No More Innocence (closed for DDE)

[Pix]

Charles Campion sat in his trailer outside of the Victorian manor he was using as the central location for his new film. The house was in western Connecticut and captivated Charles the moment he laid eyes on it. It had the elegant yet Spartan look that meshed perfectly with the script. The film was to tell the story of the last surviving member of a wealthy family taking out her frustrations of her crumbling family on the beautiful and innocent young house maid while both vie for the attention of an upstart industrialist.

Charles really thought this film was to be his finest, something that would vindicate every step he's taken in his career. He had planned out so many details of the film, but had left enough breathing room for whatever may come. He cast the perfect man as the industrialist, one of his oldest friends and one of the finest actors he's ever known, Jared Milliken.

The two female leads presented different challenges however. Charles only knew of one actress with the intensity to pull off the role, Cara Barrows. The difficulty with casting Cara was the fact her and Charles had been married for four years. They divorced a couple years before, but it was messy and public. Most people would avoided each other after such events, but Cara and Charles were artists who saw the potential for something beautiful by working together. Cara was intimidatingly beautiful. Charles met her when he had just put his first feature in the can and Cara had started crawling her way to the top of the modeling world. Charles transformed her from a pretty face to a firestorm of talent. She grew tired of his controlling nature, and Charles didn't like the grasp he had on her slipped so far.

That's what he saw in the other female lead. A nineteen year old young woman just starting to act. She was green, but she had potential. Charles thought he could create a new firestorm if she trusted him completely and allowed herself to be molded by his vision. She was also beautiful, but had a youth and innocence about her that left Cara long ago.

The shoot was to start in just over a week, but Charles, the thirty-five year old former wunderkind director was isolated at the location. He liked to show up early to shooting all of the time, and this time he wanted his new young starlet to spend time with him before shooting. He wanted to know what she was capable of and how far she would let him push her.

Charles shaved and showered. He was able to stay trim as he left his twenties and entered his thirties, even starting to inch closer to 40. He was a bit paler than normal, a side effect of startling attention to detail on the film, locking himself in his office with his co-writer going over the seemingly endless amounts of drafts of the script. His hair hung a bit shaggier than normal, and it didn't necessarily curl as it grew out. He looked at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and noticed the bags under his eyes. He was probably going to look worse as the shoot went on. He applied his after shave and heard the knock on the door, it must have been his new star.

 

[DangerousDarkEyes]

Misty had been running around all morning long trying to get ready to meet the director of the new movie she was in. He had asked her to come in a bit earlier than the other actors, probably because she was so new to this movie thing. This was only the second movie she was to be in and her first one had only been a small bit part. She actually believed she got hired for her slender figure, rather large breasts for her 5’4 frame and she was a blonde blue eyed model.

Modeling had been what she was doing for the last 2 years, in between the commercials she had played in and the one movie. Just yesterday she was offered a full bathing suit layout from some sports magazine and it had been a lot of money. But she turned it down, wanting to focus her career to acting and being in this new movie. She wasn’t the lead, of course, but at least she had more coverage in this movie than she had in the last one.

Finally she stood in front of the mirror, her blonde curls hanging mid way down her back, no make up because they would be doing her make up at the set when she arrived, and she was wearing just a pair of tight jeans and a loose fitting tank top.

Misty read the directions, then got into her white convertible mustang, top up, and drove off. She arrived quickly at the shooting site, it wasn’t far from her apartment. She knocked several times on the trailer door before it was opened.

“Hi, I’m Misty Ryan, you must be Charles, the director my manager told me about.” Misty put out her hand to shake his.

 

[Pix]

"Ms. Ryan," Charles took her hand firmly in his and shook. He may have grasped it a bit too hard. His intensity was sometimes tough to contain. "Please come right in."

Charles held the door to the trailer open for Misty and he watched her saunter in. She was nervous, at least that's what Charles thought. He typically had a keen sense about people, almost as if he could read them immediately. It probably assisted him greatly when trying to bring a sense of realism to his films.

"Please, have a seat," he motioned to one of the chairs set up in the entryway to the trailer.

Charles himself sat down and looked at Misty. He was stunned by her beauty when not made up. She was quite breathtaking. "Ms. Ryan, forgive me, but you are spectacularly beautiful...almost ethereal. I think you will a particularly haunting touch to the film. But I obviously didn't hire you for your look only, I believe you have real talent inside of you and I want to bring it out. What is your goal? Why did you take this role?"

