ORLANDO, Fla. — Imagine an unplanned road trip. With a stranger. Who may or may not be in danger. Also, don’t look now but someone may or may not be following you. Oh, and in the car you’ve hidden some objects worth a fortune.

Such is the premise of the movie “Cover,” a passion project for Central Florida actor Cameron Francis that he made on a wing and a prayer — and a little more than $4,000. Now, the thriller — which has drawn to comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock’s twisty, claustrophobic, tension-building style — has a distributor, has been a hit at film festivals and is available to rent or buy at Amazon’s primevideo.com.

Not bad for the first feature film from Francis’ MoCam Productions.

“I am a huge Hitchcock fan,” says Francis, who also lists the Coen brothers among his favorite filmmakers. “But being absorbed by so many of his movies, I’m sure he was an influence.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Francis started experimenting with short films.

“I’ve wanted to make movies my whole life,” says the actor, who lives in Davenport. “I thought ‘I’m just going to start doing this. Might as well jump in.'”

He generally works in TV, film and local theme parks, with the occasional theater role. In 2019, Francis was an honoree on the Orlando Sentinel’s annual best-of-year theater picks for playing the male lead in Orlando Shakes’ period romcom “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly.”

Francis put the residuals from a TV commercial he was in — $4,280, he says — toward “Cover” and kept track of expenses on a spreadsheet. Even he was surprised at how he could do so much with so little.

“I thought it would cost more,” says Francis, adding that “it’s just easier now” with the caliber of video-taking phones and editing software available to the general public.

Most of the money went to the actors who join him in the movie, other Central Floridians who work in theme parks and at local theaters, as well as in TV and film.

He deliberately planned the scope of the movie to match his limited resources. Writing about a road trip meant his own car could be a primary location. Other scenes take place in public parking lots — rest stops on the fictional journey — and often just a couple miles from his home. He only rented two places for different settings — a motel room and a hotel room.

Francis also cast himself as Trevor, the lead character, to save paying another actor — which was not part of the original plan.

“It sounds like false humility, but it’s not,” he says. “I would have rather focused more on directing and producing.”

Francis believed he could make a polished film beyond his financial means if he paid close attention to the basics.

“There are certain giveaways for low-budget movies,” he says. “The sound is echo-y or it’s framed weird. I thought, ‘Those things don’t necessarily take money. I just have to be careful.'”

The plot was partly derived from financial necessity, such as using a car and public spaces for the main locations..

“I wanted this guy to be on the road, but what’s his reason for being on the road? He could be selling something…” Francis recalls thinking. He thought about a rare coin seller, but found a more practical alternative: A dealer in rare stamps.

“I picked stamps because they were a cheap MacGuffin,” he says, using the Hitchcockian term for something that sets a plot in motion but ultimately isn’t the point of the story. “I could find images online and print them out.”

Then he stumbled onto a true-life scandal with a Central Florida connection. In June 1972, it was revealed the crew of NASA’s Apollo 15 had carried about 400 postal “covers” — the term for stamped and postmarked envelopes that gives the film its name — to the moon without authorization, thus making them extremely valuable to collectors.

In the film, Trevor is part of a business transaction involving those particular covers. But his dealings are interrupted when a stranger named Macy bursts into his life, asking for his help in fleeing an abusive boyfriend. Already jittery, for reasons that become clear later, Trevor doesn’t quite believe her story. But he is moved to help her get from Tampa to North Carolina. And in the best mystery-thriller tradition, clues are parsed out to reveal what’s really going on as unexpected connections are discovered.

Part of the revelations explain why Trevor — who we meet swigging alcohol on a sleepness night — is so haunted.

“I thought ‘What’s the darkest thing that could possibly happen to you that could you keep up at night,” he says. “I thought it would a powerful engine to the stortyelling. I’m drawn to these dark stories and film-noir kind of stuff.”

“Cover” was shot over 10 months, piecemeal style depending on when Francis’ co-stars — Katherine Lozon, Christopher Schmidt, Gregg Baker Jr., Garin Jones and Jamie-Lyn Markos (heard in a voice-over) — were free from their day jobs. His partner, Molly Magill, also provided a cameo and other support.

There were times, Francis shot scenes of his character completely solo.

“I’d have to cram my lines,” he recalls, laughing. “‘I wrote this: Why can’t I remember?'”

Francis credits Lozon with keeping a watchful eye on continuity.

“Katherine was great about tracking her makeup and keeping track of when everything was happening,” he says.

The finished film was on its way when an old friend from high school happened to see Francis performing in “The Bourne Spectacular” show at Universal Studios Florida. The two hadn’t seen each other in 30 years, but she reached out, the two reconnected — and it turned out she worked in the film-festival world.

With the help of her recommendations, the movie was screened at festivals such as Another Hole in the Head in San Francisco, Panic Fest in Kansas City and FrightFest in London and received positive feedback from patrons and reviewers.

“It was surreal when I was sitting in London, England, watching my movie on the screen. ‘How is this happening?’,” Francis says. “I met a lot of filmmakers and did some good networking. It was fantastic.”

Such festivals group together thrillers, mysteries, science fiction and horror films, and “Cover” drew the eye of a few distributors, including The Horror Collective — which Francis ultimately chose to handle the film’s release.

Francis is already working on a new film; this one will be in the horror genre — “a ghost story with slasher elements,” he says. Meanwhile, he’s thrilled with the success of “Cover” as he watches for residuals. He jokes that even with the bare-bones budget it “might take a little time” to recoup his investment.

“No one knows who I am,” he says with a laugh. “No one’s saying, ‘Hey, that’s the latest Cameron Francis film.'”

Well, no one’s saying that … yet.

©2025 Orlando Sentinel. Visit orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.