Chapter 4 - A Directed, Soundtracked and narrated past
Just a word of warning here - Stephan and Martin may or may not really be the heroes of this story - there's a reason they've been expelled from the conventional studio systems of the world of Four Brothers...
Also: this tale is several chapters long on these Vignettes. I apologise for poorly separating my longer stories and supposed vignettes.
Stephan Alberg gritted his teeth furiously as he re-read the judicial judgement that had signalled only the beginning of his reputational downslide. He had managed to prove that the allegations of him being too handy with had been fabricated - he was free of the lie... or rather he should have been. In Hallerwood, lies like that had a habit of forever fouling one's career, even when one had proven themselves genuinely innocent by alibi, kept evidence and even investigative work that had placed the director's wife far far away from him when it had supposedly happened. She had continued the lie, and it would take time to litigate her out of his misery, even with the lower standards imposed in a civic trial (that he clearly could pass when it had been a criminal court case held against him by bribed officials)
Stephan sighed and sat down in his trailer. It had seen better days, but he had redirected craft and food services fees towards fighting what many had thought was a losing defence. The conditions reflected that neglect - he had piled up dirty laundry, and he had been living on food that had been far from healthy. Stephan had counted on the return of people to his door, begging him to produce their vidflix once again, even just short half-hour flix intended for the home streamer. He would NOT lower himself any further to doing nasty little five-minute or two-minute shorts...
Stephan opened another small bag of chips and wept. Perhaps he should just give up altogether, resettle in another place with a good film industry. Europe had several smaller but thriving places. India was rising. the Zealands had their own share of the home video and theater pies... Or even worse, he could just sell this trailer, walk out for good, and vanish into some other career. He'd always wanted to try his hand at book illustration. The earlier he decided, the more resources he had left over even after his hard won fight for justice that he could throw at his choices. And the clock was ticking - the later he'd left it, the less room he'd have to maneuver and refuse offers...
There was a knock on the door. The Craftwerks trailer park had a base level of services onto which various services could be tacked. It was all he could do to afford the basic rental which gave him the trailer space, a sparse amount of power, water and basic sanitation, and a listing by which others could find him in the filmography trades. That listing also doubled as a way to reach him with physical mail. In this case, a slightly thick handwritten letter. The envelope was pale blue, and a monogrammed logo had been stamped on it with a cursive "M.K." into a blob of dark blue satin wax, denoting it had been sealed somewhere, and delivered all the way to his doorstep. The M.K. could only belong to one actor he'd helped out a lot ages ago, back when he could afford to be generous with his advice and even his seed funding. Some of it had backfired, some of it had paid off... Martin Krauffer was a little autistic, but he had become a great director and kept his name up in lights for over three decades...
Then the little crazed man had suddenly announced he had a major new project that would change things, and fell right off the face of the earth. many had fondly remembered his lunacy, but in this town, they forgot you mostly after a matter of months. You vanished for almost everyone but the connoisseurs of fine film after a year or two.. Oh sure you could maybe have a comeback in the right circumstances - this was a weird town, but if you didn't keep your name up in visibility somehow, walking off the set was tantamount to a sort of suicide. It really hadn't been his own choice to commit said suicide, but he'd been so stressed gathering everything he needed to set the record straight, that his reputation had clearly withered away anyway from neglect even if he hadn't become vilified.
So what, really, was Martin Krauffer doing, summoning him? The director had suddenly written this letter with the wax seals and all... even spent extra postage on just writing his name and general state location down and leaving it to the postals to look up the local trades and find his name somewhere in the listings. Stephan hadn't exactly made himself very easy to find...
Dear Stephan,
It delights me so very much to hear that you have beaten the nasty and unfounded allegations. It has been a year since the judgement, I understand. You must be wallowing in so much work right now, the world now embracing you without the stench of those odious claims...
Or maybe you aren't exactly that fortunate. I do recall how many such good people fortunate to clear their names still don't clear the air enough to return to employability, or they may remain in a continued vendetta by those who got them into unemployment in the first place. Or perhaps... you aren't really as innocent as they claim, and only the high standards of criminal prosecution have spared you a prison term or fines... but not the continued opprobium of your peers.
I refuse to make such judgements. What I remember is a dazzling producer who could put together a great movie on the budget given, the people given, and the sets allowed. A man who lifted me up back in the good old days. It was such a shame we never got to work together before I left for Brazil.
