Bab 67: Chp 67 : Bonding?
Hello Everyone, this is my second chapter this week and I had great news... for me hahaha.
I got new Patron here who also became my second Producer, Thank You Emmanuel Sawoka if you are reading in Webnovel Apps.
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Happy Reading Everyone!!
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The next morning, Al woke up a bit later than he usually did. Last night, he kept pestering Laura until she finally confessed to him that she only read a few chapters... well, half of it. She was already teenagers and curiosity has penetrated deep inside her bones.
So, he kept himself wide awake all night to answer all of her ridiculous questions about the next step of birds and bees, included the kinky stuff that was written in the novel.
He also told her to keep it a secret until she was an adult. Knowing how blabbermouth Laura was, he threatened her to do exercise every day if she did tell someone.
With his tired eyes, he dragged his body to at least fill his belly with a glass of warm water. Yesterday, he had promised Mary that he will help her manage some things that Mary found difficult in Muspelheim Films.
As he came to the front yard of the orphanage, he saw Mary was already there with her old Ford Fiesta's engine running.
It was the car he rode together with her when the first time he was transmigrated. Mary was loaded with cash but she was rather a nostalgic person, she preferred to spend her money to keep this old car running than bought the new ones.
He entered the co-pilot seat and saw Mary was applying her make up with the rear-view mirror.
"This brings back memories..." Al said out of nowhere. "How many years it has been? 4 or 5 years ago I think." He leaned back to his seat with his hands behind his head.
"5, that was the day you had this crazy idea to make a fortune. The day I finally realize that my little brother is a genius, the day our lives changed for good." She finished applying her makeup and put the make up tools inside her bag.
She turned to Al with a teasing smile, "The day I found out you love brunettes, the first time you flirted with me, and the day that we rekindled our relationship."
He chuckled, "The way you spoke it was as if we are a two time-crossed lover."
She sighed, she reached his face and pinched his cheek, then she said, "You grew up so fast, please bring back the cute Al to me please, God, Jesus, Buddha, Anyone."
With a darkened face, he said, "Please drive, Mary, we will be late if you keep pinching my cheek like this." She smiled then began to drive away from the orphanage, leaving only dust to settles.
Not a second passed after they left, Laura hastily went out and surprised to see that the front yard was empty, "They left me!?"
Oh, looks like our protagonist forgot to tell Mary that he was supposed to take Laura along with him.
~~~
Muspelheim Films had moved all of their operations in the small city within a city called Playa Vista.
He found out that the location was quite strategic and nice, also still cheaper than some places in Los Angeles, so they decided to rent buildings over here.
He hoped with a good prospect from his production company could get him a healthy cash flow and buy this land or maybe this little city.
Alfheim Animation and Alfheim Special Effects, Niflheim Entertainment were also located here, he even planned to concentrate his operation in this small city.
As for the Niflheim-Sierra Interactive was located near Pasadena. His other companies like Nidavelir Investment was located on Wall Street, New York with Nancy responsible for the operations.
When they arrived at the Muspelheim Films, he saw that there was a mob who carried bonfire and pitchforks at the lobby, joke intended.
He gave Mary a questioning look and she awkwardly laughed. "You see Al, this was the problem."
After he listened to Mary calming these angry mobs and ended with her sigh. He finally knew who they were, these people were lawyers who demanded money for their clients, those ungrateful independent filmmakers whose films were distributed by Muspelheim Distribution Company.
They went home with an evil smile on their face, which made him resented them even more, nobody could mess up with his sister and company besides him.
"Mary, let me see the contract, please?" Mary then brought him to her private office on the second floor.
It was a wide room with grey geometric wallpaper decorated on the walls and had comfortable vibes on it, some furniture such as a boss office chair and desk, some office chair and nice-looking comfortable sofa.
So far more like a regular boss office but more elegant and cleaner because Mary was a very neat freak.
Mary gave him the contract for film distribution and finally see the problem. He looked at her for a moment and imagined that how can this she-devil was so conflicted with her personality. She was too pure and kind-hearted for this industry.
"Mary, do you know Hollywood Accounting?"
She looked troubled after hearing a new term but she covered it up with her shameless face, "Is that a new type of accounting book?" He facepalmed when he heard Mary asked back.
Now he understood why Mary, on her last job, was well-liked, and never lacked a client, that was because she was trustable and honest, maybe 10% of it because of her looks, his deduction.
He asked Mary where was the old accountant from the previous film owner, and Mary said she had fired him because he was faking the company's book which she discovered when they bought the film company.
Al facepalmed again, she must be didn't know that every accountant in Hollywood was like that.
Al thought she knew about the Hollywood bookkeeping, then he remembered the terms of Hollywood accounting was spread to the public after the internet era.
Maybe because of it, those terms only available for internal practitioners of Hollywood companies.
Hollywood accounting refers to the creative accounting methods used by the film, video, and television industry to budget and record profits for film projects.
Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project, thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in taxes and royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on the net profit.
Hollywood accounting can take several forms. In one form, a subsidiary is formed to perform a given activity and the parent entity will extract money out of the film's revenue in the form of charges for certain "services".
