It was labeled a sci-fi short, and technically it was only fifteen minutes of the male lead walking into a ballroom looking for a key character, but somehow it felt like a lost reel from Hollywood's Golden Age, all glamour and razzle-dazzle.
The way the director moved people and the camera around was insane. In an era where everybody leans on voice-over and inner monologue, she barely used any dialogue at all. Instead she went full-on theatrical: stagey framing, silhouettes, spotlighting the center while everything else melted into shadow. Story told purely through staging and light.
She loved iris-outs for transitions (those old-school circular wipes that scream 1930s), and it gave the whole thing this deliciously retro vibe.
Most directors have one or two tricks. This woman had four or five cooking at once. She turned music into light, emotion into light, layered colors until the screen felt like a fever-dream velvet. It was lush, textured, hypnotic.
Those fifteen minutes were unlike anything he'd seen in years.
He'd lost count of how many times the cuts and camera moves made him sit up straight and go, "How the hell did she do that?"
Joey… is this the kind of brilliance you cook up when the world kicks you into a corner?
Anyone would've been floored by the first five minutes of that ballroom sequence alone.
Hughes pulled the DVD out of the player like it was made of glass, slipped it back into its sleeve, and just stared at it for a second.
He never would've believed it was Joey Grant if he hadn't seen the proof with his own eyes. Yeah, he always knew she had talent, but this? This was mastery. Every frame dripped with the confidence of the great Golden Age directors, plus a color palette that felt almost supernatural.
Of course, Hughes had no idea that Joey had fifty extra years of film history stuffed in her brain (decades of studying every technique, every hit, every flop). That kind of unfair advantage will make anyone level up fast.
He stood, stretched his long, easy frame, shrugged off the blue wool coat with the leather elbow patches, and hung it neatly on the polished rack. Then he grabbed a crisp new gray suit from the closet and slid into it.
Right on cue, his mother Grace pushed the door open without knocking, scowling like she'd smelled something bad.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Meeting a client," he said, smoothing the shoulders of the jacket.
Grace gave a sarcastic little laugh. "A client so special you put on a brand-new suit? People might think you're off to see a mistress."
He flashed her a lazy grin. "Don't you want grandkids someday?"
Her eyes flashed with real anger. "Don't play cute. I know you moved twenty million out of your personal account to invest in Joey Grant's new movie."
Hughes didn't even flinch. He was used to her spying; it was just the price of being born to Grace Redstone. He met her glare with practiced calm.
"Mom, we're in the movie business. The only thing that matters is profit. Joey Grant's movie will make money. Why wouldn't I invest?"
Grace scoffed. "A twenty-million-dollar hard sci-fi movie? Even the six majors are laughing at her. Every indie financier thinks she's delusional. You're telling me this has nothing to do with… personal feelings?"
He reached over and gently brushed a stray lock of hair off her shoulder, smiling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "You know me better than that. My reputation is everything. I never invested a dime of my own money in the seven years we were together. I'm investing now because the script, the budget, the pitch, and that short. With my track record, I'm betting it's going to print money."
He was telling the truth. He liked Joey (maybe even loved her once), but he'd never throw twenty million at a vanity project. Not his style.
Grace wasn't buying it completely. "Your grandfather explicitly said if you ever got tangled up with that woman again, you're out of Paramount. You really want to risk that?"
Hughes leaned against the window, hands in his pockets, utterly relaxed. "My career doesn't live or die with Paramount. I've made it this far on my eye and my reputation, not because I'm Sumner Redstone's grandson. Why do you always act like that's the only thing I've got going for me?"
"You still need the connections," she snapped. "If your grandfather finds out—"
"Then don't tell him."
He tossed the line over his shoulder like it was nothing, grabbed his keys, and walked out.
He had a lunch date, with an old friend. Joey Grant.
After he left, Grace sank onto the couch, fuming, already plotting how to yank her son away from "that low-class girl" once and for all.
Her eyes landed on the DVD Hughes had left behind (Joey's new short, clearly labeled).
She was curious now. What the hell had Joey done to make her iron-willed son risk twenty million and his inheritance?
Grace slid the disc in and hit play.
She wasn't ready.
A kaleidoscope of overlapping iris-ins exploded across the screen like fireworks. Fragmented editing, liquid camera moves, characters gliding in and out of frame like dancers on a dream stage. Color so vivid it felt illegal.
Five minutes in, Grace's jaw was literally hanging open.
The next ten minutes (the lead weaving through the party, hunting his target) were tight, propulsive, not a wasted frame. No real sci-fi tech on display yet, but it already felt like the future.
Fifteen minutes. That's all it took.
Grace had been in the business forty years and could count on one hand the number of times a film had glued her to the screen like this.
No way.
There's no way that woman made this.
Meanwhile, at a quiet café in Beverly Hills…
Joey and Catherine sat nursing coffees, waiting for the mystery investor who'd fallen in love with the short.
Catherine smiled. "He told me not to tell you who he is ahead of time. Said you two go way back and he didn't want you thinking he's doing this out of friendship. He swears it's purely because he believes in the movie."
Joey's stomach dropped. "Wait… I know him?"
"You'll see in about two minutes. He just texted, he's pulling up."
That dramatic, make-'em-wait energy felt way too familiar.
If it really was who she thought… honestly, she was fine with it. She knew him. After all these years, she knew he'd never bet real money on sentiment. If he was in, it's because he thought the movie would make a killing. And when he committed, he went all in.
Five minutes later, the door opened.
Gray suit, pleated shirt, hair slicked back just enough, long easy stride, that permanently bored, slightly-arrogant glint in his eyes and the half-smirk that said he already owned the room.
He looked at you like a pirate deciding whether a ship was worth boarding or burning.
Same old wild, barely-leashed energy. Zero impulse control, maximum swagger.
Joey muttered under her breath, "This arrogant bastard still looks like he thinks he's God's gift."
But she wasn't surprised. Catherine's little speech had already tipped her off.
It was him.
Hughes Redstone.
A shark who only swam toward blood in the water, toward money.
Whatever was between them was ancient history.
If he wanted in on the movie now, it was because he believed in the movie.
And that was exactly the kind of partner she wanted.
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