….
The notification LED on his phone was flashing.
Across the room, Laurence groaned. "Dude... what time is it? Who's calling?"
Noel reached out with a stiff hand and hit accept on the call, putting it on speaker.
["WAKE UP, YOU BEAUTIFUL PSYCHOPATHS!"] DJ's voice blasted through the phone speaker at ear-splitting volume, so loud it rattled the laptop casing. ["Turn on your screens! Check Twitter! Check Reddit! The internet is literally melting down!"]
Noel sat up so fast his desk chair screeched against the linoleum. "DJ? What... what time is it?"
"Laurence! GET UP!" Noel barked, pulling open the Asus laptop screen.
"I am dead, man, leave me alone..."
"GET UP ALREADY!"
Laurence scrambled off the mattress, rubbing his face as he crowded over Noel's shoulder.
The thread hadn't just gotten a few upvotes. It had completely hijacked the front page of Reddit.
Sitting at 92.4k Upvotes, pinned by the moderators at the top of both r/movies and r/MDCU, their post carried a bright gold tag:
[MOD APPROVED - HISTORICAL ANALYSIS].
"Oh my god..." Laurence breathed, his jaw dropping so low it almost unhinged. "Look at the comments..."
The comment section was an absolute battleground of film school professors, sound engineers, VFX artists, and casual fans losing their minds:
====
u/SoundDesign_Nerd:"Holy shit. I just put the Joker interrogation scene into Pro Tools and isolated the sub-60Hz range. OP IS NOT LYING. THERE IS AN INVERTED SHEPARD TONE UNDER DARREN'S DIALOGUE. REGAL IS A PSYCHOPATH."
u/Cinephile_99:"I went back to the theater today specifically to check the 7-degree anamorphic warp on Batman's reflection during the Tumbler chase. IT'S THERE. EVERY SINGLE FRAME. How did two college kids find this before any official film critic?!"
u/Hollywood_Insider:"I work in post-production at Whitebridge Studios, and we're literally projecting this Reddit post in our editing bay right now. The GPS coordinates for Smallville in the hex code is the most insane attention to detail in comic book movie history."
====
"Dude..." Laurence choked out, clutching his chest. "We... we went viral?"
"It gets crazier." Noel whispered, his hand shaking as he pulled up Twitter.
DJ was still laughing hysterically over the phone speaker. ["I pinned your breakdown on my profile and tweeted it out three hours ago! It's got 120,000 retweets, man! The whole film community thinks you guys are rogue post-production editors secretly leaking studio secrets!"]
….
.
Meanwhile, on the top floor of the LIE Studios headquarters in Burbank, California, the executive suites were in a state of chaos.
Samantha Cross pushed open the heavy double doors of Simon Lombardozzi's corner office, holding a printed stack of paper. She walked in with her eyebrows raised, studying Simon with suspicious eyes.
"Tell me we didn't pay for this." Simon said, not even looking up from his laptop, where the Reddit thread was displayed in all its multi-page glory.
Samantha stopped right in front of his desk, crossing her arms. "I came in here to ask you the exact same thing, Simon. You and DJ go back, and you two talk all the time. When I saw his name plastered all over the retweet trail boosting this post, I genuinely assumed this was one of your off-the-books, sneaky guerilla marketing stunts."
Simon finally looked up, throwing his hands up in genuine innocence. "Are you kidding me?! I haven't talked to DJ since the release! I swear on my life I didn't pay a single cent for this!"
He turned his laptop screen toward her, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. "Our marketing department spent millions on the opening weekend campaign, and two random kids in a dorm room, with DJ giving them a megaphone, just generated forty million dollars worth of prestige press in twelve hours!"
Samantha let out a soft exhale, the suspicion melting into an impressed smile. "To think they decoded the hex string in the Batcomputer's UI and even mapped the coordinates all the way to Smallville."
"I know!" Simon laughed, leaning back in his leather chair. "I thought Regal put that in as an internal joke for the VFX crew!"