For example, a film studio has a distribution arm as a sub-entity, which will then charge the studio a "distribution fee". More likely, the studio is charging itself a sum it has total control over and hence controls the profitability report of a project.
After a few hours of explaining these and those, Mary learned new things about this 'corrupted' bookkeeping.
She thought that this method was so evil, from previously distributing the films, she could earn profits that greater than in her previous job, but now they could get more?
She even became dizzy with how many dollar bills she would get after realized that Al gave her 5% shares of Muspelheim Films and 10% of annual profit as part of her salary.
"Mary, I think we need to dirty our hands a little in this kind of industry before someone like them coming to us with a harder game.
The film business is corrupted, it was like a goldmine or an oil well. You know Americans could do anything to get gold and oil, including this, there will be blood, Mary."
Both of them looked at each other, Mary looked unconvinced while Al staring hard at her. She sighed and decided to distract him with another question.
"So are we going to make the bookkeeping unprofitable and gave them no money at all?"
"Not 'no money' at all, but less money. See what they did previously? We already gave them the exact amount as per contract and they demand more, even bring out lawyers.
We've already kind enough to give them a profit, then they stabbed us in the back. Remember Mary, they were strangers to us and there will be a hundred films every year. It's us first to throw the curveball first or they will." He then held Mary's shoulder to comfort her which she reacted by looking at the floor.
She looked devastated after hearing the truth from him, all this time Mrs. K had taught them to be kind to everyone else. But in this industry, it seemed they need to break their promises.
Seeing her look like that made him feel guilty all of sudden, "I'm sorry Mary, perhaps it was my fault to involve you in this industry."
"No, Al, you did the right thing. As your big sister, I must protect you, and now I finally got a chance to do it. Al, I think I need more time to digest it. Jodie had told me all of the stinks of Hollywood, but this is also my first time hearing it from you."
She turned to Al and her face looked like Satan came from hell, "But first, what was that piece of shits came from your mouth, Alphonse Brandt, do you know how dirty and evil you sounded?"
She stood up and pointed her finger to the side of the wall in her office. "Now, stand over there and stare at the wall! You'll rest when I said so, understand!"
"But, but, but!" He was suddenly got speechless after this hot and cold development.
"No Butts!" She gave the devil look to him which scared the hell out of him.
"Yes, Big Sis." He could only yield to her by now.
Moments passed, Mary was sorting out and fixing the contracts and business of the Muspelheim Films, while Al still standing and looking at the wall.
"Al, you knew you could have rest like... the moment I told you to stare at the wall an hour ago."
"Yes, but I won't be able to calm and amuse my lovely big sister right?" He grinned.
She smiled brightly, "Al, you maybe are the best little brother that anyone could ask for, come here hug your sister."
Al turned around from the wall and hugged Mary tightly. Mary suddenly felt out of breath, not because of how the 'umu' scene was, but she felt like it was a bear who hugged her and shattered some of her ribs.
She suddenly heard the evil chuckled from him, so she kicked his shin and let him tasted another wrath of the Big Sis Mary.
After the brother-sister bonding, Mary decided to give him some info dumb about their activities since the beginning of the year 1985.
She told Al that Embassy Communications has been bought by Coca-Cola Company for $450 million, which meant that those companies also became Al's because he got some shares in Coca-Cola.
But the good news that Mary wanted to tell Al was that, with some interference by her, she was able to steal some of their film libraries such as <Godzilla, King of the Monsters!>; <The Graduate>; <The Producers>; <The Lion in Winter>; <Carnal Knowledge>; <The Night Porter>; <Watership Down>; <Phantasm>.
One more surprise was, Mary able to get Home Video Company of Embassy Pictures!
That made his mouth widen, he only told Mary to enrich the film library for home video in the future but who knew that she got his own home video distribution company, it was overkill!
He came to her and hugged her tightly again, but this time she was lifted from the ground and spun around.
He could make his own Blockbuster company or even Netflix!
She also told him that they needed Muspelheim film to make another movie. Currently, only the film he directed was produced by this film production company.
As a second-tier production house, they only need a low budget film with high earnings.
He told her to search for some trustable producers and good scripts and gave them to him. As for the director, he would be the one who chose it.
In his mind, he got some idea of scripts that would earn him a good income.
Family movies such as <Home Alone>, <August Rush>, <Night at the Museum>.
Or even horror such as <SAW> or <Insidious>, that's how some studious began their career, a horror film production house.
When Mary looked at the time, she didn't realize it was already night time, spending her day with Al sometimes let her forget all of the time in the world, so she packed up her things and told him to go home.
But before she could leave the office, Al got in her way.
He stared at her with all seriousness he could muster and said, "Now, for my last question to you Mary, what's going on between you and Jodie? And please tell me the truth, the 'real truth' sibling to sibling."
She and Jodie? She asked herself in her mind what happened to them. Did her little brother realize something off from her and Jodie?
She needed to directly straight this up with him, but before she could speak, Al continued, "Because one of my little rascals seemed to find you doing something inappropriate with someone in the changing room, do you happened to know it?"
She then suddenly felt a dread inside her, "Who else knew it!" With ashen face she demanded.
Al laughed awkwardly, "Haha... everyone?"
To Be Continued...
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