Before leaving he office of Sol Berg, a Swedish tax advisor for people who had stumbled into wealth.
"You've been busy, Duke," Sol said, tapping a thick file.
"Royalties from the hardback, the paperback auction, the international rights... you're sitting on roughly one million, three hundred thousand dollars in liquidity."
Duke sat across from him, leaning his cane against the desk. "I assume the IRS wants their cut."
Sol let out a dry, rattling laugh. "Cut? Duke, at your income level, the top marginal tax rate is seventy percent. Uncle Sam doesn't want a cut; he wants to be your primary beneficiary."
"If you leave this money in a standard bank account, you're going to give the government nearly nine hundred thousand dollars."
"You'll be left with enough to buy a nice house and a fast car."
"That's why I'm putting two hundred thousand into the movie," Duke said.
"That's a start," Sol said, leaning forward. "By investing that through Ithaca Productions, you're converting personal income into a business asset."
"You're essentially buying twenty-five percent of a film using money you would have lost to taxes anyway. You're betting sixty thousand of your real money to control a million-dollar project. It's brilliant, if the movie becomes a hit."
Sol scribbled a few numbers on a legal pad.
"But we need to protect the rest. You can't put all of it into one movie. We need to diversify."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Real estate is the best move, and it's a good one," Sol said.
"But look at the landscape. Buy land in Malibu, yes. But look at the technical side. You're a 'film brat' now. Start a separate holding company for equipment. Buy the cameras, the lenses, the editing bays."
"Lease them back to your own productions. You get the depreciation write-off on the hardware, and the rental fees become a sheltered circle of cash."
Sol leaned back, his eyes twinkling. "And then there's the 'Gregory House' play. Since you own the pseudonym, we set up a trust in Nevada."
"The book royalties go there. It stays quiet, it stays shielded, and it's separate from your Blackwell persona. You already paid taxes in March so we only have to prepare for next years taxes soon."
A week later, after solving taxes, he had made his way to Cambridge.
Duke pulled his collar up.
He was wearing a thick, charcoal-grey Harvard sweater he'd bought at a thrift shop, topped with a heavy wool overcoat.
Beside him, Gary Kurtz looked like an assistant professor in a corduroy jacket.
Then there was George Lucas.
George was huddled in a red USC sweatshirt, looking entirely out of place and perfectly like a visiting student.
He was clutching an Eclair NPR camera on his arms, shielding it from the cold.
"The light is perfect," George whispered, his breath clouding in the air. "It's that flat, honest grey. No shadows to cheat. It looks good."
"It looks lsad," Harrison Ford grumbled.
He was standing nearby, looking strikingly handsome in a tan trench coat that made him look exactly like a Law student who had never gone a hungry day in his life.
Blythe Danner was beside him, her nose slightly red from the chill, which only made her look more like Jenny Cavilleri.
She was wrapped in a hand-knitted scarf, clutching a stack of books.
"Alright," Duke said, his voice low.
"We're doing the library meet. George, you're using the cammera. Gary, you've got the grey card. If anyone asks, we're a USC documentary crew and me and Gary are students helping them out."
"George, show them your ID if they get close. Gary and I will handle people if they poke their noses in."
They moved into the library. The interior was a cathedral of hushed whispers and the scent of old paper.
Duke felt a rush of adrenaline. This was it, the first "stolen shot" of the production.
The librarian, a woman, looked up as they entered.
Duke immediately walked over to her, putting on his most charming smile.
"Good morning," Duke whispered, leaning over the desk.
"I'm Conrad Hauser from the Film Studies department."
"We're hosting a visiting student from California today doing a quick piece on 'Architectural Silence.' We'll be out of your way in ten minutes."
He didn't wait for her to agree. He gave a sharp nod to George.
Harrison and Blythe took their positions at a long oak table.
The light from the high, arched windows spilled across the wood, catching the dust motes in the air.
George moved fast, circling the table, the Eclair NPR purring so quietly it was nearly silent.
"I'm looking for a book," Harrison said. His voice was a perfect match for the room, low, entitled, but curious.
"You've got legs," Blythe shot back, her voice cutting through the silence like a cello. "Use them."
A few real students at the next table looked up, frowning. One guy, wearing a varsity jacket, squinted at Harrison.
"Is that a camera?" the student whispered loudly.
Gary Kurtz stepped in front of the student's line of sight, holding a light meter. "Keep your voice down, please. We're recording a piece on ambient acoustics. Focus on your studies."
The student blinked, cowed by Gary's sheer professional confidence.
"Cut," Duke whispered, once the dialogue finished.
George didn't stop.
He pivoted, catching a close-up of Blythe's defiant expression as she watched Harrison walk away.
It was a shot that wasn't in the script, but Duke didnt care, it was better to have more material, in case something got damaged.
"We got it," George breathed, a massive grin breaking across his face. "The gate is clean."
"Move," Duke commanded.
They didn't linger. They piled out of the library and back into the nondescript grey van parked at the curb.
Gary slid the door shut, and the heater kicked on, smelling like old dust and gasoline.
