Cutting Room Read online

  Cutting Room

  By T.S. Worthington

  Copyright 2016 by Make Profits Easy LLC

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 1

  “The Premiere”

  Holy shit. We did it.

  Max Collins let out a huge sigh as the lights went back on and the screen went dark showcasing the last bit of the credits. He could not help himself as he looked up to the sky and thanked whoever happened to be looking down on him right then to make this moment a reality. It was a dream twenty-three years in the making and tonight it had happened.

  A hand slapped him hard on the shoulder startling him out of his zombied out daydream of magic. It was all surreal and he pretty much had forgotten where the hell he was and what he was doing. It was just so easy to get caught up in it all and let yourself have a few moments to soak it in. Unfortunately, he didn’t have moments; he had to say something.

  He looked at his best friend and co-director/co-writer Jay Morgan who had just slapped him hard on the arm. He had a shit eating grin plastered all across his face and he looked as if he might jump out of his chair at any moment and start running around, which was probably why he was hitting Max to get him to move out.

  But Max could not be bothered. He had to take a few seconds and just soak it all in. This was a moment that he had waited for his whole life and a moment that would never repeat itself in quite the same way.

  Max Collins, wannabe filmmaker since he was five years old, and his best friend Jay Morgan had just watched their film play for the first time in the West Virginia Film Festival. And it was good. They had really done it. These two young, inexperienced guys with basically no money at all had rounded up a group of friends and put together a fun, scary, and fascinating movie.

  And the audience had loved it.

  He received this confirmation as the crowd stood up and gave the filmmakers a standing ovation. Max felt the tears burning his eyes as every single fear, every single struggle, and hurdle that he had ever faced on his path to become a filmmaker in his life came to the surface. He would never forget the pain or the struggle of what it took to get here and he would always embrace this moment.

  “Wow, that was certainly a big surprise,” the conductor said as he took the microphone at the podium that had just been brought out. Behind him a few people were setting up chairs. “I’ve been doing this a while and I’ve seen a lot of good films, but I tell you it’s been a long time since I saw one that made me want to watch it again instantly after it was over.”

  The crowd cheered and applauded loudly, their voices and their noise roaring through Max’s head. It was all too much to take, but he was dealing with it. The adrenaline coursing through his body had left him too happy to be annoyed with the noise. Jay was eating it up. He was cheering louder than the crowd.

  Behind him several people began to squeeze his shoulder and pat Max on the back, catching him off guard. He was filled with the urge to turn around and punch someone while hugging them and thanking them from the bottom of his heart as well. So many emotions and feelings that if he’d been asked to describe more than two he would have been at a loss for words.

  Max glanced over at Lori Thomas, his girlfriend and the star of the film, and her best friend Joanie Michaels who acted in the movie as well as did lighting and costumes. The entire crew of the film was eight people. They’d rounded up their best friends from film school and they all got together to make a movie. It was all shot, filmed, and edited in sixty-eight days. They’d only spent six thousand dollars, most of which they’d maxed out on credit cards and what was left over from student loans.

  And now here they were.

  “Now, ladies and gentleman, I’d like to invite the filmmakers up here to talk about their film. Give them a hand!”

  The crowd went wild as Jay slapped Max again jolting him into action. Max new that this was the time he had secretly been dreading and looking forward to. He wanted the recognition for the work they’d done, but being painfully shy he hated being in front of people. He really did not want to sit there and field a bunch of questions he wasn’t sure he really knew the answer to.

  But it was time.

  They all walked up front and sat down, with Max and Jay in the center. Jay was hamming it all up, winking and flirting with some of the cute girls in the front rows and smiling at people who were taking some pictures of him.

  “Where did you get the inspiration for this film?” A dark haired girl asked in the front row leaning over the microphone being held by the conductor.

  Max cleared his throat. “Well, it really just came from an idea that Jay had and then we kind of fleshed it out together during the writing process, just trying to make the whole thing gel into something.”

  “Right, I had the idea from a weird dream I had one day. I’d been reading this book about Jack the Ripper and somehow I’d come up with the idea in my dream that he had been reincarnated and was actively working his way through modern day New York City,” Jay said.

  A fat guy a few rows behind with a goofy grin was clamoring for the microphone now.

  “The special effects in this movie are pretty low, but I think it works better without all the gore. Because it seems scarier imagining what is going on and just hearing it. Was that intentional?” The fat guy asked.

  “Well, no it wasn’t intentional at first. We really made this movie on a shoestring and we had to kind of get creative to accomplish something with nothing. And you’re right; we think it turned out better that way too,” Max said. He took a deep breath; he was starting to get into the rhythm and relax a bit. Maybe he could do this.

  “What is next on the horizon?” came the question from a pretty blonde girl who seemed to be looking at Max flirtatiously. He pretended to ignore the flirt, and did not dare make eye contact with Lori right then as he fumbled for an answer.

