Chapter 440 The Filming in Austrália 2
Jake soon went to where Keanu Reeves was because he wanted to talk to him more, Keanu Reeves was famous even before the movie The Matrix, Jake watched some of his films Bill & Ted"s Excellent Adventure, Bram Stoker"s Dracula and Speed.
But the films that Keanu Reeves made that Jake liked the most were the Matrix, Speed, Constantine, The Lake House, and John Wick franchise, even so, Jake watched almost every Keanu Reeves film and in the future, he would be one of the most beloved actors in the world.
"Mr. Reeves, it is a great pleasure for me to meet you in person, I am a huge fan who has watched several films that you have made and I really enjoyed."
"You must be Jake Smith, I heard a lot from you too, you don"t have to be so formal with me and you can call me Keanu, did I hear that this is your first supporting character in a movie?"
"Yes Mr. Reeves, this is the first film that I will have a character that is important for the film, I am very happy to work with you, I am sure that this film will be a success."
"It is good to see that you are excited, you learned in the last few months with Woo-ping, so if he said that you are prepared you will have a good performance in this film, don"t be nervous and do what the directors say and everything will be fine."
"Thank you, Mr. Reeves, I will speak to the other actors and then we will meet at the scene of the shooting."
Jake was happy that Keanu Reeves was as nice and kind as he had heard in the media, Jake admired Keanu Reeves for many things, one of which was because he was filming this movie and doing fights even with a spinal injury.
After that Jake told Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving that he was also a fan for their work on The Matrix and also in other films, the two had a very successful career and Hugo Weaving mainly for being part of The Lord of the trilogy Rings, V for Vendetta and part of the Marvel films.
Jake was also happy to meet Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano who had outstanding characters in this film, the other actors did not know that Jake was a fan of them because of the film The Matrix and just thought he was polite and excited and liked him.
The other actors were not bothered by Jake coming to Sydney after them for filming because they knew that all of this was the directors "decision and the actors normally did not question the directors" decision unless they were big names in Hollywood and so they could pressure the director.
Jake was calm because he already knew the film very well and seeing his script Jake can see why the character he would play did not exist in the movie The Matrix he watched because his character would only change the story of the film a little, but the end of the film would be the same.
Jake"s character could make the story more realistic and acceptable to the audience, the name of the character Jake would make was Jev, some critics said the story was meaningless because the crew of Morpheus" s.h.i.+p to Nebuchadnezzar always survived by escaping from the agents.
But in the film, it is shown that not even Morpheus can fight the agents and so there was no logic that they could survive so long by invading the Matrix, even more, because they had other s.h.i.+ps that could also enter the Matrix without problems.
So Jake"s character would be the only one of the s.h.i.+ps that could fight against the agents to help his team escape in the most dangerous missions, of course, Jev could not dodge bullets and always had to be taken care of in fights.
So also when Neo who was Keanu Reeves" character appeared as "The One" and Cypher decides to betray them, the crew would suspect that in fact, Jake"s character could be the traitor because Jev always fights the agents and finds a way to escape alive.
So even though Jake"s character was important, it didn"t have much relevance to the story and was cut to make Neo more special as the only one who can fight the agents.
Even so in the changed story, Jake would have an important character who would have a highlight and would be one of the few who would survive Cypher"s betrayal at the end of the film, Jake"s character would not die in the first film.
But Jake worried about that because he remembered that the second and third films would be shot together and he would not have time to partic.i.p.ate in the other films so the story could have a problem in the future.
But Jake wasn"t going to talk to the Wachowskis about it because they could just change their mind and make the two films in two separate years outside the NBA season and Jake would definitely be on the record.
Or the Wachowskis could simply give Jake a small part in the next film and kill his character so as not to cause trouble for the shoot, anyway Jake was happy to be in that first film.
As Jake"s part was more in the fights and in the action scenes he didn"t have many lines in one day of recording and with his photographic memory, he could decorate after reading a few times, as Jake knew the film well he had to train the speaks a few times to look like the other characters in the film.
After that Jake trained how to speak and trained his diction, Jake didn"t know how the directors would want his character, so he could just train as he normally did and then he would change to the way the directors wanted.
But the afternoon that day they went to shoot some scenes that Jake"s character had and that was late, in those early days, Jake would do the scenes that were in closed scenarios and then he would do the scenes of open scenery.
It was a good thing that the place where they were filming was in the Fox studio so that they could have more time to shoot the scenes, everyone expected Jake to make mistakes in the first scenes because he didn"t even know what his character was like.
The first scenes that Jake would have to shoot were on Morpheus" hovercraft, Nebuchadnezzar, Jake entered just before the film crew and looked like a fan inside Nebuchadnezzar, he saw the film The Matrix many times and that was one of the most important scenarios of the movie.
Of course, the coolest things were done in computer graphics and Jake could even see some green screens inside the Nebuchadnezzar, over time the actors were positioning themselves and the film crew as well.
Jake was already wearing one of the clothes that Nebuchadnezzar crew members wore and the makeup had already been done, Jake could feel the makeup in the neck of the hole where the cable to enter the Matrix was placed.
Jake still felt like a fan as the sound crew and camera crew positioned themselves, Jake was called in by the Wachowskis brothers to work out the last details before they started shooting the scenes.
"Jake, this scenario is the Nebuchadnezzar hovercraft, much of the film will be shown in this scenario and most of the characters in the film will also be here, your character is a man who is serious whenever he does the missions and relaxes a little when he is away of the Matrix."
"You have to try to talk like the other characters and when you talk to Neo and the other characters you have to look kinder, remember that your character is one of the only ones who believe that Neo is "The One"."
"I see, in these next scenes on Nebuchadnezzar I have to look kinder even though I am serious, and I also have to speak and act like the other characters."
"Okay, did you manage to memorize your lines for today"s scenes?"
"Yes, I think I managed to decorate and I hope I won"t delay filming."
"No problem, you arrived yesterday from a long trip and you don"t have much experience, I just want you to get your lines right and try to get into the character."
Jake knew that in fact the directors and the other actors expected him to miss him several times before he started getting it right, but Jake didn"t care about that because it was true that he had no experience and with no one expecting much from him Jake had less pressure to do the scenes.
Because Jake was not in the first weeks of filming, the directors decided to make the scene that Neo woke up from the Matrix and his body was rescued, so the first scene would be of Jake"s character talking to the character of Keanu Reeves.
So contrary to what everyone expected, Jake did well on his first attempt, he looked serious and even so he welcomed Neo and still talked in a similar way as the other actors talked.
Of course, Jake still didn"t get it right the first time and the directors corrected some mistakes he had made for not knowing the character, with Jake acting so well the other actors started to respect him more and the directors were more demanding.
So Jake managed to record the first scene much faster than everyone expected, then it would be a scene where Mouse arrived to talk to Neo and so the three talked a little, these scenes were fast, but took a few hours to be recorded and so The day"s recordings ended and the directors were happy with that.
The Wachowskis were happy with Jake"s performance on his first day and were happy to have made that bet if Jake knew how to fight as well as Yuen Woo-ping said they knew they would have no problem putting Jake in that movie.
After the first day of filming that Jake partic.i.p.ated, the members of the filming had a dinner at the hotel to talk and socialize, the most incredible thing was that almost none of the actors knew Jake about basketball or even the marathons he won.
Only a few who followed sports watched the NBA and other major compet.i.tions, but as several actors were not American they did not follow College basketball or marathons.