"I've heard of that, too," the recording guy said. “The man appears to be conscious, but his mind is no longer in contact. He usually collapses completely shortly thereafter.”
“I saw it” added Mońka. “The guy is shot or badly beaten, after the car accident... People think he's okay, they try to talk to him, but he doesn't react. This is one of the phases of unconsciousness. Sometimes it only takes a moment, sometimes a little longer. Hell, I shouldn't have left him alone. I should have stayed and secured him!”
Tobiasz Mońki's remorse was sincere. Accidents happened on the set, it could not be completely avoided, but it was possible to minimize the risk, and when an amateur was to shoot stunt scenes, he should be under the constant supervision of an experienced colleague. Tobiasz, who was responsible for the safety of the people working on the set, failed to fulfill his duties, failed, and the young actor almost lost his life.
“So what's your assessment of the situation?” The director looked at both men.
“It's my fault” Mońka took responsibility. “I left him unattended.”
“But he was the one who messed with the harness” said Różycki, fully aware that if someone from the set is to blame, not the actor himself, they will have to pay a good compensation. “Brylski acted like a total amateur.”
“He is an amateur” pointed out Mońka. “Even a novice stuntman shouldn't be left alone, let alone an actor.”
“Listen” Różycki pointed a finger at him “you trained him, prepared him and before you left, you checked literally everything. Knowing you, you did it twice. That's right?”
"Yes," the special effects specialist replied grimly. He had an unpleasant feeling he knew where the director was going.
“And that's what you should stick to. Only this, do you understand?” Różycki's finger moved before Mońka's eyes, clearly emphasizing the importance of the situation and the unspoken threat.
"I understand," growled Tobiasz Mońka. “I understand very well.”
There was nothing here that he could not understand. The director made it clear that this was an accident that could not be prevented. It was a completely random and unforeseen event. If anyone dares to say otherwise...
Tobiasz looked at the camera specialist staring at the monitors, who pretended he wasn't there. Director Różycki had a lot to say in the world of television and cinema, and if someone is on his blacklist, he may have serious difficulties with finding employment for another production.
Poland was not a tycoon in the field of entertainment, so someone with a wolf ticket from Różycki could say goodbye to practicing his profession. While Mońka himself could do without it, he employed a dozen or so people in his team. If he loses access to film and TV sets, they will lose it too.
“Great” Różycki smiled crookedly and his eyes flashed with satisfaction. This is what a person looks like when he thinks he is on the roof of the universe.
Tobiasz hoped that one day he would see Różycki fall from this roof, how Rafał Brylski fell today. He also hoped there would be no one downstairs to catch him.
***
“Stop being so nervous” said Anita Janiszek trying to contain her frustration. "I already told you everything's fine on the set."
Rafał Brylski, lying in a hospital bed, looked pitiful. As a blond with reddish hair and green eyes, he naturally had a very fair complexion, so the red sunburn that he contracted despite the strong sunscreen and makeup with a good UV filter made his face look in no way beautiful and resembled more tomato than human.
The burns weren't bad and in a few days they should have clearly disappeared and good makeup will hide the rest, but Rafał, this idiot, more than with his health and the fact that he almost died, was worried that he caused trouble for the entire team due to his carelessness.
“It was such an important scene” Rafał groaned and tears appeared in his green eyes.
Rafał Brylski did not cry because he was sad. His eyes reacted that way to frustration. There was something beautiful and disturbing about it. Rafał never looked weak, but when tears appeared in his eyes, out of nowhere, most girls and women immediately turned into caring mama bears ready to murder anyone who hurt their little bear son in the form of Rafał. Brylski could then have a submachine gun in his hand, a military camouflage on his back and spit in series, destroying entire legions of enemies, and anyway, each representative of the fair sex was ready to shield him from bullets with her own breast.
Anita, however, was totally insensitive to it. Although she absolutely adored Rafał, she had not succumbed to his incredible charm for a long time.
“What, are you afraid they'll shoot it without you?” She asked him bitterly.
"Yes," Brylski admitted. “I really wanted to do it. I wanted to prove to everyone that I can do it.”
