CHAPTER 207: LOVE FOR CINEMA

....

John Tunnard.

If you asked him what his official job title was, he would stammer, maybe crack a half-smile, and finally admit he didn’t actually know.

Not that he cared.

The paycheck cleared, the lanyard around his neck had the magic All Access tag, and everyone on Regal’s Spider-Man set had gotten used to his presence.

His role was deceptively simple: capture the in-between moments, the raw life of the production that no one ever sees.

He wasn’t the cinematographer, not part of the marketing crew, not even formally tied to publicity.

He was the ghost with a handheld rig, the guy who slipped into rehearsal spaces, workshops, stunt prep rooms, and craft tables, framing little glimpses of reality - a wire team laughing after a failed stunt, the sweat dripping from an actor’s jawline between takes, Regal pacing with his hands half-buried in his hair while muttering about shot angles.

What made John unique wasn’t just the footage, but the authority that came with his badge.

He could walk almost anywhere on set, provided he didn’t interrupt.

He had an instinct for invisibility, learning to vanish into the background the moment a camera rolled, yet still brave enough to step forward and gently ask -

"Mind if I ask you a quick question?"

- when a stunt double or assistant director looked like they had thirty seconds to spare.

Over time, people started answering him with a kind of honesty they would never give to the formal press.

His clips weren’t polished PR reels - they were living scraps of truth.

How he got there was almost accidental.

John had been broke, scraping together rent through part-time gigs and small freelance edits, when he heard - through a friend of a friend - that Regal’s production was hiring someone for - on-set documentation.

Yep, a behind the scenes director.

The requirements were vague: know how to shoot competently, know how to ask questions without being annoying.

That was it.

Hundreds applied. Maybe thousands.

It was Hollywood. Everyone wanted in, even for scraps.

John didn’t believe he had a chance - his résumé was average, his portfolio a collection of shaky wedding videos and a few short doc pieces nobody watched.

Worst of all, he had what he called a ’loss tongue.’

Words didn’t come cleanly for him; sometimes he tripped on them, sometimes they slipped away mid-sentence.

Interviews terrified him for that reason.

John Tunnard never thought he would find himself in Regal’s orbit again.

Not after the mess that happened just months earlier.

Back then, he wasn’t anyone important - just a temporary hire at a studio event, a warm body with a lanyard and a checklist, doing whatever was asked.

His bosses liked him because he didn’t complain, but they also knew he had a habit of saying the wrong thing, of letting his tongue slip in ways that weren’t... ideal.

That day, during a Q&A session for [Whiplash] - Alexander’s film, Regal’s protégé’s first directorial project - John’s ’habit’ got the better of him.

He stood up, and asked a question - It wasn’t meant to be cruel, but it came out heavier than he had planned, wordier too.

The gist was simple enough: Didn’t Alexander have it easier than most, given Regal’s backing?

The auditorium went uncomfortably quiet.

Alexander froze, caught between irritation and insecurity, but to his credit, he pulled himself together.

His answer was careful, even thoughtful -

He acknowledged Regal’s support, but also made it clear the film was his own blood and sweat. He even managed a smile, calling John’s phrasing ’inappropriate’ though he didn’t sound vindictive about it.

The crowd gave Alexander their sympathy, and John - well, John just shrank in his seat, wishing the floor would swallow him whole.

Afterwards, his boss called him aside.

"You don’t ask questions like that. Not about Regal. Not about his people. You understand what kind of miss you just walked under?"

John tried to explain it wasn’t meant as an insult. He genuinely wanted to know.

But explanations didn’t matter.

The next morning, he was cut loose. "Offended a huge figure" was the line they used, though Regal himself had said nothing, hadn’t even looked John’s way.

The damage was done.

So, John was back on the hunt. Scraping by, drifting through classifieds, forums, whispers of odd production jobs.

He was sure his name was poisoned in the industry, even if nobody knew who he was - because in his head, he had crossed the one line you weren’t supposed to cross.

When he stumbled on the vague posting for "on-set documentation" for Regal’s next project, he almost didn’t apply.

The irony was too sharp - the very man he had indirectly offended now at the center of the opportunity.

Still, desperation has its own gravity. The requirements were laughably simple: be able to shoot video, be able to ask questions.

John thought: Well, I can do both badly.

He was convinced it was pointless. That his application would vanish into a slush pile. That his name - his stupid tongue - would betray him again.

And yet... a few weeks later, his phone buzzed with a call.

He got it.

No explanation. No conditions.

Just: report to set, bring your gear, welcome aboard.

For John Tunnard, it felt less like being hired and more like being handed a strange second chance by the very ghost he thought he’d offended forever.

