He not only got a book that day, but the first seed of an idea.

“The whole concept of going to some unknown place and making an exchange with a stranger just struck me,” Laventure said.

Three years later, that seed has flowered into a full-length feature film project, complete with a small army of 40 cast and crew members, a $5,000 budget and a tight-ship production schedule.

“Apocalypse Theory,” a student-produced indie film that began shooting on and near campus this week, chronicles two brothers attending college during the end of the world in 2012.

For brothers Brandon and Cameron Laventure, piecing together the film has been a three-year process of script writing, scrounging for production and cast members and securing rights to shoot on location.

The final product, which might see screens as early as this fall, will use MSU students to create what they say is a sharper, more realistic kind of college comedy.

Doing it from scratch
In his nearly four years at MSU, media arts and technology senior Scott Oberlander has never undertaken a film this large. In fact, he’s never even seen a student-led, feature-length film done before. Oberlander is the film’s media manager, as well as the vice president of the MSU Filmmakers Club.

“I’ve talked to a few people — they even say we’re crazy for making a (full-length) feature,” Oberlander said.

The production crew has a lot at stake, especially Cameron Laventure. One thousand of the $5,000 budget came from his pocket, and the rest was gathered through personal donations. But Cameron Laventure, Brandon Laventure and Maria Palmo, the cinematographer and assistant producer, also are riding on the wings of their last accomplishment — a prize of more than $1,000 for the top student award in the Capital City Film Festival — which they used to buy new camera and sound equipment.

Although the details still are murky, they hope to submit the finished product to film festivals, distribute it online and screen it on the MSU campus.

The shooting — which started Monday — will span the course of about a month, several hours each day, Brandon Laventure said. All of the filming will be done on campus and in East Lansing, despite no mention of MSU, and cameras will stay clear of university landmarks, such as Spartan Stadium and Beaumont Tower.

But there will be some other recognizable on-campus locations, namely near older buildings north of the Red Cedar River, including the Psychology Building, the Union and the Main Library.

Palmo said MSU’s older architecture and layout captures big university feel — something the filmmakers want to translate into the final product.

On the city streets
Across the street, several significant scenes will be filmed at Wanderer’s Teahouse and Cafe, 547 E. Grand River Ave., and Peking Express, 611 E. Grand River Ave.

“It’s going to include a lot of locations and hopefully an atmosphere MSU students and alumni will recognize,” Brandon said. “It will have special significance to the people who understand the area around here.”

The scenes in Wanderer’s, one filmed inside and the other on the back patio, will include two couples — one with a blooming relationship, comically occurring while the other is ending theirs, Brandon said.

But most central parts of the film will take place on River Street, outside the house where the Laventures have lived for the past three years. The two received approval from the East Lansing City Council to close the street next Friday night, for a scene including four horses to simulate cavalry police — an allusion to the four horses of the apocalypse.

The house itself — which Brandon Laventure said is nicknamed the “Bleu Heus,” for its real-life party reputation — will host central on-screen party scenes.

“I consider those the centerpieces of the movie,” Cameron said. “Where you would have a song in a musical, here, instead, you have a college party.”

For students, by students
Theatre and biochemistry junior Alex Poling anxiously clutched two things: a copy of the “Apocalypse Theory” script, striped with yellow highlighter ink, and a plush T-rex doll — a toy brought to all the rehearsals to relieve stress for any actor or crew member who needs it.

Tuesday was Poling’s first time in front of the “Apocalypse Theory” camera, or any camera for that matter.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” he said. “The need to leave a good impression is sort of ingrained in my brain.”

Poling is one of about 20 volunteer cast members, all from MSU, and nearly all from the theatre department.

His character is named Alan, an unsure freshman learning to overcome his social shell.

“He’s quick-witted, but he’s not the first person to speak up in a conversation,” Poling said. “He’s more mature than most.”

That wittiness is what Cameron and Brandon Laventure are aiming for as they try to create an authentic kind of college comedy.

And, for the MSU viewers, there is even a scene that includes a round of humans versus zombies, a game in which one team of zombies attempts to infect members of the opposing human team, while members of the human team use nerf weapons to ward off the zombie players.

“I think it’s going to be a lot more honest (than other college movies),” he said. “The atmosphere is going to be familiar to the students at MSU.”