"That was exhilarating," Blythe said, rubbing her hands together. "I felt like I was robbing a bank."
"Good,. Im freezing" Duke said, looking at the camera. "We just got a five-thousand-dollar scene for the price of a USC sweatshirt and some lies."
Harrison leaned back against the van wall, looking at Duke. "Are all scenes going to be recorded like this?"
"We're trying to keep cost low, Harrison," Duke said. "Things will improve when we get to New York."
He looked out the window as the van pulled away. They had their first scene now.
Next day, the Cambridge morning was cold, gray silence.
Overnight, eight inches of fresh snow had descended on Cambridge, burying the grime of the city under pristine white snow.
It was the kind of snow that made everything look like a storybook, and for Duke, it was the ultimate high-stakes production value, provided by nature, for free.
"Static electricity is the enemy today, George," Duke said, his breath blooming.
"If you crank that Bolex too fast in this dry air, you're going to get lightning bolts across the negative. Slow and steady."
George Lucas, huddled in his USC sweatshirt and a pair of oversized wool mittens, nodded.
He was cradling the Bolex H16 like a newborn. He knew the risks.
In the 1960s, the friction of film moving through a cold camera could create static sparks that ruined an entire roll.
But a Bolex H16 was also great in the cold cause it didnt freeze.
"I've got the Sekonic," Gary Kurtz said, holding up the light meter.
"The snow is blowing out the meter. I'm opening up two stops so Harrison and Blythe don't look like silhouettes."
(Is this boring? Shooting on snow is challenging cause of reflections and lights but maybe i'll avoid tecnical things)
"Alright," Duke called out. "Harrison, Blythe get in there. I want you two to be frolic. I want you to forget the camera exists."
"Chase her, fall. Make snow angels. This is the only time in the movie where life is easy. Give me that."
Harrison Ford, looking rugged in a dark navy pea coat, and Blythe Danner, vibrant in a hand-knitted red scarf, stepped into the untouched white.
"Action!"
The scene was pure, unadulterated magic. Without the weight of a 35mm studio rig, George was able to move.
He climbed into a plastic snow saucer, and Duke himself grabbed the rope, acting as a human engine.
Duke sprinted through the slush, pulling George at high speed while George leaned back, the Bolex whirring its mechanical song.
They captured Harrison lifting Blythe into the air, the snow kicking up around them in a sparkling haze.
George used the zoom, snapping into tight close-ups of their laughing faces.
Because they were shooting without sound, there were no heavy microphones to hide.
Harrison and Blythe weren't reciting lines; they were just playing, their laughter genuine in the freezing air.
"This is it," Gary whispered to Duke as they watched. "It feels real."
Suddenly, the "uncomplicated joy" was interrupted by the shrill blast of a whistle.
Two Harvard campus security officers were trudging toward them from the direction of the boathouse, looking less than pleased.
"Hey! You kids! You have a permit for that equipment?"
"George, keep rolling!" Duke said. "Harrison, Blythe, keep playing! Ignore them until they're closer!"
They squeezed another twenty seconds out of the roll. George caught a beautiful shot of Blythe throwing a snowball directly at the lens just as the officers arrived.
"I asked for a permit," the older officer barked, his face as red as Blythe's scarf.
Duke stood up, towering over the officer, his cane planted firmly in the snow.
He put on his best voice. "Officer, I'm Conrad Hauser. This is a sanctioned USC-Harvard cultural exchange project. We're just doing a small documentary of the Urban Environments."
"I don't care if you're documenting the moon," the officer said, reaching for George's camera. "You're blocking the walkway and you didn't clear this with the office."
"George, the film!" Duke signaled.
George didn't hesitate. He popped the back of the Bolex, swapped the roll with practiced speed, and tucked the "hot" footage into his internal jacket pocket.
"Look," Gary Kurtz stepped in, pulling out a fake clipboard. "We have the paperwork right here, we just didn't think—"
"Save it," the younger officer said. "You're trespassing. Grab your sled and move on, or we're taking you to the station."
"Alright, alright," Duke said, holding up his hands. "We're leaving."
As the officers watched them like hawks, the crew scrambled. They piled into the gray van, Duke practically lifting George and his gear inside.
As Gary slammed the door and the van peeled away, the tension broke into a collective roar of laughter.
"Did you get it?" Duke asked, his heart hammering against his ribs.
George patted his chest, right over his heart. "I got the angel. I got the zoom. And I got the snowball."
Duke leaned back against the van's cold metal wall.
His leg was throbbing from the sprint, and his lungs burned from the winter air, but he felt invincible.
"We're going to have to record the boot crunches and the laughter in a studio later," Gary noted, checking the equipment for condensation.
"Doesn't matter," Duke said, looking at Harrison and Blythe, who were huddled together under a wool blanket, still breathless.
"The light was perfect. The feeling was real. That's what they'll remember."
He looked out the window as the red bricks of Harvard blurred past.
---
If you want to watch the scenes, you can look up in youtube, Love Story opening scene and Snow Frolic (Love Story)---Francis Lai
Theres apparently a Spongebob Burger King collab going on rn