Scholar Behind Shades: A Dream-Based Movie
Owen Hughes is a world-renowned movie writer and director known for action/thriller movies in the 2050’s. It has been around 10 years since he released a movie. Fans have been asking “When is his next movie? Where is he? Did he quit the movie industry? Is he going to make a return?” Actors also loved working with him as they have been nominated for awards in his movies. However, Owen hasn’t been keeping in touch with his former colleagues, especially those in the public eye. He doesn’t maintain online social media profiles either so entertainment news outlets don’t take a jab at him. Everyone has been wondering what happened to him and what he has been up to. Some people even have theories that he may have passed away.
Let’s now briefly look into the life of Owen Hughes in the film industry. Owen Hughes entered the film industry as soon as he finished college. He started off small by working as an assistant to directors and writers. Eventually, he got himself an opportunity to write and direct short films which led him to writing and direct his first movie. His first movie was such a hit that it received global awards the following year. After that, he would produce hit movie after hit movie for about 7 years. Each movie was more and more successful. Then some of the movies he released were not getting as much recognition. His final movie failed to give him any profit. Owen felt depressed for some time and took a break from the spotlight. Owen tries here and there to develop scripts and take inspiration from other movies but he is not satisfied with what he comes up with and isn’t bringing anything new to the table as he wanted.
One day Owen is in a coffee shop with his laptop and notebook, appearing very frustrated as he was editing one of his scripts. He ordered his usual coffee on his app and his coffee was delivered by a robot just like all other sit-in customers. In Owen’s frustration, he banged the table with his fist and spilled the coffee. A barista sent a clean-up robot to clean the mess near Owen. After the robot cleaned up, it dropped a note on the ground near Owen’s chair. When Owen was getting up to leave, he picked up the note, thinking it was something that fell from his notebook. He read the note and it said “It’s time for a comeback Owen,” along with a time and location near the coffee shop. Owen wanted to ignore the idea at first but he hasn’t been too happy with his life and is desperate to make another movie.
Owen goes to the location indicated on the note he picked up at the coffee shop. He then meets with the person who wrote the note, which is the same barista that sent the robot to clean up his mess the other day. The barista recognizes Owen both as a director and as a regular customer at the coffee shop. However, Owen does not recognize the barista as he has never had contact with anyone who works at the coffee shop ever since he moved to this town. Coffee shops also have less staff these days due to the implementation of robots in cafes, bakeries, and restaurants.
The barista introduces herself as Ann Clement, who works at the coffee shop part-time. She is actually working on a project in collaboration with scientists that involves visualizing and recording people’s dreams. Ann discusses what she is working on and its location with Owen. Her workplace has labs where some test subjects sleep in certain rooms that have large, wall-length TV screens. When a subject sleeps, the proctors can watch the dreams of the subject as if it were a movie. The proctors generally watch in a separate viewing room. Depending on what study is being done on the subject or the subject’s request, a subject may view a recording of his/her dreams on the TV screens in the room.
Ann has collected a list of subjects who have the most interesting, movie-like dreams, as well as bizarre dreams that may be interesting for some audiences. She believes Owen can get great inspiration from viewing the dreams of these people. Owen is intrigued by this project and agrees to visit Ann’s workplace.
A few days later, Owen goes to the building Ann works at and checks out the different rooms and talks to different scientists. He is absolutely amazed and is considering developing more sci-fi scripts for the future. Ann shows Owen videos of a few of the subjects’ dreams. There was one dream he really liked that seemed like an action/thriller movie and ended with a cliffhanger. He wanted to continue that story as well as develop a clear storyline in the beginning since the dream started in the middle of action. Owen asked Ann if he could talk to the subject so he could learn about the loopholes in the dream and get a better understanding. Ann gave Owen permission to talk to the subject, Jimmy.
“Hi Jimmy, my name is Owen Hughes and one of your dreams I saw caught my eye. I have a few questions.”
“Hi Owen, nice meeting you. I will try to answer as best as I can remember.”
“The dream that caught my eye involved you being chased by an older man in a suit with a knife. Who was that man?”
“Ooo, that was a fun time! In my dream, this man was a renowned scholar in the field I’m interested in, but there was something off about him. I pointed that out and he started chasing me with a knife. I realized I was in a dream so I wasn’t really scared. It was thrilling to be chased and trying to escape from that man.”
“Interesting. Do you know that man in real life?”
“I actually don’t recognize that man. There isn’t anyone in my life that I have such a relationship with. But I recognize the place and consider it a safe place in real life.”
While talking to Jimmy, Owen got a better understanding of what was going on in the dream and most of his questions were answered.
Owen then took a few days to think about, brainstorm, and somewhat develop a script based on his experience with Ann’s project. After a long time, Owen was getting thrilled and excited about developing a script. He decided to visit Ann’s workplace again to look at a few other dreams. He also met Jimmy again and viewed a collection of his dreams for the past week, including the dream that first caught Owen’s eye. Owen spent some time going through this collection on video editing software. The dreams in this collection were all jumbled up as the clips would change frequently and have nothing to do with the clip right before or after. Owen took the time to go through a few days worth of dreams and noticed some relevance in certain dreams. He used the software to edit out the clips of the relevant dreams.
Here and there dreams would partially repeat and lead to a new scene, then the dream would completely change. For example, in a dream Jimmy was interacting with a trusted, renowned scholar in an academic building at the end of a conference. Then as the venue empties Jimmy eventually is only with him and a few other people since they have questions. Jimmy notices that something was fishy in the response he gave to an attendee and his behavior was a little out of character. Jimmy commented on this, then after that attendee left, the scholar started chasing him with a knife. Then the dream would change. Many dreams later, a dream starts with Jimmy running out of the building, deciding whether to make a left or right turn, as he escapes the scholar that’s trying to hurt him. Owen saw that this dream was carrying on the previous dream. After compiling all the clips related to Jimmy and the shady scholar, Owen was able to see a storyline. He then spent the next few days with the available material and filled in the missing pieces.
Owen finally developed a script for his movie “Scholar Behind Shades” which is about a reputable scholar that earned a certain name for himself but is not who he actually seems. The theme builds off of trust in others, facing harsh truths, and trust in oneself. The storyline included secret agencies and the movie incorporated some sci-fi elements. Jimmy agreed to play as himself, while actors were hired for the rest of the cast. After about a year as the filming was wrapping up, the first trailer was released. It received one million views in 2 days and was being advertised on many platforms. After one week of the movie’s release, it became the biggest thing in entertainment news since so many people were watching it around the globe. Owen’s work was gaining recognition and getting nominations for global awards. With the help of Ann and Jimmy, Owen made his comeback. Now, whose dream is the next biggest hit?
