Chapter 394.The God of Steam
It was no surprise to anyone that the <Hex> story was complex. Supposedly, Olio was planning to shoot at least four to five hours of footage for the movie.
Even Titan studios had agreed to it and it won’t be a surprise to anyone if the final edit makes it to be 3 hours long.
That meant that the journey that Blaze would take wasn’t short. After all, out of the five hours that was supposedly going to be shot, he was going to be in more than 70 percent of the movie.
The screenplay was really focused on him as the central figure.
Early on in the story, he started off from a thief helping out the police and giving information about the gangs to them.
After the gangs found out about them, he was obviously in danger, so the police chief offered him a job. Not of a spy but to be a part of a special department in the police force.
The department is known as the inquisition department. It was a department set up to deal with all the supernatural forces — The cults, people who lost control over their powers and other ancient beasts that should have already been extinct.
Obviously, he wasn’t offered a place here for nothing.
It was because Blaze did have amazing intuition that hinted at him having dormant supernatural powers that prompted the police to keep an eye out for him and the best way to do it was to recruit him on their side.
Blaze also accepted the offer, knowing that if he didn’t, then the gangs were simply going to kill him.
There was no other way around.
Today, they were shooting a scene where he was meeting the chief of the inquisition department for the first time. In the church of one of the most famous gods in the world of Hex — Kashen, the God of Steam.
[Hex|17 February -2020|Act 3|Scene 1|Take 1]
“Why did you call me here? Is the headquarters of the inquisition department here at the church?”
Blaze asked as he looked at the man sitting next to him. He had a moustache with no additional beard on his face. He was wearing a hat, making him look like a wealthy gentleman.
pAnDa (nov)e1 In today’s society, hats and canes were a symbol. The better they are, the wealthier you look.
He was named Walter Finnigan.
“No, the followers would never let us do that. They call it blasphemy. Though, they do allow other things and that’s why we are here.”
Blaze just looked at him confused hearing that. They don’t allow it but they allow other things? He was unable to comprehend it.
Ignoring that, Walter pointed at the statue of the Kashen. He was picturised as a man with a full charcoal body. His statue was also of a similar colour.
Apparently, a wealthy merchant had gifted it to the church, being a follower. It was impressive as the God of Steam was a pretty new god, only rising to significance in the last 50 years since society had moved towards an industrial revolution.
“Are you a follower?”
“No but my brother was. He wanted to be a steam engineer, running the trains.”
“Then, you must know the theory around how Kashen became one of the major gods?”
Walter asked and Blaze thought for a second before nodding. He indeed knew about the story and had remembered it as it was quite an interesting one.
“He was an exiled god living in the dark dimension but he managed to escape and changed for the better. He granted knowledge to a follower and was the major reason why steam became such a popular thing in the empire, changing everything.”
“Correct. He became one of the major gods out of nowhere due to that and started giving competition to the three ancient gods. Most of the exiled gods saw it and tried to do the same but most of them are exiled for a reason. In the last century, the amount of accidents happening has increased significantly. That’s why our department gets more and more funding every year.”
Blaze nodded hearing all this. The world of supernatural powers always fascinated him, especially due to the theories around how the world came to be.
The different gods that ruled the humans by using their followers and people who gave up on their lives to obtain the truth of the world.
“Let’s go. It’s time to meet your new colleagues.”
Walter suddenly said and stood up. Blaze did the same and followed him. Strangely, he didn’t walk towards the exit door but towards a priest who was looking at the statue of Kashen, probably praying something in his mind.
“We need to see the bishop.”
Walter said as they reached the priest. The priest looked at him and Blaze for a second before nodding. They walked off towards the confession room on the left but when they were close to reaching it, the priest turned around and stopped before a wall.
‘What is going on?’
He thought as the priest touched a lamp that was put there. Suddenly, he heard a mechanism turn and the wall began to open, leading up a path that Blaze had no idea about.
‘A secret path.’
He thought in his mind.
“May the God of Steam be with you.”
The priest just said, looking up at Walter and Blaze. His eyes stayed on Blaze for a second longer.
He then walked away and Walter pointed at the new path that had opened up.
“Let’s go.”
***
The shooting for [Hex] continued at a rapid pace. Each day, Olio would try to do as many scenes as possible and Aiden witnessed why he was such a hard director to work with.
Him wanting every scene to be perfect was good but he would go to any lengths for that. Once, they kept shooting a simple scene for 36 takes, just because he wasn’t getting the right smile from an actor.
The actor was obviously tired, begging Olio to just let it go as he can’t do better but there was no way around. The man wasn’t going to be convinced.
Finally, on the 37th take, the perfect smile appeared and the scene ended for good.
Aiden also suffered due to this where for some scenes, he had to work way harder than he had imagined. A lot of scenes were done for an hour or two, really breaking Aiden’s stamina.
As he was doing his own action scenes too, he nearly got injured a lot of times just because the scene had to be perfect.
He also had to hear a lot of things from Olio when he would make a mistake.
“Why can’t you do something simple? It’s the 9th take. We don’t have that much time just because you can’t concentrate.”
“Try to land a bit to your left. And in a way that it looks natural. Currently, it is looking artificial. If you can, get a bit injured. That will bring the raw feeling to the scene.”
“Again, try to improvise a bit. You need to show more emotions than just that. Blaze is a very charming character. Show me that charm no matter how you do it!”
Now, these things weren’t that uncommon as directors would try to be passive aggressive sometimes but coupled with Olio’s face that always looked pissed on the set, it was scary.
The only reason Aiden was able to handle it was because Olio was way harsher on other actors. He even made a young actress cry and it was Aiden who had to console her in the end.
Maybe that gave him a better reputation on the set but after that, the other actors were much more friendly with him.
Barring Emma obviously.
That woman was still thinking of Aiden as a competition and would try to be in a verbal argument with him often. He had gotten more and more used to handling her.
Anyway, he realised that she was very scared of Olio and would rather not make trouble on the set due to that. So, even if she talked rudely, she won’t try more than that and Aiden was content with that.
After all, most of his focus was on the scenes and his character.
With time, they moved to London and then, Dubai for a few scenes and Aiden also took in the sheer scale of the movie even though he was already aware of it. There were scenes that were purely over the top but extremely cool. Like there was one with a flying ship through which Blaze would fall and then, another scene on the train that was a pure action scene.
With all these scenes that they were shooting, Aiden was not sure if all of them would come in the final edit.
And it would be a pity if they didn’t after all the effort put into it.
That’s why, when the shoot was about halfway done, Aiden proposed something to Olio.