Anita gritted her teeth. She understood Rafał perfectly. Her friend did not come from an acting family, did not graduate from acting school and had practically no professional experience, because the three little roles he had played so far were really small. Rafał liked acting, however, and since there was an opportunity to play the lead role in a production as large as the series, he wanted to take full advantage of it, learning as much as he could and giving his absolutely everything to prove that he was worth the chance. He also wanted to prove to all doubters that you don't have to belong to a clique to achieve anything in this profession.
"And you will prove it," a third voice replied suddenly, interfering with the conversation. Anita unscrewed her head and saw Damian Radosz. “Good morning, Mr. Brylski” the man extended his hand to the patient. “I'm Damian Radosz, something like the producer of the series in which you appear. Can we call ourselves by ‘you’?”
“Er, yes, of course” Rafał shook his hand. “Anita told me that you saved my life... Thank you.”
“There is nothing to talk about” Radosz blushed, which contrasted so much with his nonchalant, self-confident style. “I hope my visit is not tactless. I wanted to see how you feel...”
“I feel great!” Rafał assured enthusiastically, attracting the attention of the other two patients in the room. “I can get back to work right away! Only my face...”
Anita, furious with her friend, gritted her teeth again. Rafał almost lost his life and he was worried about his face! He sounded like an empty doll with nothing but his own beauty in mind. And Rafał was not like that! Why was he giving people such a negative impression of himself?
Anita should not do scenes in front of the producer, but she could not let Rafał waste his reputation during the first meeting with Damian Radosz, who paid for this production.
“Your face! Does it matter to you? Not that you barely survived?” She hissed furiously.
“I'm alive” Rafał replied, as if he were stating a simple fact. “And the face is a working tool for me. If the bricklayer breaks his arm, he cannot work on the construction site. If the surgeon breaks a finger, he cannot operate. If an actor has a damaged face, he cannot act. While the bricklayer or the doctor can be replaced by someone else, the actor in the main role, at this stage of production, no one can replace him without causing losses. The fact that I am here, not on the set, causes losses to the entire production...”
Anita would really like her friend to get rid of this habit of thinking about the good of others first, and then about his own. Maybe if he didn't want to help the production so much, he wouldn't have agreed to become like some idiot, in a thick, dark suit and in the scorching sun for over half an hour.
“Do not worry about it. The production is insured” Radosz announced. “I have already talked to the insurer and the director. Now we're going to shoot scenes without you. The plan won't collapse for three days.”"Three days ..." groaned pale Rafał.“The doctor said it was enough” confused Radosz looked at Anita, then at Brylski. “But if you need more...”"No, no," assured the actor and, intimidated, bowed his head. “Three days will be... just right.”At this point, Anita decided that her heart was about to break. She was really sure that during the several years she had known Rafał, she had become immune to his charm of a defenseless little bear, but she was wrong. At that moment, she felt like a mama bear who wants to tear Różycki to shreds for having hurt her baby.***Before Damian Radosz decided that he wanted to see Rafał Brylski in his series, he saw him in this small, p
“What do you mean by that?” Radosz asked further. “Did Mr. Brylski spend too much time on the set?”“On the set, outside of it...” Anita Janiszek gritted her teeth but she was already in the place from which she could not withdraw, so she continued “Make-up at five in the morning, although during the day he shoots three scenes and the first is at ten. Rafał spends his time on the set until eleven o'clock in the evening just to do some reshoots that could have been done two hours earlier. Yes, six, sometimes seven days in a row. The director changes his mind every five minutes and tells him to repeat scenes endlessly, although even old actors say that Rafał played well... And Różycki's comments...”A cold sweat splashed over Radosz's back. If Janiszek's words are not very exaggerated (and it will be easy to verify), it meant that the production of The Fifth Capital really had a problem. And it was not only one.
