A few days later, at Itsuki’s apartment:
“And so I’d like to kick off our first movie production meeting!”
“Yaaaay!” Nayuta cheered out loud, clapping as Itsuki made the announcement.
“A movie, huh?” Miyako said. “It sounds like fun, but can we really shoot all of it ourselves?”
“Heh… What a foolish question that is, Miyako. If it gets too hairy, we can just beg the people working on Kanikou’s films, and they’ll lend a hand!”
“Wow, foisting it off from the very beginning?”
Itsuki shushed the obstinate Miyako. “Hey, it’s just an insurance policy, okay? We’ll do as much as we can by ourselves, of course.”
“Hee-hee-hee… I’m glad to hear that. That’s the best part of indie filmmaking, isn’t it? Innovating however you can with a low budget and lack of good tech?”
Ashley seemed satisfied with that.
Haruto, sitting adjacent, glared at her. “That’s great and all…but why are you here, Ashley?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Haruto, did you have a problem with that?”
“No, not at all…”
Haruto’s face tensed up at Ashley’s million-dollar smile.
“I’m sorry, Fuwa,” Chihiro said apologetically. “I told her Itsuki and his friends were making a movie, and she insisted on joining in…”
“Hee-hee-hee! You can’t make a film without me, no! After all, I was part of my college’s film club. I even made a movie once.”
“You did?” Haruto seemed honestly surprised. “Wow, maybe you really can help, then…”
“It’s true,” said Chihiro. “If you go into Ashley’s bedroom, you’ll find all kinds of DVDs with titles you’ve never heard of.”
“What kind of movies do you like to watch?”
“Zombie flicks.”
“Wow, you’re a bad-movie lover, huh?!” Haruto exclaimed.
“Enough of that, Haruto. Calling all zombie movies bad is a sign of prejudice. Some of them are really great films.”
“Well, yeah…”
Haruto recalled one particular great film he saw once, featuring a group of people struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world infested with zombies. That, for sure, was a masterpiece.
“But yeah, admittedly, I’m mostly collecting B-grade movies…or C-grade or Z-grade…”
“Oh great. Why don’t you just stick to the good ones?”
Ashley blushed a bit at Haruto’s question. “I mean… If I watched a masterpiece or whatever, it’d probably make me cry. Me, I much prefer to put on a bad movie, open up a bottle of sake, and crack jokes at the action.”
“Well, we all have our own tastes, I suppose…”
“But don’t you think you can learn a lot more from a bad movie than a good one? And as someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of bad movies, I believe there’s a seed of a masterpiece inside me, don’t you think?”
“That does kind of sound legit,” Haruto said, a bit unconvinced. “You can certainly apply that to light novels, too.”
“Right,” said Ashley. “And we’ve got three professional writers here, so as long as the script’s good, it won’t turn out that crazy, will it?”
Ashley nodded. “Exactly. So just sit back and allow me to direct it, okay?”
“Since when was Ashley the director?” muttered Chihiro, glaring at her.
“So first off, let’s decide on a genre, shall we? I’d like to go for a zombie film, of course.”
Nayuta raised her hand. “Um, I think sharks would be better.”
“Another bad-movie fanatic, huh?” Haruto commented.
She reared back, offended. “Don’t paint me that way, please! There are masterpiece shark films, too…” Her voice trailed away. “I mean, less than I can even count!”
“Less?!”
“Hee-hee-hee… Sharks, huh…? I don’t mind that genre, either. They can be even more insane than zombie films.”
Miyako raised an eyebrow at Ashley. “Aren’t those films nothing but big sharks coming out and wreaking havoc on the beach and stuff?”
“Well, Mya, just plain big sharks aren’t anything unusual. What you could see are flying sharks, sharks on the ground or on mountains, shark ghosts, sharks with lots of heads, sharks fused with octopuses or demons, sharks bigger than airplanes… Anything you want. I think there was a zombie shark once.”
“Um, is it really a shark, then?” came the understandable question from Miyako.
“Oh, don’t be that way, Mya. No normal shark appears in a shark film.”
“Hee-hee-hee… Exactly!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about…”
The nonsense of these two bad-movie aficionados made Miyako break out in a cold sweat.
“In the world of shark movies, if the filmmaker calls it one, then it is!”
“Okay…? Well, I’d like to make something more decent. Emotional.”
“Emotional how?”
Miyako thought a bit. “Oh, like… For example, a man and a woman fall in love and one of them dies… Or maybe a dog or a cat shows up, and they die in the end…”
“So you’re saying you’d prefer a story full of people and animals dying? Then you’re good with a shark movie!”
“No I’m not! They’d die of illness or something!”
“Well, if zombies catch a virus, that counts as a disease, right?” Ashley said.
“Ahhh, so you’re more of a zombie lover, Mya?”
“I said that I’m not!” Miyako shouted.
“Me,” Itsuki said, “I’m more into fast action than grim horror stories. You know, people using special skills to fight these huge battles!”
“I’m more into fantasy,” replied Haruto, “like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. We can’t do that as an indie film, but…”
“Oh, in that case, can we do a story with Gundams in it?”
“You wanna make a Gundam movie?!” Haruto stared at Chihiro.
“Funny to think Chihiro’s coming up with the most dangerous idea of all,” Itsuki said, shuddering.
Nayuta frowned. “Hmm… Sounds like we all have different opinions.”
“Indeed,” Ashley said. “In that case…”
“In that case?” Chihiro echoed, curious.
“Let’s make a film that incorporates a little bit from all our wishes.”
“Ooh! I can see that approach, too!” Nayuta was all for Ashley’s idea.
“That’s crazy,” Miyako retorted—but Ashley just smiled and looked around the room.
“And you can do that, yes? You’re professional writers, after all.”
Itsuki gave her a bold smile. “Heh… You’ve got us wrong, Ashley.”
“Huh?”
“The three of us aren’t just professional writers. We’re first-rate professional writers! Zombies, sharks, emotional scenes, supernatural action, fantasy, Gundams—I promise you we can bring it all together to produce the greatest piece of entertainment ever made!”
“Hee-hee-hee… I’ll look forward to that.” Ashley smiled, satisfied.
“Ahhh, I can guess how this is gonna go.” Haruto sighed—but Itsuki and Ashley were both too worked up to hear him.