Two Forsyth Central High School graduates plan to make history together.Mike Santoro and Chris Read are producing "The Prospect," a film about a family traveling west to California during the 1850s gold rush and the struggles they face.Now film students at Western Carolina University, Santoro and Read hope to become among the few who have taken on a feature-length film while still in school.The idea for the project began about two years ago with a 10-page short story, written by Read, a Western-film lover.The two, along with their friend and classmate Zach Heaton, wanted to develop the story into a short film on location out west, but decided to expand the idea."If we're going to be spending the money to go out to New Mexico to shoot it anyway, why not turn it into a feature-length film?" Read said.The script was expanded to about 90 pages by early 2011 as a first draft, and the process began.Over their spring break this year, the three drove to New Mexico and traveled diagonally through the state, making connections and scouting locations."It's going to work perfect for our story," said Santoro, the film's producer.The group hopes to shoot the New Mexico scenes in late July and early August, and film the indoor scenes in North Carolina.Their project has begun to gather support from the community in Cullowhee, N.C., plus family, friends and even complete strangers.Read said people from New Mexico to New York have offered assistance, time and skills, and made monetary donations."To us, that is kind of amazing that people who don't even know us are really interested in the project," he said. "There's people who want to take the risk to get to know us and see what we can do.