  “Oh, we don’t know. We just put this movie out; hopefully it will become as big of a surprise hit as we feel it will. Then that will put us in position to make something else really cool,” Jay said saving Max from embarrassment. Max silently thanked him; he had absolutely nothing to say right then.

  The blonde almost gave Jay a half wink as he smiled her down revealing that charm of his. Jay was the type of guy who never realized that it was possible to not get something in life that you wanted. He seemed to feel that failure did not exist in any world he was a part of. It was a sign of true self-confidence that Max desperately wished he had for himself.

  “How much research did you do into the background of Jack the Ripper? Is the movie fairly relevant to what we know of that killer from history?”

  The question came from a shy looking, tiny girl with huge glasses and a blank expression on her face. Max was not sure if she was thinking of suicide or what to have for dinner next. He found himself delaying the response as he tried to think of an answer.

  “Max and Jay both hit the net pretty hard and read several books about Jack the Ripper when they were writing the script,” Lori said.

  Max looked over at her. She was smiling sweetly at him with that beautiful smile she had. It was the look of an angel and it always made him blush, even after six months of steady dating. He had asked himself a million times how in the hell she had agreed to go out with him and why in the hell she kept going out with him. But he had recently stopped looking a gift horse in the mouth and asking why wh
en great things happened to him. Like this film. He wanted to ask why this had happened and how, but he knew better.

  They fielded several more questions before wrapping things up. The movie had been hyped up fairly well during the weeks leading up to the premiere at the film festival and it seemed that many people wanted to see it. Max felt it was a lot of build up from the few trailers that he and Jay had cut together. The trailers were really good, and he had to give Jay the credit for most of it. The guy was a bit of a marketing whiz. He knew just how to play to the movie’s strengths and showcase what it was about in the most exciting way during the shortest time possible. His theory was that most trailers were ridiculously long. So he had intentionally cut their trailer to be just forty seconds. It was powerful and had a huge impact.

  As they exited the theatre and walked out onto the sidewalk of busy moviegoers the air was electric. There was just something about a movie festival that wasn’t like any place else in the world. It was a place where true film lovers came to congregate and talk about and share their love of movies and their love of the people who made them. The West Virginia Film festival was new. It had only been going for five years and it had grown as more and more independent filmmakers across the state and even surrounding states began to make films and put them in the festival.

  If the movie did well enough here then it would be selected for a slot at the Cannes Film Festival. That was the big time, baby. That was a world which Max did not know he if he would ever see or how to react if he did see it. But one could dream, he thought as he looked up at the poster and the title of their film. “Begotten”, a film by Max Collins and Jay Morgan. He had always wanted to see a film poster with his own name on it for a film he had made.

  “Wow that was fun!” Joanie exclaimed as she joined the group. She was always lagging behind the others for some reason. It might have been because she was barely five feet tall in high heels. But she made up for her size by having the biggest personality around.

  “I know, right!” Tyler Gaines said. Tyler was Joanie’s on again off again boyfriend (which changed weekly it seemed) who had played the part of Jack the Ripper in the film and he was in charge of location scouting and equipment rental. He was a bit of a doofus, but they all kind of liked him. He was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back, but then forget that he gave it to you.

  “So, what now?” Lori asked as she grabbed onto Max’s hand and snuggled against his arm.

  He could not help the smile that she brought to his face. Lori was a smart, beautiful girl, who was also very down to earth. That suited Max just fine. She was the kind of girl who could have been miss popularity and could have been a fashion model, but she was conservative and dimmed down her looks so that people would only focus on her mind. Of course when you were as beautiful as she was there was only so much of that beauty you could hide. Which was why Max was unable to keep his eyes off her slight bit of cleavage that was showing from the side of her blouse pointing his way.

  “I say we party hearty!” Jay said.

  “That’s all you ever say,” Max replied.

  “Well, it’s always the right answer!”

  “I agree! You guys want to go see some of the other movies?” Tyler asked.

  “No, I’m too jazzed to sit through one right now,” Joanie said.

  “I heard that,” Lori replied.

  “Well, I heard someone say that the Club Galaxy a few streets over was supposed to be pretty chill,” Max said. Truthfully he just wanted a place where he could grab a bite and talk to Lori a bit. And it had a club part to it as well, so it would give Jay something to do.

  “Ok, that sounds cool,” Jay said.

  Thirty minutes later they were at the Galaxy. It was an interesting place; there were people of all types there actually. Max recognized fellow film geeks like himself who seemed either too excited that they were annoying everyone around them or they were too nervous to even look at anyone else and just hung out with each other.

  Max wolfed down two slices of pizza and started to feel better instantly. He was a skinny guy who was hardly ever really hungry, but when he did get hungry he had to eat right then or he could feel his blood sugar dropping fast and he felt faint. But two slices of pizza and he was as full as a tick. He might not eat for two days. It was just a chore sometimes and he often forgot all about it.