Charles stared deeply and unflinchingly into Misty's eyes. His were steely grey and stayed peeled, unblinking.

 

[DangerousDarkEyes]

Misty sat down, crossing her legs while keeping her eyes on Charles. She couldn’t tell much from his eyes other than he seemed to be a very intense man. His hand shake had also confirmed that, firm but not painful. She thanked him for his compliments, they were compliments she had heard from others before including her parents.

“Well Mr. Campion, ever since I was small, my parents had me in beauty competitions, then on to modeling. So you might say I had a push towards this direction. All it took was the chance to play in my first film and I was hooked. Even though it was a bit part, I just loved the excitement that surrounds the whole industry of film making.” She spoke a bit fast, showing her nervousness, but also enhanced her excitement.

“My goal is to be a film star who every producer is looking to put me in his film. To be honest, I would have taken any part offered at this time. I’m rather eager, but definitely willing to put the work in and due what it takes to be a star.”

 

[Pix]

Charles digested the information his new starlet was nervously throwing at him. She was rapidly going through her life's story as well as providing an outline of her career ambitions. Charles appreciated getting to know a large swath about Misty's life, even if it was only cursory and across the surface. That was fine with the filmmaker. The best way to get at a person's soul to reveal their motivations is to build trust. And then as the trust builds upon a foundation, the person will open up and that provides for their best work.

He could tell Misty had that in her, just by looking into her eyes. They showed fear, but also a burning desire. It was apparent to Charles that what she was saying about her goals lit that fire deep inside of her.

"I appreciate what you are telling me, Ms. Ryan," he told her standing up and walking towards a window. He looked out at the gray day surrounding the manor. "However, I have to make you see this from my perspective. All I care about is this film, and it's quality. I have to be honest, I'm not trying to make money or make a star...I'm trying to make art."

He didn't want to disappoint her, or make her feel bad for being honest with him. It took a lot of guts for her to be so candid with him.

"But, Ms. Ryan," he quickly tried to reassure her, "if you embrace this script, transform into this role, it will make you a star. Such a beautiful woman with undeniable talent equals star."

He knelt on one knee to look at her again, the steely eyes peering into her.

 

[DangerousDarkEyes]

Misty watched and listened to him as he walked to look out the window. She could here the passion in his voice that he had for this film and realized how much it meant to him. When he announced his main purpose for the film was making art, she understood that even if their goals were different, hopefully they would both get the results they each wanted.

“I definitely will embrace the film, I take my role very serious and really want to play each scene exactly like you have in mind.” She had said, blushing a bit from his compliment.
When he dropped to down on one knee, intensely looking into her eyes, she felt drawn to him unable to take her eyes from his.

“Mr. Campion, I’m willing to do what it takes to make your film the art piece you want, but you’ll have to tell me exactly what that is. I admit I have little experience in filmmaking.”

Her eyes looked deep into his with warmth and sincerity.

 

[Pix]

For the first time since Misty entered the trailer, Charles had smirked. He listened to her want to please him, which was good. Misty needed to become her character, a character hell bent on pleasing her mistress, even throughout the abuse. Charles didn't want to abuse her, but he wanted her to be dutiful, and it already seemed as if she was embracing that aspect of the role.

"I don't want you to do everything I say, well not by the end of filming," he told her as he got up and walked to the door of the trailer, "I want you to become your character and do what the character would do. A servant who lives for nothing but to serve her mistress, until the attraction to a man breaks her out of it, but of course she just embraces serving someone else until she truly discovers herself. That's what I need, Ms. Ryan."

Charles opened the door, and some sun light started to brighten up the gray day around the manor. The greens were much more apparent in the sun.

"Follow me," he told her and walked out onto the ground.

 

[DangerousDarkEyes]

Misty listened to him explain how she was to do her part, living to serve her mistress. She had to wince a bit at that and realized this might be one of the hardest roles she would be playing. She never had gotten on with many woman in her life, most of her friends were men. However, she did like the fact that she would be attracted to a man and break away from woman she was serving. Just those words had a bitter taste in her mouth, but she ignored it with a smile, keeping her concentration on her director.

As soon as he said to follow him, she was up and right behind him. Her eyes squinted a bit until they adjusted to the sunlight. That’s when she noticed how beautiful the grounds actually were.

“Where are we going?” she asked curiously.