Hollywood: Lights, Ink, Entertainment!-Chapter 356: Blocking

....

July 15, 2015.

The cast of [I Want To Eat Your Pancreas] continued their reading session over the next week and entered into blocking, which is scheduled for another week - while Regal’s scouting team finalized the last of the locations, and moved into production.

Currently, Tom had reached his appointed location - Rehearsal Room 3 - within LIE Studios, and–

It was an aggressively underwhelming environment.

Honestly, given Regal’s reputation for cinematic scale, Tom had expected something more... grand, and cinematic.

Perhaps track lighting designed to make one look perpetually brooding, a grand piano in a corner for ambiance, or floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a cityscape.

What he got was a janitor’s closet that had delusions of grandeur.

Hardwood floors covered in tape - blue lines, yellow squares, red marks that might have been doorways or crime scene evidence, hard to tell.

Two folding tables that looked like they had survived three garage sales and a natural disaster. A whiteboard with scene numbers scribbled in marker that was already starting to fade.

And fluorescent lights that hummed like they were gossiping about you.

Noah Rick walked in behind him, stopped, and assessed the space with the critical eye of someone who had clearly expected more.

"Mate." he said finally. "This looks like where they would make you wait for a root canal."

"That’s exactly the point." Regal said from near the whiteboard, not looking up from whatever he was writing. "Comfortable spaces breed comfortable choices. We are not here to be comfortable."

Tom looked at the floor tape, then at Regal, then back at the floor tape. "Cool. Cool. Should I... know what any of this means? Or is this like modern art where I am supposed to feel something?"

"You will figure it out."

"Right. That’s super helpful. Really narrows it down."

Noah snorted.

Zendaya arrived exactly three minutes later - Tom knew because he had been watching the clock, wondering if everyone else had gotten a memo he had missed about what to actually do.

Her script was already open to the right page.

She looked at the room for maybe four seconds, located a yellow square near the center, and stood on it.

Just stood there. Ready.

Tom stared at her. "How did you... how do you know where to stand?"

She pointed down without looking. "Yellow tape. The script says the scene opens at the table. That’s the table."

Tom looked at the yellow square he was currently next to. Then stepped onto it, trying to make it seem intentional. "Yeah. Obviously. I was just... testing the spatial dynamics."

"Sure you were."

"I was literally about to say that exact thing."

"I believe you."

"Your tone suggests you don’t believe me."

"My tone is neutral."

"Your neutral sounds exactly like you are making fun of me."

Zendaya smiled into her coffee cup.

Regal watched this entire exchange with the specific brand of patience he had developed over years of directing - the kind that understood first rehearsals were never actually about the work.

They were about people figuring out who they were going to be in a room together for the next however many months.

The work came after you stopped performing at being professional.

He gave them another moment - Tom was now pretending to study the tape with great scholarly interest while Noah texted someone - then decided to rescue them.

"Scene twelve." he said, snapping the cap back onto the marker. "Hospital waiting room. Elliot comes across the diary. Let’s block it out first - no dialogue or acting. I just want to track the physical logic of it."

Tom raised his hand slightly. "Question."

"Yes?"

"What’s physical logic?"

"Can you walk across a room without falling over?"

"I... yes?"

"That’s physical logic. Try that first, then we will add complexity."

"Right. Okay. Walk without falling. I can do that. That’s basically my whole skill set."

Noah muttered. "Debatable." which earned him a middle finger from Tom that Regal pretended not to see.

....

The thing about blocking - the thing nobody warned you about until you were already in it - was that it was somehow both excruciatingly boring and weirdly intimate.

It was Tom picking up a prop notebook that was standing in for Sakura’s diary, crossing the taped floor to where a folding chair represented the waiting room seating, and sitting down.

Then Regal saying. "Stop. Go back. Try coming from the left."

Then Tom going back. Coming from the left.

Then Regal saying. "When you sit, don’t look at it immediately. You think it’s a novel someone left behind. Give it two beats of not caring."

Tom sitting. Looking at the diary immediately anyway.

Regal tilting his head. Saying nothing.

Tom doing it again. This time waiting one beat instead of two.

Regal still tilting his head.

Tom doing it again. Two beats. Exactly two.

Regal making a note on his pad.

Tom exhaling slightly, not sure if that was approval or just acknowledgement.

This continued, with microscopic variations, for forty-five minutes.

Zendaya sat in a chair by the wall the entire time, script in her lap, watching.

The way Regal would pause before saying something. The way Tom’s shoulders would shift when he had gotten it right versus when he was compensating.

She made notes in a small version.

Regal noticed this, the quality of her attention.

It reminded him of something he had seen three days ago - a nervous man in an office explaining why silence could speak louder than words.

He wasn’t sure if they realized it had affected them yet, probably not.

These things usually sank in unconsciously first.

But he could see it in small ways.

Tom was trying to find stillness between movements instead of rushing to the next thing.

Zendaya was watching moments instead of just lines.

They were thinking about the truth differently than they had been four days ago.

When it was Zendaya’s turn - Sakura’s entrance, the moment she realizes someone has her diary - the blocking looked simple on paper.

Cross from the door mark to where Elliot’s sitting. See that he has the book.

Choose how to respond.

Regal let her walk it cold with no instructions. Just see what she would bring.

She crossed the room, her feet hit the mark.

She stopped and looked at Tom holding the prop diary.

And then something happened that wasn’t in any blocking notes.

She didn’t move forward or step back.

Just stayed exactly where she was, on that piece of tape, for one extra beat.