I'd like to change that. I appreciate I'm not really helping much with the luggage allowances and the class of plane I've booked, but nobody has business or first class seats on the routes to Raijin Cove but the extremely monied on private flights... still, if you would kindly give me at least a few days of your time, I'd like to meet you on the set of that strange endeavor I once prided myself on joining. I am still lacking in regrets, and I want to share my good fortune with you, if you'll only let me.
Tickets attached on the next weekly flight path from California to Brazil and onwards to Raijin Cove. I look forward to your favorable reply, that is to say, meeting you in person. It is the least I can do for you now after all that you have done for me.
Yours in anticipation,
Martin Krauffer
Arendtcore HC Studios - Raijin Cove - Unit 3
Stephan Alberg blinked, then checked and found a slowliner ticket. Lacking in luxury, Martin had said. This was clearly bullshit - there were three reasons you took a slowliner into the skies - the high quality of services during the prolonged flights, the ability to reach places that could never host a Boeing takeoff or landing in any size airliner, and the immense economy of such a flight relative to a powered airliner.
Twelve days later, a slowliner touched down in the strange Chinajapese protectorate of Raijin Cove... home to a peculiar strain of creativity simultaneously embraced and yet also terrifying those who would take in its productions. He shrugged as he walked out of the lift that carried passengers into and out of the slowliner. Stephan's luggage contained several days of clothing that he'd managed to get laundered in the skies (part of the room service even at inner stateroom level), as well as a few favors.
It was time to see why Martin Krauffer had dragged his beaten down posterior all the way to this strange take on Casablanca. Hopefully it wasn't drugs.
He would soon find out it was something far better. And far worse.
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Just as he always had done before committing, Stephan had arrived a day ahead of his announced date of arrival, in order to case the joint that he would potentially be working at. He walked around, spoke to the locals, bought several rounds of the local main brew of choice Tsingtao Jiazui - a German style pilsner, flavored with a few legal but questionable additivies for an added kick.
To his credit, Stephan had stopped drinking it after the effects of his first draft, and now stuck to chilled chrysanthenum tea, which was known as a cheat that lacked the mule's kick of the brew, but not its warm yellow color when properly brewed and iced overnight. But that brew had loosened tongues, and he was impressed by what he'd put together.
The studio was constantly utilized most hours of most days. Aside from a few big sound stages, most production was done in the same trailers as in Hollywood, except upmodded to keep things dry and cool in them despite the heat and moistness of Raijin Cove. The compound was of similar size as other classic studios he'd worked at, but slightly larger to support a bigger pre- and post-production phase.
Much like the rest of the cove, they used a mix of English, Chinese, Japanese and Brazilian dialects to communicate their work needs and activities - if you knew at least one of those languages, there was possibly a place for you within its hallowed fencing. Some productions would call for other languages as well, and there was also always room for linguists in several other European and Asian languages specifically within the compounds of HC Studios...
The tech level was also bumped up several notches relative to most of Brazil - this was a sort of tech corridor as well - your modern smartdevice would do comms properly to the rest of the world, the water and sanitation were world-class, though the power occasionally cycled into brief moments of outage, Endeavors requiring more stable power were advised to pack a UPS in the middle to smooth out said glitches for durations of up to a day or two. The Chinajapese Empire was assisting the Brazil government to fix this small black mark on what was proving to be a very promising Free City governed away from the strictures of Brazilian law mostly. There was even talk of building actual apartments and purely-for-living homes at scale through a larger piece of the Cove.
The sky was the limit. And Stephan felt like he'd walked into a good place. Enough delays. Time to let Martin know he'd availed himself of his offer.
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The gate guard had called for a cloth-roofed jalopy as soon as he'd produced the letter Martin had sent him. As they traversed a myriad of trailers, Location Houses, and various types of set houses, Stephan marvelled at how especially busy the studios were. Every street had at least some cargo transferring, gear being prepped, or even a sleepy FX artist tired from too many hours trying to make a effect work either on computer or as a practically deployed trick.
Eventually the jalopy dropped him in front of a subcompound of sorts filled with lots of the same things, just enclosed and in smaller numbers compared to the outside of the chain fencing. Just how big was Martin Krauffer in this town, Stephan had wondered... He took a deep breath and rang the bell button on the large gate in front of him, noting the use of "M.K - Unit 3" on a placard on one of the gate bollards.
He would get in. but getting out would eventually prove to be much harder. Not necessarily for unpleasant reasons, mind you....