The Filmmaker
The Contract
The room was dimly lit by the evening light, just minutes away from disappearing.
— We expect your answer first thing tomorrow — they said — . The words still echoed on the walls.
Room D47 of the New South Hotel was a huge and beautiful room. Not luxurious, but with a decoration that showed good taste and an obsession with ancient minimalism.
Sitting in one of the chairs, Oliver read and reread the contract.
The last lawyer he consulted was no more enthusiastic than the other two, but he was more creative.
— You are selling your soul to the devil! — he had said, excited.
— What do they know — Oliver muttered through his teeth as he read it again.
The contract was simple. At the top was the BestFilms logo in its usual black and gold colors, with a touch of red. Below, in five consecutive sections, it stipulated everything Oliver had to accept and, in just one section at the end of the document, what he would receive in return: a sum that would ensure him a good economic situation for life.
Oliver had never suffered poverty. However, the situation for families like his, far from the water collection areas, was becoming increasingly difficult to bear. When he left home, he started, like most young people who escaped the dry areas, doing jobs as a material collector in abandoned cities. But his dream was far from there. The world of cinema had captivated him as a child when it was still possible to watch movies on giant 4D screens inside theaters. He wanted to become an actor, a famous one. And after several years with small appearances in mediocre, low-budget series, he was about to make it. He just had to sign.
The Company
The creator and main shareholder of BestFilms was, of course, an eccentric billionaire. Robert Jackson was also one of the most recognized filmmakers of the century, having revolutionized the world of cinema since his first experiential interventions.
His excessive pursuit of perfection brought him millions of admirers, as well as hundreds of thousands of detractors.
In his quest to create realistic experiences, Robert had studied and experimented with sound, lighting, characters, and setting, as well as the sensations he could provoke based on stimuli, using various existing resources and technologies, and even developing new ones when necessary. But pure realism was always his star resource and his passion.
With virtual reality, every viewer could be immersed in a movie or a series episode, living the experience from within, as a protagonist or a secondary character, challenging creators to pay attention to every visual detail, perfecting the quality of makeup and special effects.
If a film purist noticed any detail and then commented on it on their social networks, that movie would immediately lose thousands or perhaps millions of viewers.
Robert knew this. He defined himself as a purist, and his creations had to prove it.
One of his most discussed proposals in his beginnings was to use real weapons and have the actors’ injuries be real, even if within his narrative a character had to lose a leg or an arm. Although medical technology allowed for the complete restoration of a limb and rapid healing, this practice generated mountains of criticism and legal accusations, which Robert always ended up winning, as he protected himself with contracts that actors signed accepting all conditions.
But one of the biggest challenges he always faced was makeup. His genre was science fiction, and many of his characters, perhaps most of them, were non-human beings. Makeup, although sometimes considered a work of art due to the level achieved, for Robert, was still just paint and plastics, a false mask over a real face. Not to mention using virtual modifications, which for most went unnoticed, but he, as a purist, noticed and claimed took away from the realism of his experience.
Using technology, he had managed to make temporary physical changes to actors, like adding horns and scales, stretching arms or necks, etc. But this was not enough. As temporary changes, they did not last long enough, and if the work was a trilogy or a series with multiple seasons, it became unsustainable.
It wasn’t until mid-career that he found the definitive solution. His friend Richard Hamilton, a businessman in the medical technology field, told him about a new practice that was becoming increasingly common in cosmetic surgery, which had been addressing and extending to most fields of other surgical specialties for years, achieving incredible and revolutionary advances.
This new practice was Aesthetic-Functional Modifications (AFM), where clients could request almost anything they wanted. Morphological interventions were permanent, a kind of new era tattoo, and their clients competed to be the most innovative. From adding more fingers on their hands to play certain special musical instruments, to the installation of wings on their backs, capable of moving by orders from their brains. As an expensive practice, most clients were famous musicians or millionaire heirs, with no occupations other than entertainment, but it was becoming more frequent. Gradually, trends emerged, like the Illuminated group, who had a third eye inserted in their forehead, usually from a feline to improve their night vision.
Robert saw the opportunity to strengthen his art and take it to the next level. And he took it.
He created a real legal and economic machinery that would allow him to permanently modify actors and take ownership of them to use them in whatever he wanted: sequels, prequels, series with multiple seasons, advertising, and even charge royalties if requested for other productions. From the signing of the contract until their death.
The Decision
— I’m not the only one — Oliver reflected.
He weighed the pros and cons in his head. Most actors who had agreed to an AFM through BestFilms seemed happy. They enjoyed their reward, even those who had lost all their beauty with the number of modifications the character required. They always appeared surrounded by beautiful people, partying, enjoying delicacies, being recognized. That was what was seen. That was what mattered.
The character Robert offered him would leave him unrecognizable.
He thought of his family.
— Will they accept me like this? Will they still love me if I look like a monster?
He lay down for a while on the huge bed in the room, looking at the ceiling, where soft animations were projected to help stimulate thought, sleep, or even the sexual act, depending on the situation the room detected.
Since they called him a month ago, he had started this questioning. And just a few hours away from having to give his answer, he still had the same doubts.
He was almost twenty-five years old. He had so many years left to live. His options were to fulfill his dream but become a monster, or live a mediocre, normal life.
He dozed for a few minutes and upon waking knew he had to finish the matter. The pen twirled in his hand. He looked at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief.
_ English version generated with chat GPT 4o.