In a room with fluorescent lights and folding furniture and no camera, it somehow read as a decision being made in real time.

Not Zendaya deciding what to do.

Sakura deciding what to do.

Regal didn’t say anything immediately and just observed.

Tom - who was supposed to stay in character, glanced up from the prop diary with an expression that was equal parts Elliot and confused actor.

Like he felt something shift but couldn’t name it. Then he looked back down, trying to stay in the moment.

Regal said finally. "Zen... Try that again."

Zendaya blinked, came back to herself like someone surfacing from water - slowly, then all at once.

She made a small noise that wasn’t quite a word, then wrote something in her script margin.

Tom looked at her sideways. "What just happened?"

"Found where she stands."

Tom processed this. "Is that a metaphor or—"

"Both."

"Cool. Love that. Super clear."

"You will figure it out."

"Everyone keeps saying that."

Noah, from his position against the wall, raised his coffee cup. "Welcome to film, mate. Half of it is people telling you to figure things out."

"What’s the other half?"

"Waiting."

"For what?"

"You will figure it out."

Tom looked at Regal. "Is he always like this?"

"Noah? Yes."

"That’s disappointing. I was hoping it was just today."

....

Lunch happened the way it always happened on small productions - sandwiches, drinks, folding tables, and conversations.

Noah held up his sandwich like he was presenting evidence in court. "This is turkey."

"It says chicken on the wrapper." Tom pointed out, not looking up from his own sandwich.

"The wrapper is lying."

"Wrappers don’t lie. They’re wrappers. They have one job."

"And they’ve failed. This is turkey. The texture alone—"

"How can you tell from texture? It’s between bread. It’s disguised."

"I have a refined palate."

"You ate a gas station hot dog yesterday."

"That’s unrelated."

Zendaya, sitting cross-legged on the floor because all three chairs were occupied, looked between them. "It’s definitely turkey." 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Noah pointed at her triumphantly. "SEE."

Tom looked betrayed. "You’re supposed to be Switzerland."

"I was never Switzerland. Turkey has a very specific density."

Tom paused mid-bite. "A density. You’re identifying deli meat by its density."

"My mum’s very particular about sandwiches. You pick things up."

"Apparently you pick up sandwich forensics."

"It’s a useful skill."

Tom examined his own sandwich with new suspicion. "Now I don’t know what I am eating."

"Chicken." Regal said from the whiteboard, where he had been reviewing notes through this entire exchange without apparently paying attention.

Everyone turned.

He didn’t look up. "Tom’s is chicken. Noah’s is turkey. The wrapper was fine. The bag just got rotated when someone set it down."

Beat.

"How." Noah said slowly. "Could you possibly know that?"

"I watched the intern pack them this morning."

"You—" Noah blinked. "Why were you watching the intern pack sandwiches?"

"I pay attention to things."

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, not showing off, or making a point, just stating a basic fact - and went back to his notes.

Tom looked at Zendaya, she looked back.

Some unspoken communication happened - the mutual recognition of being in a room with someone whose brain operated on a frequency most people couldn’t access.

Tom said quietly. "Of course he was watching the sandwiches. That’s a normal thing to do."

"Very normal." Zendaya agreed.

Noah just nodded his head.

....

The afternoon session pushed through three more scenes before Regal called it at 4:17 PM.

It wasn’t because they were done - there was plenty left. But he had learned, over years of doing this, that there was a specific quality of tiredness that became counterproductive.

The point where actors stopped making instinctive choices and started making calculated ones.

Better to end before that happened.

Tom gathered his things with the slightly manic energy of someone who had burned through all their focus and was now running on fumes and good intentions.

He kept almost-dropping things, his script, his water bottle, his phone, then catching them at the last second.

"Good work today." Regal told him at the door.

Tom looked genuinely pleased. Not in a desperate, validation-seeking way, more like someone who had worked hard and was glad it had been seen.

"Yeah? Thanks. I will keep thinking about the library scene. The way Elliot holds the book. Whether he’s protecting it or hiding it or—"

"Don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"Don’t think about it."

"But you just said—"

"I said good work. I didn’t say keep thinking. Stop thinking. Don’t think about thinking about it."

Tom opened his mouth. Closed it. Pointed finger guns at Regal. "Got it. No thinking. My brain’s specialty."

"That’s not what I—"

But Tom was already out the door, nearly walking into the doorframe on his way out.

Regal shook his head.

The kid was something else, raw in ways that would photograph beautifully. Earnest in ways the camera wouldn’t be able to lie about.

He turned back to the room.

Zendaya was still there.

She was sitting in one of the folding chairs, jacket on, bag by her feet, script open - but she wasn’t reading it.

She was looking at the tape on the floor with the expression of someone finishing a thought she’d started hours ago.

Regal pulled a chair over, sat across from her.

She looked up. Didn’t seem surprised he had stayed.

"I want you to hear something." he said.

Within minutes, Regal had set up a small Bluetooth speaker on the second folding table, his phone connected to it, which he had prepared before rehearsal.

It was nothing elaborate. He had considered doing this differently - a proper music session, piano in a proper room, the whole production - and then decided against it.

That would make it an event. He didn’t want an event.

He wanted the song to land the way it was meant to land: quietly, without warning, in a room where there was nowhere to put the feeling except inside yourself.

If the song was going to be what he believed it was, it didn’t need architecture. It needed a quiet room and someone who wasn’t expecting it.

"The film needs an end credits song." he said.

....

.

[To be continued...]

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