  All his friends had always teased him about being so stick thin. Of course Jay was too and that guy ate constantly. It was practically all he thought about after movies and sex. Max really wondered where it all went.

  “I have to keep pinching myself to tell me that this is real!” Lori said squeezing Max’s hand. He loved it when she did that. He always pictured her squeezing something else, which was also Heavenly.

  “I know. I just can’t believe that people reacted to it that way. The hype and the buzz surrounding it was one thing, that can just be an overzealous promoter who thinks this movie might do something, but how often are they really right? Well, this time it looks like Derek knew what he was talking about.”

  “I know!” Joanie replied as she looked across the room at the dance floor. It was hypnotizing her, but she was too shy to move from her seat. Max laughed, surprised that Joanie could even hear what was being said. He still wasn’t sure she could. In fact…

  “I’m about to fart,” Max said towards Joanie.

  “I know! That’s sweet!” Joanie said with a huge smile, her eyes never leaving the dance floor.

  “Then I’m going to take off my pants and hump the table,” Max said.

  Joanie just glanced at him and nodded as if she understood and was perfectly fine with what he was saying. Meanwhile, Lori was about to fall out of her booth in hysterics. Her sides were obviously splitting.

  Max took another sip of his rum and coke. He sometimes thought he should drink more; it seemed to make him way funnier and outgoing. He wondered if other people drank for those reasons.

  “You are ridiculous!” Lori said punching him playfully in the arm. He loved it when she did that; he loved it when she touched him in any way.

  “So, how long until we know if we will get picked up by Sundance or any of the big festivals?” Lori asked.

  “Wow, it’s way too soon to tell. We have to wait and see how the movie performs here for a bit, but judging by the reaction so far and the way that it’s been hyped up it could be pretty fast. That is the hope anyway,” Max said.

  Lori wiggled around in her seat as she snuggled up against him. “Oh, I’m so excited!”

  Max smiled. He couldn’t help but be totally happy when she was around and especially when she was this happy. Lori had one of the most infectious laughs that he’d ever heard and when she was really excited about something it was hard not to get caught up in it too. She was just one of those people who constantly put out positive vibes and it sucked everyone else around up in it too. That was one of the reasons she had always been so popular.

  “I wonder if we'll ever get those guys off the dance floor.” Joanie asked finally joining the conversation. She was looking at the dance floor watching Jay and Tyler dancing with some bimbo looking girls, who were of course Jay’s favorite. The man would stick it in any human female who remotely looked easy. He was a hound dog and he was a lazy hound dog. If a girl put up any resistance at all then Jay bailed out of it. Max had asked him one time why he didn’t just take it slow with a girl who preferred it that way and Jay responded that he didn’t have that kind of time.

  “Probably not, but I would like to go home at some point,” Max replied. It was getting late and he was starting to feel a bit drowsy. He was sure that the excitement of everything was going to keep him up all night, but the alcohol was starting to have an effect he feared. It always made him a bit sleepy.

  It took about another hour to get Jay and Tyler settled down enough to go home. Max knew that the others probably wanted to stay and party a bit longer, but it was almost
three in the morning by this time. It would have been great to stay at the festival and just talk to everyone at every showing, to watch the momentum build and build. They didn’t want to miss any of it, but they had to sleep sometime. Max decided he had to be the grown up and eventually got everyone to pile back in the van.

  When he got home and laid his head down to sleep it was almost a quarter past four. The festival was held in the city of Charleston WV, and the gang lived in Hurricane, which was just on the outskirts of the metro area. It was a great area to grow up in and Max was not sure he would ever leave the peaceful area, even if he did end up becoming a famous director. Plus it was a great place to film movies in, with the landscapes and rivers. And even the changing seasons. It was truly breathtaking to watch sometimes.

  As Max lay in his bed his thoughts drifted off to anything and everything. But mostly he kept thinking about the film and the beautiful smile on Lori’s face. He’d dropped her off last and she had kissed him sweetly at the door before she went inside to follow Joanie, who was probably already in her room and asleep.

  He felt that he was actually falling head over heels in love with her. It was a terrifying thought, mostly because he had no idea if she’d ever feel the same about him or not. He felt that she liked him a lot, but love was a whole other deal and it was scary as hell to think that this girl that he cared about so much might laugh at him and tell him that what they had was a little puppy love kind of thing; it wasn’t real. How could she really be in love with him? They were just killing time until the real thing came along, right?

  Those were the thoughts that made him sick to his stomach sometimes. So he hid those feelings deep down inside for the time being. He really needed to play it cool and just let things happen naturally. And that was what he had been planning to do. So far it seemed to be working.

  The last thoughts that drifted in and out of his mind in the last realms of consciousness before sleep grabbed him and swiftly pulled him under were not about Lori and they weren’t really about the film either. They were about Jack the Ripper. The real killer. What if he was real? What if he had never died? What if he couldn’t die and he just became reincarnated after every thirty years or so and disguised himself as some other murderer?