Cassius kept teaching his regular classes at USC.
Soo-yeon hadn't shown up to audit again. He figured she was buried in her own work.
After Thursday's session he was packing up when she burst through the door clutching a thick binder. "Oppa! Help!"
She slammed the folder on the desk. The cover read "The Last Reel of Film – Fifth Draft."
Below it in smaller handwriting: "Soo-yeon's Graduation Project."
Cassius glanced at the students still lingering. "You sure you want to do this here?"
"I can't wait anymore," she said, out of breath. "The final script is due Monday. I've rewritten it five times and it still feels wrong."
They ended up at the coffee shop downstairs. Soo-yeon ordered two Americanos and pushed the binder across the table. "Please. I know you're busy, but this is my last shot."
Cassius flipped through it. Thirty-minute short, black-and-white, eight-hundred-thousand-dollar budget on paper. The story had heart: a Korean immigrant running a dying video store in the nineties, the last regular customer an old man with Alzheimer's who always rents the same tape. On the final night before closing, the owner plays that last reel for him.
"The bones are solid," Cassius said after reading. "Immigrant story, movie nostalgia, memory loss. If it lands, it could actually chase festivals."
Soo-yeon's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"But that's also the problem," he said. "You're trying to say too many things at once. The immigration struggle, the small store versus chains, movies as memory vessels, Alzheimer's—it's all there, but nothing gets enough room to breathe. Thirty minutes can't carry everything."
He pointed at a scene. "The phone call with the daughter is trying to carry the whole generational gap on its own. It reads like a lecture instead of a conversation. And the old man feels more like a walking symbol than a person. Why does he keep renting the same tape? What does that movie actually mean to him? You skipped the specifics that would make us care."
Soo-yeon chewed her lip, nodding.
Cassius kept going, gentler now. "I'm not saying it's bad. For a school project it's already strong. But if you want this to stand out beyond campus, we have to cut the fat and sharpen the core."
He pulled out a red pen. "First question: what's the single thing this film is really about?"
Soo-yeon thought for a moment. "In a time when everything disappears, some things can still be remembered."
"Good," Cassius said, writing it down. "Memory versus forgetting. Everything else serves that."
He started marking pages. "The father-daughter phone call can stay, but fold it into daily behavior instead of a big speech. The car chase in the second act—cut it. Use a quiet walk through empty streets after he closes the store instead. It'll hit harder and cost nothing."
Soo-yeon scribbled notes fast.
They worked for two hours. Cassius helped tighten the old man's motivation—maybe the tape was the last clear memory of his first date. The two men end up quietly saving each other without realizing it. The dialogue got leaner, more lived-in. Cassius even threw out a couple of line ideas that felt right for a tired video-store owner who'd been in L.A. for decades.
By the time they finished, the script was down to forty-eight pages and felt focused.
Soo-yeon stared at the new draft, exhausted but lighter. "If we shoot this version… I don't know if I can pull it off. The budget won't cover it, and I can't afford the kind of actors this needs."
Cassius closed the binder. "I can help with both. I know a couple of older actors who'd do a student film for scale or less. And I'll put in some money. Call it an investment. If it wins something, I get a piece. If it doesn't, I helped a friend."
She looked at him for a long second. "You'd actually act in it?"
"Old video-store guy," Cassius said. "Fifteen minutes of screen time. We can shoot in two weeks around my teaching schedule. Sounds like the kind of role I haven't played in a while."
The panel flickered quietly in front of him.
[Project: The Last Reel of Film]
[Current Stage: Script Locked]
[Performance Grade: C (Not Yet Shot)]
[Director Satisfaction: B–]
[Team Collaboration: D]
[Audience Expectation: E]
[Overall Rating: D+]
Cassius looked at the low grade and wasn't surprised. Nothing had been shot yet.
They took the cleaned-up draft to Professor Anderson the next day. Anderson read it, set it down, and nodded. "It's good. But with this level of ambition you're going to need real professionals on the other side of the camera."
"I already talked to Rodrigo Prieto," Cassius said. "He'll shoot the key three days. His assistant will handle the rest. James Cromwell said he'd play the old man for a thousand bucks as a favor. We've got the old video store in Koreatown locked in for free."
Anderson raised an eyebrow. "You're building an awards team for a student film."
"If we're doing it, we might as well do it right," Cassius answered.
Anderson looked at Soo-yeon. "You understand the pressure this puts on you as director?"
"I do," she said, voice steady. "I'll be ready."
Anderson handed the script back. "Final version goes to the committee Monday. If it passes, you have five months. Two weeks shooting, three months post, one month for festivals."
Outside, Soo-yeon clutched the binder like it might disappear. "Rodrigo Prieto? For a student short?"
"Three days only," Cassius said. "The rest is on his assistant and you. But those three days will set the look."
She nodded, eyes bright and terrified at the same time.
Back home that night Cassius opened his laptop and checked the project panel again. Still sitting at D+. The team wasn't fully assembled yet. He started making calls anyway—cinematographer's assistant, production designer, sound. One step at a time.
The script was locked. Now they had to make it real.