Anatomy of a Love Seen

Love remarkable…

Naked, in bed, and surrounded by a room full of people, Zoe and Mal fell deeply in love with each other at exactly the same moment in time.  The circumstances were unusual, but love can sneak up on you anywhere.  This just happened to be on a movie set, while filming a love scene, with an audience of crew members…and the moment was captured on film.  The movie’s director Kara thought it miraculous, given the fact that the name of her film was “A Love Seen”.

Love brutal…

Five months later, with an Alexander Payne film in the can, rising star Zoe was living the life she’d worked for since age 13.  She always had big dreams, and never wavered in her faith that they would be realized.  At the top of the list was marriage and kids, which now seemed closer than ever.  The night of the Alexander Payne wrap party Zoe was giddy, joyous, walking on air – until Mal disappeared from the party, and then from her life.  The email simply said “I can’t do this, I’m sorry.”

Love ironic…

During filming, Kara had taken Zoe under her maternal wing both professionally and personally, so when Zoe’s world came crashing down it was Kara’s couch she landed on.  After the shock wore off, the calls and messages to Mal went unanswered, and the unnerving anger passed, Zoe did little but cry and sleep for three weeks.  It was somewhere in week four that Kara delivered the news she had been sitting on for days, waiting for the right time, waiting for Zoe to get stronger.  There was a broadcast deal in the works, one that would greatly benefit everyone involved with the project.  There was just one thing that had to be done…re-shoot the love scene.

Welcome to the set.