{"id":359,"date":"2025-05-21T00:30:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T00:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/?p=359"},"modified":"2025-11-07T02:25:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T02:25:37","slug":"lights-camera-wth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/21\/lights-camera-wth\/","title":{"rendered":"Lights, Camera,… WTH!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Genre: Fantasy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Plot: An amateur filmmaker accidentally predicts the future through his film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words to use: movie, screen, suspicion, vision, coincidence, accident, trend, framed, inspiration, reading, script, memory, deja-vu, director, actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final day of filming had been a long time coming. Long days of shooting, lasting way into the evening, was finally wrapped and the director<\/strong> thanked everyone profusely on the last day. His vision<\/strong> was complete. We were all exhausted. We had no idea what was to come in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the first reading<\/strong> of the script<\/strong>, I was intrigued by the plot, the emotional nuances throughout the scenes, and quite pleased with the idea of being the main actor<\/strong>, the protagonist, of the story. Jim, the director, told me exactly what his inspiration<\/strong> was and how it came to him in a dream. Set in the future, the movie went through a series of dramatic events, an assassination of a crown prince and collapse of society with the aftermath of chaos and near extinction of morality. We only had one accident<\/strong> on set, someone fell from the scaffolding around the partial building made for shooting a scene. Only one felt good to me. It didn\u2019t start a trend<\/strong> like many others whispered. There was always the fear of accidents, one triggering more. Bad luck dominating the creation of a movie<\/strong> was always a possibility, but I never believed in luck, bad or otherwise.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the other end of the work began, which took time. One learned to have patience, and occupy oneself with other projects. Time passed and we waited for the call to view the edits, he wanted my thoughts on what he created and I felt honored. Not every director would be so open to other peoples, including actors, opinions. But he was new and inexperienced. It felt like an opportunity to assist an amatuer. We have all been there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call finally came one morning, I rubbed my red eyes, answering the phone, my voice cutting through the dry throat. I had already filmed two other movies since, and barely remembered my experience. The memory<\/strong> goes at times, with all the stress and busy work of making movies. It is to be expected. I jumped at the suggestion to view his creation on the big screen. I turned on the large screen TV, the news playing in the background as I made breakfast. I stopped with my coffee to watch, and I had a sense of deja-vu<\/strong> but didn\u2019t make any connection. It stayed with me, my mind turning over the images I saw on TV. It was probably a coincidence<\/strong> anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim welcomed me to his home, the evening light starting to wane \u2013 a perfect time to watch a movie on a large screen<\/strong> on the back patio in front of his kidney shaped pool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it is horrible,\u201d he told me, \u201cdon\u2019t hesitate to tell me. Don\u2019t hold back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you are sure.\u201d I told him, and I meant it. I have no issue with giving constructive criticism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Light flickered, the movie started with the usual preamble. We sat in silence and watched the scenes played out in front of us. I felt him look at me off and on, his suspicion<\/strong> of my opinion obviously grew as I saw with the lines between my eyebrows grew deeper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie ended, I took a deep breath and he waited for me. The whole time I felt shock, but now I sat in awe. I didn\u2019t know what to say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what do you think?\u201d he asked. I looked at him leaning forward, his elbows digging into his legs, his hands over his mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am astounded, actually. How did you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He turned toward me, looking innocent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is exactly what happened this morning. The news was playing it before I left \u2013 the assassination, playing out in the exact same sequence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched him unravel in front of me. He got up, pacing, throwing his hands up in the air. He had no explanation. A vision he got from a dream years ago. I couldn\u2019t believe him. It was unbelievable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think I have been framed,<\/strong>\u201d he laughed, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt dubious and he saw my face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t believe me, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not saying that, but \u2026 why?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His laugh was deep and throaty. \u201cOh, I have enemies. Someone close to the project will be found guilty of the assassination. I know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evening ended soon after. I say goodbye, promising not to say anything. I agreed. It would be better if it didn\u2019t see the light of day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t sleep well that night. I tossed and turned, dreaming of the movie in random snippets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I woke up, it was a phone call that made me jolt upright, my world in a haze of exhaustion and stress. The voice was masked, electronic, giving me a warning that the police were on their way. Okay, I thought, throwing my phone down onto the bed, used the bathroom, and went to the kitchen to make my coffee, putting on the news. The phone call had become a distant memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news announcer stopped me dead in my tracks. I choked on my coffee. I couldn\u2019t believe it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDirector found dead, appearantly a suicide, but the police suspect foul play possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next thing I heard was pounding my door\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading. For more stories, go to storytimebyrk.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 Rachel D. Knepp.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author\u2019s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means\u2014including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods\u2014without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or critical articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genre: Fantasy  Plot: An amateur filmmaker accidentally predicts the future through his film. Words to use: movie, screen, suspicion, vision, coincidence, accident, trend, framed, inspiration, reading, script, memory, deja-vu, director, actor. The final day of filming had been a long time coming. Long days of shooting, lasting way into the evening, was finally wrapped and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,21],"tags":[5,22,7,10,11,4,20,49,12],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-fantasy","tag-author","tag-fantasystory","tag-fiction","tag-shortstory","tag-story","tag-storywriter","tag-writer","tag-writingcommunity","tag-writingprompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}