastic and curious.
Even before Eric arrived, many people had already been asking the crew members he sent whether they could appear as extras in small roles.
Furthermore, since the movie involved Christmas scenes, every household in town voluntarily decorated their homes.
The entire town looked as though it were celebrating Christmas ahead of schedule, filled with festive cheer.
Naturally, Eric responded in kind.
He generously invited several local children to make cameo appearances in the film.
The scenes shot in the town mostly involved the little protagonist Kevin’s daily life and his tricks against the two dumb burglars.
As a pure Christmas comedy, the movie did not require any deeper meaning at all.
It only needed to be funny.
On top of that, Stuart’s acting performance was far superior to Macaulay Culkin’s in Eric’s previous life.
The filming progress could only be described as lightning-fast.
Eric was certain they could complete all filming within a week.
During this period, another matter also occurred.
While Penny Marshall was busily handling the post-production work for Back to 17 in Los Angeles, she suddenly discovered they could not find Eric anymore when they needed him to dub some scenes.
He would not answer the phone, and when they went directly to his house, the doors were tightly shut.
Penny Marshall even began imagining terrible possibilities and was on the verge of calling the police before finally learning Eric’s whereabouts through Aniston.
Over the phone, Penny Marshall gave him a lengthy scolding and demanded that Eric return to Los Angeles within a week.
Aside from dubbing work, the promotional campaign for Back to 17 also required Eric’s participation.
Naturally, the fact that Eric was filming Home Alone was exposed as well.
As expected, Penny Marshall criticized Eric like an elder lecturing a younger generation, saying he was too ambitious and similar things.
However, she did not take Eric’s movie very seriously.
Unlike the staff on Eric’s own crew who had experienced his abilities firsthand, she naturally assumed this was merely some youthful nonsense project.
Once immersed in work, Eric became practically a different person from normal.
Although he got along well enough with the people on set, that was all.
Meanwhile, Matthew Perry, whom Aniston had introduced, occasionally tried getting closer to Eric by chatting with him from time to time.
Eric himself was quite interested in Matthew Perry, but at this stage, completing Home Alone outweighed everything else in his mind.
Naturally, he had no chance to deepen their acquaintance for the time being.
One week later, filming in the town wrapped up successfully.
Thanks to the careful planning of Jeffrey Hansen and Eric, they had only spent a little over six hundred thousand dollars so far, leaving more than three hundred thousand dollars remaining.
That was more than enough to complete post-production.
So Eric generously threw a party in the town, inviting the entire crew and all the townspeople to celebrate wildly for the night.
The next morning, while many people were still suffering from hangovers, Eric had already boarded a flight back to Los Angeles carrying the completed film reels.
After spending half a day finishing the dubbing work for Back to 17, Eric plunged headfirst into the post-production studio Jeffrey had introduced him to and began working like a madman.
For the next several days, Eric worked more than sixteen hours a day.
In only five days, he completed the entire post-production process to everyone’s astonishment.
Because everything already existed fully formed in his mind, Eric could work at such terrifying speed.
Among everything, the fact that he completed the entire editing process in less than a single day caused the editor assisting him to look at Eric with nothing short of worship in his eyes.
Five days later, inside a shabby screening room with only five or six seats, more than ten people were crowded together.
Most of them were crew members from Home Alone.
Aniston had also specifically come to watch Eric’s directorial debut.
Amid the faint humming of the projector, the film officially began with the blue silhouette of a house beneath hazy moonlight…