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It was a long shot. Really it was, but a shot in the dark was the only opportunity the studio had left. The last three projects produced by Eridani Studios had barely turned a profit. Still, they were going to risk it all on a young director. Jody Moreno was a recent graduate of film school. Since her senior year, she’s won several awards for short films and had interned with some of the leading directors of the time. Best of all, her up front wasn’t expensive. That’s exactly what they needed right now.
Her proposal was a film based on a series of novels following a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world of mutating microorganisms and alien fungi. The idea was to make a film on a moderate budget, and hopefully it would be successful enough to launch a tv series with forty-five long episodes. There were five novels to go off of. Really, she could have chosen any place to start: from book four and make a prequel season, start at the beginning like anyone would, or even try and push around plot points for one character’s entire arc. Jody chose to do none of the above.
Instead, she’d opt to dig out the short story that inspired the series. It was written five years before the first book was conceptualized. Apparently, the author kept having dreams about the unexplored universe he had touched upon once. That’s where she wanted to start. Of course, it would have to be modified to fit the final universe of the books, but that was manageable. Anything was when she put her mind to it. Besides, both of her parents were scriptwriters; she knew what made a good story. Most of the budget reserved for hiring the crew had been set aside by the studio. It wasn’t negotiable who would be playing the main character.
Tom Ryder had been in front of the camera his entire life. It started with being in the backgrounds of shots with people pretending to be his parents. Then, he was playing a child in the classroom. He didn’t have time for schooling beyond tutors between takes. It was in middle school that things started to ramp up. He was consistently being primary or secondary characters in preteen made for tv movies and shows. This continued into his teenage years. Of course, he got to cameo in what he’d call ‘real movies,’ but it wasn’t what he wanted. He saw the comparisons to the likes of the Disney channel kids. There question was if he’d be a Zendaya or a Devan Werkheiser. And if you don’t know who that is, well, that just proves his point. He was going to be a Zendaya or his parents would die trying.
With the lead actor cast and most of her budget eaten up by it, Jody relayed on the ancient methods of the industry to get production off the ground. She went to people she knew, used contacts, and cashed in favors. It was a bit of a ragtag team, but all things considered, it wasn’t bad at all. Her boyfriend, Colt Grace, was a professional stunt man. Okay, he hadn’t been in any big projects as a leader before, but he was already throughly trained and experienced at twenty-three. He was going to help her block and shoot fights, chases, and all the fun thrilling bits that had audiences buzzing, the Comic Con moments.
The hardest position to fill, oddly enough, was special effects makeup. The issue was, there wasn’t exactly a solid direction in how the mutated humans would look yet. Anyone who was willing to put in the time and effort to research to create concepts and then actually do the makeup blew their budget without even considering material costs. Well, that was besides the super talented makeup artist she had sort of forcibly adopted in college.
Simon had been through….a lot. There was clear echos of pain and mistrust et he’d into his being. The kid, only eighteen when she met him, had been hiding in the back of a community course donated by some performing arts school as a publicity stunt. What initially caught her eye was his sketches. It was as if the human form was divine when crafted with his pencil upon the paper. Jody had been volunteering as an aide for the class, she had hoped Colt,her crush at the time, would show up.
The first time she commented about how thought out his designs were, the man had jumped ever so slightly. His shoulders raised to his ears before falling. He hummed a small dismissal as if it was nothing. Yet, she spotted, deep within his dark brown eyes, a small spark of joy. It was like clockwork. Every week, she’d come and watch him work. By the time they got to physically making the designs and trying out techniques, he’d actually accept compliments with a bashful nod. Well, he would have if Jody hadn’t been blown away.
It was clear this wasn’t his first rendezvous with the trade. She snapped a few photos of the sick looking false mouth he had created upon his cheek. Soon, her parents were begging to meet the mysterious guy. Within a few months, they had charmed the aloof loner. They’d happily coo that he charmed them just as much. Through a long winding path of conversation and learned trust, Simon left the transition house and moved in to the guest room. The long talks, the break downs, the growth of love-it was all so long ago that she couldn’t remember what it was like without her ‘brother.’
The hard part wasn’t finding someone who could do it. The problem was getting that person to agree. Though, finally, he signed on. Everything was moving right along. That was, until cracks started to show. The invasive species hadn’t been fully realized yet. For a series that tried to be serious, none of it seemed realistic, even in a sci-fi setting. The in-universe logic had no basis. They needed someone with knowledge on species at a cellular level, someone who would predict behaviors and reflect that into a concept.
It was the summer before his final year in his doctorate program. He was super intelligent, but he also couldn’t be held back from the dance floor, even if he looked more like he was casting spells or bunny hopping than dancing. People always assumed the reckless twin would be the one who got paid to be on fire. Nobody ever suspected that sweet Ryland, the life of the party, would go on to have one of the wildest summer romances in modern history, or at least it felt that way to the three involved.
Colt already regretted offering him the job.