Anita Janiszek nodded. She seemed to have reached a state where she didn't want to or couldn't hide anything anymore.“Różycki suggests that Rafał's incompetence costs everyone additional work and time. As a result, many people have become hostile to Rafał and the atmosphere on the set is a bit… heavy.”Damian didn't get to notice it while on set, but he was only there for half an hour and he focused on the shooting itself rather than the atmosphere. Anyway, at that moment, I think everyone just wanted to do their job and get out of the scorching sun that attacked so suddenly. People were too rushed to have time to linger.However, if Anita Janiszek is not exaggerating, if everything she says is true, the actor playing the main character in Damian's series is really not easy.Radosz adhered to the principle that although dozens, sometimes even hundreds of people work for the success of the entire series, the actors playing the ma
“Me?” Rafał was surprised honestly, in fact a bit naively, Brylski. “Mrs. Marzena is more experienced, she is a real actress...”‘Mrs. Marzena’ was Marzena Skierska, an actress older than Rafał by a year, with a diploma from the Łódź Film School at the Acting Department. She had already starred in one movie and had a supporting role in one series that ran on for five years now. She was far from being a star and Radosz was not convinced of her potential for the future, but Skierska was Różycki's choice. Since Damian really did not have any candidates for this role, he agreed to Marzena.Poland is a country where polite relations and polite forms of "mister" and "missis" are normally maintained, but usually at work, when the difference in age and positions was not large, young people quickly switched to "you", i.e. they resigned from the official polite form. It seemed that despite six weeks of shooting, the young woman s
Already another day of the heat from sky as strong as if they had just experienced the heat of the century. Soon, it was supposed to turn out, that this indeed was one of the two most hot June in Poland in the last two centuries. None of the living did not remember this month was so hot. Damian Radosz instinctively hid under the trees looking for a bit of shadow and cool. He suspected that if not for a cool wind, which caused that the air did not happen in place, in a few minutes the heat would be unbearable for him. He remembered the scene when dressed in a costume from the sixteenth century Brylski stood on the roof in full sun for more than half an hour. At an air temperature reaching almost forty degrees in the shade, the actor could not withstand such working conditions. It was simply impossible. Nevertheless, Brylski stood patiently and waited. He dripped then, breathed, but he waited for the word ‘action’ with such a focus, as if he was just preparing
“To some extent, yes,” Radosz admitted glancing towards the man sitting next to him, “but that was not the decisive point. You see, in Poland there are a lot of people famous for being famous, but nobody gives them a chance to play the main role. Do you watch k-dramas or c-dramas?”"Er," Brylski hesitated, and then helplessly admitted, "I'm afraid I don't know what it is."“These are series produced in South Korea and China. There are also J-dramas produced in Japan, but we are not talking about those yet. Have you seen any series of this type?”“I don't remember seeing anything like that...”“I am not surprised at all, because no Polish television shows them and people watch them primarily on the web, on internet platforms. In addition, these dramas rarely have Polish subtitles, so they are watched almost exclusively by people who are good with the English language” Radosz explained further. &ld
“You're mad at me, aren't you?” Rafał asked, although he knew the answer perfectly well. Anita didn't say anything, but it was her silence that spoke the most.Rafał felt anxious. He didn't like when Anita was angry with him. The girl was too important to him, in too many ways. He didn't like it even more when he didn't understand where her anger was coming from, because he couldn't correct his mistake then. And that's how it was now.They were in his hotel room, which they had just entered. It was not an apartment, a simple, small single room, no living room, no fruit basket and fresh flowers, with the only convenience in the form of a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet. On the beige wall hung a cheap picture from a bookstore, showing a basket of roses. There was a dense curtain in the window with no curtains or blinds. An ordinary, small and modest room in an ordinary small and modest hotel.But Rafał did not need the comforts of space. A bed
Anita was just so worried about him that his self-will, potentially damaging to himself, was upsetting her. After all, even if your little brother becomes an adult, he starts a family, for you he will always be that little boy you have to look after.Rafał knew about it, understood it and not only accepted it, but was grateful for it.“Anita, I really appreciate how much you care about me. I know that as long as I have you by my side, I am completely safe” Brylski said with a smile. He did not exaggerate with his statement at all. Anita really was a moral and physical rock to him. “I can always rely on you.”“Nevertheless, I let you down ... You had a heat stroke” Janiszek complained, not to him, to herself and to the lack of due care on her part.Anita shouldn't blame herself for this situation. She absolutely shouldn't blame herself.“It was an accident” Rafał reminded her with all conviction and wa