"He did put it in as an internal joke." Samantha replied dryly. "He's been in his room working on the next project, and Seren showed him the thread an hour ago."
Simon raised an eyebrow, thoroughly intrigued. "And? What did our resident auteur say?"
Samantha chuckled softly. "He looked at the screen for two minutes, pointed at the section about the 12Hz flickering overhead light in the interrogation scene, and said: 'Tell them their frame count on the bank heist transition was off by two frames, but the 12Hz note was sharp.'"
Simon burst out laughing, slapping his desk. "I saw that coming from a mile away!"
"So, what's our move with those two kids?" Samantha asked, leaning against the desk. "They clearly scrubbed a bootleg copy to get those exact frame counts and timecodes. Technically, legal could send a notice."
"Legal notice?" Simon scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. "Are you out of your mind? They just turned our superhero blockbuster into the most critically dissected cinematic work since Citizen Kane."
Simon picked up his desk phone, paused, and then grabbed his cell phone instead, grinning warmly.
"I am calling DJ right now." He said, dialing the number. "He's in direct contact with them. I am going to get their real names, pay off their college tuition for the year, and get them down here to Burbank. If two film-obsessed kids can break down Regal's editing frame-by-frame, I want them sitting in our post-production department before any other studio tries to sign them."
Samantha almost laughed at that last remark. Before anyone else has the chance to sign them.
In reality, there probably wasn't another studio in the industry that would pay this much attention to a random online analysis of a film.
That obsessive willingness to recognize talent in the most unexpected places was precisely why LIE Studios had risen to where it stood in Hollywood.
Regal said nothing, but the faint smile on his face made his thoughts obvious.
He had already reached the same conclusion.
Simon had an exceptional eye for discovering talent, and there was no one better suited to handle it.
Sometimes, the smartest move was simply letting the right person do what they did best.
….
Back in Room 214–
Noel and Laurence were still staring at the laptop alongside DJ on the video call when Noel's phone buzzed with a direct message notification.
DJ's face on the screen suddenly grinned from ear to ear. ["Hey... check your Reddit inbox right now."]
Noel clicked the unread message icon.
====
From: u/LIE_Studios_Official
Subject: A message from Regal Seraphsail & Simon Lombardozzi
"Simon here from LIE Studios. Your breakdown hit our group chat today, and we're all still trying to figure out how you spotted the sub-bass frequencies and GPS coordinates. DJ gave me your names. Is it possible for you two to fly out to Burbank this Friday? We want to meet you in person, tour the post-production division, and talk about bringing you on board in the future. Tuition's fully covered by LIE Studios. Pack your bags! –
Simon Lombardozzi"
====
Laurence looked at Noel, who silently returned the glance, while DJ howled with laughter on the other end of the phone.
For five full seconds, neither of them breathed.
The screams echoed inside Room 214 until Laurence literally ran out of air, clutching his throat and stumbling backward onto his unmade mattress, while Noel stood frozen at his desk, his hands pressed against his cheeks like he was trying to hold his own skull together.
["Hey! Hey! Are you guys still breathing?!"] DJ's laughter crackled loudly through the phone speaker. ["I told you! I told you Simon wasn't playing around! When I gave him your real names, he didn't even hesitate. He literally said, 'Get those two maniacs on a plane before someone else offers them a job!'"]
"Tuition..." Noel squeaked, his voice cracking violently. "He... he said tuition's on them?!"
"Bro, forget tuition, we're going to Burbank!" Laurence yelled, jumping back up and grabbing Noel by the shoulders, shaking him like a ragdoll. "We're going to the actual LIE Studios! The post-production suite!"
["You two better go wash your faces and get some actual sleep."] DJ grinned over the call. ["I am flying out from NY tomorrow morning. I will meet you guys at the LIE main gate in Burbank. Don't be late, and for the love of God, Noel, put on a shirt that doesn't smell like stale espresso."]
….
.
[To be continued…]
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