Low Budget - Episode 3

LOW BUDGET is a one-hour TV drama that runs five seasons. Each episode encompasses no more than two days. The entire story covers a three-month time span on the Florida coast. It is present day. It was supposed to be simple film shoot. Anthony and Aaron, playing thugs, would strangle their crime boss, Christian, while Stephen filmed it. After filming, they would go have breakfast. But the scene in the woods goes awry. Anthony unintentionally crushes Christian’s windpipe. They try to revive him. After multiple attempts at CPR, and failing to call authorities, they decide that it is better to hide what they have done. They gather up their dead friend Christian and the footage of the killing and go to Christian’s house. Poor choices escalate from there. They discuss their situation in detail and decide that they need help in disposing of Christian’s body. They post a casting call to an online acting call board to find an actor they can trick into helping them. Damian Lane’s acting reel includes a rendition of a scene from Pulp Fiction where he plays The Wolf. The boys are convinced that Damian is the right person to help them. Damian arrives at Christian’s house to audition and is asked to reprise his role as The Wolf. He agrees, gets into character, and acts out the scene with the boys, not knowing that they are leading him to a real dead body. After Damian sees Christian’s corpse, he tries to flee but is knocked unconscious. The boys tie him to a chair. Now fearing worse consequences, they discuss killing Damian until he convinces them that he will help dispose of Christian, if they will set him free and follow his instructions. They comply and Damian becomes the alpha of the group. They bury Christian on the beach and his body is washed out to sea in a storm. The boys are indebted to Damian. Damian makes plans with his friend Mike to use the trio as pawns in a postal heist. Aaron, Anthony, and Stephen, utilize Christian’s identity to carry on as if he were still alive and working from home. They discover that Christian’s online film editing is work for a Crime Syndicate who run red rooms, where people are tortured and killed as voyeurs watch. The Crime Syndicate running the sites realize that they are no longer dealing with Christian and come to Florida to investigate. The FBI red rooms investigation leads them to move in to arrest Christian. When the FBI arrives, he is missing, so they arrest Aaron, Anthony, and Stephen. The boys convince the authorities that Christian went to the store moments before the FBI arrived, they do not know where he is, and know nothing about his crimes. The trio is released. The FBI walk back their investigation when they can’t find Christian and can’t prove the involvement of the boys. Stephen keeps editing the movie to send it to film festivals. The Crime Syndicate also wants Christian and figures out that Stephen has stolen his identity. The Crime Syndicate subdues Anthony and Stephen, who are bound and tortured as the Crime Syndicate goons interrogate them for the whereabouts of Christian. They tell the truth and are not believed. The goons’ boss arrives to get answers. To Anthony’s shock, the ringleader is his own Grandmother, Abuela. She releases Anthony and Stephen, so they must now work for her. Damian and Mike present their postal heist idea to Aaron in the form of a film concept pitch. Aaron agrees it would make for a great show, especially with hidden cameras. Aaron presents the concept to Anthony and Stephen as a movie. None of them understand that they are being set up to perform an actual robbery. Christian’s body is discovered floating at sea. Abuela starts sending Anthony and Stephen on errands to set up red rooms with video equipment. They proceed with caution and inform Damian and Aaron about it. Damian devises a plan for the Crime Syndicate goons to get caught without implicating them. Damian brings in an actress, Mariel, to be kidnapped by the Crime Syndicate, and reports her missing. Her disappearance goes viral. Aaron calls in the anonymous tip that leads to the red room and arrest of the Crime Syndicate goons. Mariel insists that Damian owes her a huge favor. Christian’s body is identified and the FBI agents in charge of his case, finding the red rooms, and rescuing Mariel, search for a connection between all of this and Damian, so they put surveillance on him. Christian’s film is accepted into a local film festival, raising questions of how it was submitted after his disappearance, and likely time of death. In episode 2, when Damian was bound by the trio, he appealed to Stephen with a story of having been abducted by aliens. Stephen believed him, Aaron and Anthony did not. It was a true story. While under surveillance on a city street across from an airport, FBI agents witness Damian disappear in a flash of light. The UFO is recorded as an anomaly with the equipment from the air traffic controller, lasting only a few seconds. Nobody sees the UFO, but it is there. The FBI loses track of Damian for the next day. He is examined by aliens. Damian reappears the next day, unable to recall his missing time, and realizes he was abducted once again. Mike works at the post office. The postal heist goes into action. The trio successfully hijack a truck carrying four million dollars in cash. They hide the truck at Mariel’s house. The FBI connects Aaron to Christian because of a shoe found in his car, and is questioned for hours about Christian, red rooms, and the whereabouts of Damian. While in custody, he is killed by a Crime Syndicate goon. Anthony runs away from other Crime Syndicate goons, into the woods, falls down a ravine, accidentally hangs himself, and dies. Damian and Stephen, on the run from the law, see a bright light flickering over them and are abducted by aliens. Mike and Mariel fly away to the Caribbean. The plane crashes. Nobody is ever seen again.