Chapter 110: Record Studio (3)
True to her word, Jelissa truly ground the contestants down to the bone, making her kind and gentle teaching style seem like a joke.
The number of times she repeated the words ’just one more take’, ’can you sing it this way’, ’I promise, just one more time’, before making a contestant repeat a single line of the song close to 50 times single-handedly built calluses on Ari’s ear, and made him look at her in a different light.
Despite her gentle demeanor and sincerity, she was truly a perfectionist and completely dedicated to getting the perfect sound out of the contestants.
When she saw different contestants getting frustrated in the booth, she would play back their first take and the latest take so that they could understand the difference and hear the improvement, which seemed to help motivate them to do better.
Occasionally, when a contestant would get stuck trying to make the changes that Jelissa demanded, it was Larry Jackson who came in as the voice of reason, urging Jelissa to move on to the next contestant.
By the time it was 11 pm, most of the contestants had recorded successfully, and everybody was tired and cranky except for Jelissa, who was still smiling energetically as she waved at them.
"Thank you all for putting in the hard work for recording. I’ll be up all night mixing and mastering it for your recording tomorrow. It’s going to be a really long day, so make sure your uniforms are clean and that you get a lot of rest. If you don’t, you’ll surely regret it."
Hearing yet another cryptic warning from her, Ari just raised his hands and asked point-blank.
"I know we’re filming the signal song performance tomorrow. Can you give us any details? Like who the film director is or what to expect? You’ve been dropping a lot of hints, and I’m quite nervous."
"Hmmm, Jelissa tapped her lips mischievously before looking at the cameraman, who shook his head before eventually nodding when she gave him a pleading look.
Laughing at her success, she pretended to whisper while holding out her pink, "You have to promise that you’ll pretend to be surprised tomorrow, okay? Otherwise, PD Ji-ho will have my head."