MidReal Story
Writer's Vision: A Cinematic Collaboration
Scenario: description, determination, and dialogue all end up in a movie set. they need to explain their roles to each other.
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I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop, working on my laptop, when the world went white.
When I say white, I mean it was like someone had taken a giant eraser and wiped out everything around me.
I couldn’t see the tables or the chairs or the people sitting at them.
I couldn’t see the counter or the barista who was making my coffee.
I couldn’t even see my laptop in front of me.
It was like I’d been transported to a blank page in a book and I was waiting for someone to start typing.
I blinked a few times, trying to clear my vision, but it didn’t help.
The world stayed white.
And then, just as suddenly as it had disappeared, everything came back into focus.
But it wasn’t the coffee shop that I’d been sitting in only seconds before.
It was a bustling movie set, with people running around in all directions and cameras on cranes and actors rehearsing their lines.
It was like someone had taken the pages of my book and torn them up into tiny pieces and then pasted them back together again in a completely different order.
It took me a few seconds to catch my breath and then I stood up from my table, looking around frantically for my friends.
And that was when I realized that I wasn’t in the coffee shop alone.
Thomas Greene was sitting at the table across from me, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he looked around in confusion.
I could see Lisa Chang out of the corner of my eye, standing at the counter with her hands braced against the marble, her brown eyes wide behind her glasses.
And then there was a bright flash of light and everything went white again.
When everything came back into focus this time, we were still on the movie set, but it was like we’d been transported to a different part of it.
I was standing next to Thomas now, instead of sitting at the table.
And Lisa was on my other side, her hands still braced against the counter at the coffee shop, even though we were no longer inside it.
I could see a few people staring at us in confusion, their eyes narrowed as they tried to figure out what was going on.
But there were so many people rushing around that nobody had time to pay attention to us for long.
And it wasn’t long before they were all looking away again, as if we were nothing more than an afterthought.
If I were being honest, it was a little unsettling.
But it wasn’t like there was anything we could do about it.
So I took a deep breath and stepped forward, moving through the crowd.
I could see an assistant director standing with a clipboard at the other end of the set and I headed straight for him, trying to act like we belonged here.
“Can I help you?”
I introduced myself quickly, sticking my hand out for him to shake.
“The three of us are officially lost,” I explained once we had made our introductions and he’d shaken our hands politely.
“We were at a coffee shop and now we’re here and we don’t know how we got here or what’s going on.”
The assistant director raised an eyebrow at that, but he didn’t look surprised.
If anything, he looked bored by my explanation.
He’d probably heard it all before.
“Of course,” he said finally, nodding his head like he understood completely.
“If you don’t mind waiting over there” he pointed to a couple of chairs underneath a tree “the director will be with you shortly.”
“Where is this?”
I asked quickly before he could walk away again.
“What movie is this?
What are you filming?”
He looked over at me like I was crazy and I was about to apologize for asking so many questions when I realized that he was just looking at my face.
But when he looked back at me, his eyes had returned to normal and he didn’t look puzzled by what he saw anymore.
“This is the set of ‘Knights of the Round Table’,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.
“We’re in the middle of filming a battle scene today, so you might want to stay out of the way.”
“Who’s in it?”
I asked quickly, not wanting him to leave without answering me first.
But the assistant director just gave me a blank look and then turned away, walking back through the crowd as if he had never stopped in the first place.
For a moment, I thought about following him, but then I remembered the chairs underneath the tree and decided that it might be better to let them come to us instead.
I wasn’t sure if it was the right choice or not, but it didn’t really matter.
Because it wasn’t long before they came anyway, a group of people dressed in dark blue shirts and khaki shorts who must have been part of the crew, even though they didn’t look like it.
The man in the center of the group had a headset in one ear and a walkie-talkie in his hand, which he used to bark orders at the people around him, even though he didn’t look like the kind of person who would bark orders at anyone for any reason.
He was tall, with broad shoulders that stretched the blue fabric of his shirt across his chest.
His short brown hair was styled neatly on top of his head and his beard had been trimmed carefully around his chin, making him look like a military officer who’d been shaved by a barber instead of a soldier who’d been forced to do it himself.
And he moved like he’d been trained for it, each step precise and calculated, as if he knew exactly where he was going before he took it, even though it was obvious that he’d never been here before and he had no idea what he was doing.
I couldn’t help but watch him as he moved through the crowd, leading us towards the director’s tent with unwavering determination.
It was like watching a man march to war as if he’d never done anything else.
And I was impressed by his resilience, even if I didn’t understand it, because not everyone could be dropped into a situation they had no control over and still act like they were in charge of it.
I knew I should be paying attention to the conversations going on around me and trying to figure out what had happened, but I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the man leading us through the crowd as if he knew exactly where he was going even though he looked like he’d never seen it before in his life.
The others had no trouble figuring out what they were supposed to be doing while we were walking towards the director’s tent, and Lisa Chang stepped forward to shake hands with him as soon as we got there and introduced herself as a writer instead of waiting for him to ask her for her name like I did.
“I’m Emily Carter,” I said as I shook his hand, “also a writer.”
“I thought you looked familiar!”
he said with a smile after he’d finished shaking my hand and then turned to shake Thomas’ hand, too, “You’re the one they call the queen of social media!”
“Oh god, no,” I said, blushing slightly at the idea of being called a queen of anything, “I just post a lot online because I like to write. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too!”
he said with a smile, “I’m Sean O’Neill.I’m the director of this movie.”He gestured to the director’s tent behind him.
“Good for you,” Lisa said with a grin, “You know what you want and you go after it.I like that in a guy!”
I rolled my eyes at her comment.
Sean just laughed and clapped his hands together as if he didn’t mind being flirted with at all.
“I was just about to have some lunch,” he said, “but the crew is filming a scene right now that I thought you might want to see before we go in and discuss how you might be able to help with the script.”
We exchanged confused glances and shook our heads in unison as he turned around and walked back into the tent, but followed him inside anyway because we were all curious about what was going on here, even if we didn’t want to admit it.
I was pretty sure that we weren’t supposed to be here and that no one was expecting us, but Sean acted like we had been invited and were very welcome and I was flattered by his warm reception even if it didn’t make any sense at all.