There was no escape, or at least that’s how John saw it after being fired.

His boss hadn’t sugarcoated it: "You offended Regal. Even indirectly. That’s not something you walk away from clean."

The words followed John like a curse, making each job listing look like a door permanently shut. He drifted through his days sending applications, convinced he was on some invisible blacklist.

So when he found himself walking into an interview room hosted by the very same man whose shadow had cost him his previous job, it felt like a sick joke.

Regal’s name was on the documents. Regal’s people were in the lobby. The walls carried Regal’s movie posters.

John nearly turned around.

But desperation makes cowards brave.

He went in.

The interview was brief, strangely casual.

He was asked about his experience with a camera, his ability to keep quiet while recording, his comfort with asking questions. Nothing about his past, nothing about Regal.

John answered honestly but without flair. He was convinced the moment he left the room that this was another dead end.

And then, shockingly, his phone buzzed with the news: he was hired.

What stuck in John’s memory wasn’t the call.

It was the expression Regal gave when he was told of the decision. John had been in the corner of the room, shuffling papers, when Regal looked up.

His eyes weren’t warm or cold - they were cutting, as if he could see through skin, muscle, bone, into the marrow itself. It was the look of someone measuring a man not by talent, not by résumé, but by something deeper.

Regal spoke only three words. "We can trust him."

That was it. No debate, no questions. John was in.

It was only later, signing the stack of onboarding documents, that he realized what those words meant.

The paperwork wasn’t about confidentiality in the usual sense - it was more stringent than the contracts even lead actors had signed.

No leaks, no side conversations, no sharing material outside the project.

They didn’t just want someone to capture behind-the-scenes footage. They wanted someone whose loyalty was unshakable.

And John, in his clumsy, awkward way, understood.

The most important requirement hadn’t been written in the job description: trust.

What made it ironic was that John had always valued professionalism above everything.

He could fumble his words, trip over phrasing, look like a fool in a crowded room - but when it came to duty, to honoring the work given to him, he never wavered.

The few people close to him knew this, though most didn’t care. Trustworthiness is invisible until it breaks. People only notice when it’s gone.

So here he was.

The man who had once asked the wrong question, now given access more unrestricted than anyone else on set.

He could walk anywhere, camera in hand, as long as he didn’t disturb. He was both ghost and witness, unseen yet watching everything.

And though the contract was heavy, almost suffocating, John felt something strange settle in him as he left the office with his new badge.

It was relief.

The first job they gave John wasn’t complicated on paper. Point the camera, keep it steady, don’t get in the way. Simple.

But when the moment came, it wasn’t simple at all. It was the moment.

People like to say those are rare - the kind you only get once in a lifetime.

John believed that.

He thought he had already had his, years ago, when he first felt cinema wake something alive in him.

Back then he thought he could be part of it, that he might have a place in the world of cameras and screens.

That dream had burned out when the jobs dried up, when he stumbled through too many mistakes, when he started believing he wasn’t cut for it.

And yet, here it was again.

Andrew stepped out of the dressing room, shoulders stiff, draped in a blanket like a kid hiding Christmas morning.

The air in the room was tight, hushed, as if everyone sensed something bigger than themselves was about to appear.

John adjusted his rig, suddenly aware he was the only one filming - even the cinematographers had been kept back. This privilege was his alone.

He pressed record.

Through the lens, the blanket came off. Andrew stood there, revealed in the suit for the first time - the suit, the one the whole set had been building toward in secrecy and anticipation.

Gasps broke from the crew, a ripple of pure awe.

People clapped, laughed, even whistled.

It wasn’t just fabric and stitching they were seeing.

It was an icon. It was the dream of Spider-Man, reborn in front of their eyes.

John’s fingers trembled against the camera grip.

His skin prickled. Goosebumps crawled up his arms as if his own body was reacting to the collective surge of energy in the room.

He zoomed closer, capturing Andrew’s uncertain smile as the applause grew louder. Behind the monitor, John felt something inside him crack open.

It was love. Again.

Love for cinema.

He hadn’t expected to feel it twice in a lifetime, especially after he thought it had died in him - suffocated by failure, by rejection, by his own loss tongue tripping him out of opportunities.

But now it was here, flooding him, impossible to deny.

And strangely, it was the same love as before.

The same flicker of belonging, of awe at what humans could build together for the sake of one story. It should’ve embarrassed him - falling for the same thing twice, like some fool who never learns.

He couldn’t help it.

Behind the camera, he actually laughed. A quiet, shaky laugh that only he heard over the thundering applause.

It was ridiculous.

It was shameful.

But it was real.

.

....

[To be continued...]

★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★

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