Answer:
Tessa received the letter. She knew what it was before she opened it due to a system error earlier that week that had sent out emails to the accepted students. She still opened it slowly to build anticipation, just like she had planned to do back when she first applied. Congratulations on your acceptance to the Hollywood Summer Stars teenage film program. Please see script submission deadlines below, and report to Studio 14 on the appropriate date. It was everything she had hoped for since six months prior when she had turned over her carefully crafted application.
On June 24, Tessa stood outside Studio 14 clutching two binders to her chest. One contained her shooting script, which was several development stages ahead of where the program expected it to be. The second binder contained a summer-long schedule
The camp arranged students in pairs to provide feedback to and support for one another. Tessa's fondest aspiration was to be matched with someone similar to her or related to someone famous who could maybe provide an exotic outside perspective on her work. Instead, they paired her with a Midwestern boy named Varick who had never left his home state of Ohio before his acceptance letter arrived. Tessa managed her disappointment and asked about his project, hoping it wouldn't be too tedious. He told her his script was open-ended by design, and that he intended to develop the content further as he filmed. Tessa thought that approach amounted to wasting a golden opportunity to make a masterpiece under professional supervision.
The first week of filming went smoothly, and Tessa managed to accomplish every single task on her extensive to-do list. The second week was less productive. The obstacles began Tuesday morning, when storms appeared on the horizon. Tessa wasn't an amateur planner, so she had penciled in the possibility of poor weather. However she had not imagined the possibility of three consecutive overcast days taking place in a single week in Los Angeles.
The fourth week marked the halfway point for the camp. Tessa reviewed her footage methodically, and she was chagrined to find it underwhelming. Her special-effects work was clearly rushed due to a double-booking that had derailed her the previous week. Some of her shots lacked continuity, which she supposed was the result of lighting woes from the storms.. Tessa was both jealous and regretful when she saw Varick's footage. He had captured the storm, which had derailed her own film, in a unique and beautiful way. He had even cut back on special effects rather than burning the midnight oil to make up for the double-booked studio.
Tessa's planned finale involved a scene at the La Brea Tar Pits Museum on Wilshire. She'd been there a handful of times when her father had brought her to LA for business, and she was so certain the museum would accommodate her that she had not planned an alternative. The rejection for her request came on Friday. She planned to start the shoot that Sunday. It was a very polite letter, explaining that it would be impossible to accommodate her equipment due to a charity 5k that would shut down the road and bring an unusually high level of foot traffic into the museum. Varick watched her pace the room with concern in his eyes. Unlike his helpful encouragement during the first six weeks of camp, he did not seem to have any words of advice to offer now. "I have an idea," Tessa said at last. She stopped pacing and put her planning binder back up on the shelf. "I think I can make it work, but I want to be there when the runners are passing the museum."
On the final day of class, Tessa watched her film play as the instructors scribbled notes Tessa met Varick's eye and shared her relief with him in a glance. Maybe he hadn't been the partner she'd envisioned, but he had certainly turned out to be the one she needed. His penchant for turning obstacles into opportunities had provided the necessary influence to save—perhaps even improve—her film.
