Adah kept her distance from the other magical girls in the hours leading up to the start of filming. She figured it was best not to mingle with Ciel’s posse, since she had nothing to gain from chatting while Ciel sat in such a clear leadership position. Ren didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood either, so Adah decided to use this free time to familiarize herself with the studio. The more comfortable she was in her environment, the better she’d perform during the filming. There wouldn’t be much about this situation that was comfortable otherwise.
She had intended to start by exploring the other two sets she had seen before, but when she approached the center—and largest—room, that production assistant from earlier ran up to stop her.
“Normally we’d keep the doors closed,” he said, “but we’re running late on setup. Sorry, but I can’t let you see the challenge ahead of time.”
It figured that a production like this would keep a closer eye on its cast than the interviews Adah had done in the past. Adah was like one of their products, along with these sets. The crew had to put together an entertaining show over these next eight weeks with a cast of magical girls who had their own schedules to attend to. Everyone had to be in the right place at the right time for something like that to work out. These people wouldn’t let Adah wander where she pleased.
Thus, it wasn’t long before she was ushered off to a makeup station. She was the first of the cast to be pulled aside, maybe because the crew thought she was getting antsy. Sticking her in a chair for a while could be their way of keeping her out of trouble. She didn’t take it personally—she’d built a reputation for going off-script.
From the makeup station, she was brought straight into the classroom set, like a puppy being dragged along by her leash. The production assistant from earlier showed her a desk in the front row and had her sit down. He told her that, technically, this was her desk. The first episode of the show would open with a wide shot of all the girls sitting at different desks throughout the room, and Adah had lucked out by being put in such a high profile seat. That’s how the assistant put it, anyway. After explaining the setup of the opening shot and emphasizing again what a great desk Adah had landed, the assistant smiled and left to corral some other girls for their makeup.
Now that she had a spot on set that was “hers,” Adah felt compelled to stay by this desk. That feeling was strangely reminiscent of high school. Straying too far from your seat was a little adventure reserved for that downtime before class began. With that nugget of nostalgia in her heart, Adah waited at her desk and used today’s downtime to snap some photos of the set to send to Rika and the twins.
It wasn’t until the rest of the cast members returned from having their makeup done that Adah realized the trick that production assistant had pulled. Like she was an actual schoolchild, she’d waited patiently in her assigned seat for the teacher to arrive. Or, in this case, the director.
A man with a neatly lined beard and thin-framed glasses walked onto the set and stood behind what was meant to be a teacher’s desk. He surveyed the classroom with a warm smile, counting aloud the eight magical girls, all of whom had taken their spots for the opening shot. Surprisingly, he knew each of their names, including Twilight Heartbreak.
Perhaps that shouldn’t have come as a shock. Adah had gotten used to being a nobody in the world of magical girls, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Out of all the magical girls that could have been chosen to join this show, she was one of the eight who were. From the level of care put into the set design, it was obvious the crew was taking this production seriously. Of course the director would take it seriously, too. What would actually be a shock was if he didn’t know the names of his limited cast members.
“I see a couple of familiar faces,” the director said, stepping in front of the desk now, “but mostly unfamiliar ones. That means this will be a fun job for all of us. I’ve been tasked with directing this little endeavor, the theme of which is ‘the hidden personalities of magical girls.’ To show our viewers something like that, we have to get comfortable being open with each other. On this set, we won’t refer to you by your magical girl aliases and you won’t refer to me as a director. To you, I am Arthur, and to me, you are who you are. It may feel counterintuitive, since this is work for all of us, but I want us to put aside our jobs for now. Let this be a place where we step away from our usual worries.”
Arthur certainly had a sunny disposition, but it must have been easier to relax when you weren’t the one having a camera pointed at you. Compared to some other projects he’d worked on, a show like this might have actually felt like a break. This was reality TV, so he probably got to sit back and watch most of the day.
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“Some of you might have guessed that this classroom was our way of helping you leave behind your personae as magical girls,” Arthur continued. “At the start of the season, we felt it could be helpful to return to a time before you became magical girls. A time when you yourself looked up to others the way your fans look up to you. If nostalgia strikes you today, or melancholy, or even mortification at some old memory—let those feelings in. Let yourself relive the past.”
