He's real. She's not.

For his senior thesis project at Regent University in Virginia, Aren Woods is producing a short film he's calling, "What Makes It Real." It's a science fiction thriller about an unusual love relationship between a woman who is programmed with artificial intelligence and a human guy.Woods' interest in filmmaking began with "Mary Poppins." When he was 7 years old, he watched the classic Disney movie and was intrigued by the "behind the scenes" segment that explained the production of the movie's special effects."I was fascinated by how Mary Poppins flew down from the sky," said Woods. "I wanted to know how they were able to combine live action and animation in the same scenes, too."Woods, who loved writing short stories while he was home-schooled through his high school years in Albrightsville, taught himself how to make short animated films. Then as a student at Lehigh Carbon Community College in 2011, he studied how Robert Rodriguez made a short film in just 10 minutes."Robert Rodriguez is a big name in Hollywood," Woods said. "He's was a joint director with Quentin Tarantino with the movies 'Dusk till Dawn' and 'Sin City' and also worked on 'Spy Kids.'Woods' fascination with the out of the ordinary ideas of filmmaking was further extended when he saw "Pulp Fiction," another Tarantino classic."What made the film so interesting to me was that the scenes were put together out of sequence. I wanted to learn more about how editing affects the telling of a story."His writing the screenplay for "What Makes It Real" followed brainstorming sessions with his friend Mike Salas, who is also a film student at Regent. The plot revolves around Alice and Damien, who are struggling with issues of honesty and sincerity in their six-month relationship. She doesn't know she's programmed with artificial intelligence.In one scene, she hears water flowing from a faucet, but she cannot see any water. In another scene, she sees a man in a diner take a bite of a sandwich, but when he puts it back down on his plate, the sandwich is whole again. This action repeats over and over again."Damien, who secretly programmed Alice, denies what she sees as actually happening, which causes conflict between them. While she thinks she might be crazy, he is testing the honesty of their relationship."Woods is producing and directing the film in a small town in Virginia. Alice and Damien are depicted by accomplished actors, who have volunteered to play the characters and for their services, Woods will allow them to use his film to help market themselves for other TV and movie roles."Making a film is a collaborative effort. The actors will trust the script if I show confidence in my story," said Woods. "I trust them, too. I encourage them to improvise off the original script because then they can feel ownership of their characters."Woods explains that one purpose of his film is to make audiences aware of how much we can believe that fictional characters in movies and even in video games can influence our human relationships. In his production, Damien falls in love with an artificial Alice, but despite this unorthodox matchup, they still experience relationship issues like any two humans would."Real-life relationships are not always black and white," Woods said. "Sometimes we steal the pain of made-up characters and learn from them what we want with our own commitments."The thesis project film has a 6½-minute time limit, but Woods said he would not compromise the quality of the production just to meet the time requirement.Much preparation has gone into the preproduction stage of "What Makes It Real." Filming locations were secured, cast rehearsals scheduled and a production crew was assembled. Woods estimates the total cost to be around $800, to be funded through donations."We also hope to have our final product shown on local television stations as part of an anthology of other short films produced from the same assignment."After he completes his education at Regent, Woods will work for Blue Ridge Communications in the fall as a camera operator. He especially enjoys doing instant replay editing for TV sports. In the long run, he wants to market his demo reels and short film productions into job opportunities for feature length script writing and professional editing.Woods will soon be setting up a Facebook page where anyone who would like to donate to his film production endeavor can do so through GoFundMe.com. Major contributors will receive posters or associate producer's credits.