“I bet Heartbreak was mortified lots of times,” a voice whispered from the back of the classroom. A chorus of giggles followed close behind that comment. Apparently Ciel and her crew had already embraced the idea of reliving their high school days.
And just like in high school, the teacher continued on as if nothing happened.
“There may be times when you feel a little stressed out or embarrassed during the next eight weeks, but I encourage you to embrace that. Within reason, of course. If you ever feel too uncomfortable to continue filming, please do speak to me. My point is that you weren’t given any characters to play on this show. There is no script for you to follow. The experience—and the joy—for you here lies in discovering the characters hidden within yourself. Keep an open mind and go with the flow. Be the triumphant victor in one episode and the vulnerable underdog in the next. Don’t avoid whatever feelings this experience brings out of you. That’s what everyone watching at home wants to see.”
From there, the director launched into an explanation of the first Social phase and some general filming procedures the girls needed to be aware of.
All parts of the show would be filmed with a combination of fixed cameras and man-operated ones, which had been obvious enough from Adah’s brief exploration of the studio. Arthur asked the girls to be mindful of where the fixed cameras were, so as to not outright block any or accidentally bump into one, but assured them they didn’t need to overthink things. During the Social phase, he would let them know if any moment needed to be filmed again. When it came to the Challenge phase, he wanted them to focus on competing to the best of their ability, so the crew would work around them.
Today’s Social phase would play out as Adah had expected. The cast would begin by giving their self-introductions, with each girl taking a turn to speak at the front of classroom. Arthur would prompt them with questions as needed, but they were also free to say whatever came to mind. He instructed them to direct their words to the other girls in the room, while remembering that this was also how they’d make their first impressions on the viewers.
That was the part that had Adah worried. She’d hoped Ready, Steady, Go! would be divided into distinct sections—in this scene, she could act completely natural, and the next was when she should deliver some lines for the viewer’s benefit. Some reality shows seemed to be filmed in that way, but this production was all blended together. The showrunner would find a narrative within all the footage filmed that week and edit it together in post-production.
If the way Adah presented herself didn’t fit the dominant narrative of that week, most of her footage would get cut. At the same time, if she went overboard in an attempt to grab more screentime, she’d appear too inauthentic and get cut anyway.
This was yet another advantage in Ciel’s favor, and Adah cursed herself for not realizing it sooner. With six out of eight cast members in her posse, Ciel potentially had more power than either the director or the showrunner as far as setting the narrative for a given week. Those six girls could coordinate their behavior to make Adah seem like the show’s main villain, or like she was making the rest of the cast uncomfortable, or that she was generally unlikable. If such an extreme majority of the cast gave that impression, there wouldn’t be much the crew could do in post to make Adah sympathetic.
At the very least, the self-introduction segment was one where Adah could control the framing of her “character.” She also benefited from a stroke of luck—she’d be speaking last on account of being the only cast member from Region 4. That’d give her time to watch how the other girls handled their introductions, as well as to plan her own.
After introductions, the filming would break so that the classroom could be rearranged into a circle of eight desks. The rest of today’s Social phase would take place as a group discussion, during which the girls would answer questions from their fans. According to Arthur, these would be generalized questions about the “behind-the-scenes” of magical girlhood—stuff like what the auditioning process was like, what they liked to eat after a big mission, and so on.
That was yet another saving grace for Adah. This week’s Social phase was more casual and formulaic than future weeks’ would be. It’d be hard for anyone to make a fool of you—or for you to make a fool of yourself—with such softball topics.
Though, that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t try.
Ren, who sat a couple of rows directly behind Adah, raised her hand in the middle of Arthur’s explanation. The director caught himself in the middle of a sentence and smiled at her.
“You don’t need to raise your hand if you have a question, Ren,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Sorry, force of habit,” Ren replied as she slowly lowered her hand. “I was just wondering—is it cool if we ask each other questions during that circle part?”
“Go wherever the conversation takes you, if it’s related to the original question,” Arthur answered. “We’ve allotted a specific amount of time for each, so we may cut you off if the follow-up questions goes too long. But then again, if it’s interesting enough, then we may not.”
Ren smiled back at the director with that same shark’s smile she’d given Adah when they first met.
“That won’t be a problem,” she said. “I love asking interesting questions.”