Shinji: I Have a New Technique for Making Movies...

"How could the negotiations not go smoothly? Gawain and the others said at the banquet yesterday that the other side was very satisfied with them."

Completely oblivious to being the culprit, Mordred tilted his head, looking utterly bewildered.

"Eek! There's only one reason why someone like Master is in a bad mood—he's having relationship problems!"

Little Afu grinned, showing his fangs, and said loudly and gossipyly.

"Exactly!" Mordred nodded. "Master came back very late last night, and he was in a terrible mood. It must be because he had a bad experience with girls."

"Tsk tsk, there are already so many beautiful girls here, yet Master still has the mind to go out and find women..."

Afu grinned, looking like a cute but fierce little rabbit.

Joan of Arc Afu's gaze towards Afu immediately changed. "What do you want to do?"

Mordred agreed with Afu's idea, "Anyway, Master isn't a good person. I could tell he had ulterior motives towards Father when we were having supper last time!"

"Wow! He actually likes figures where the back is more shapely than the front? I never would have guessed!"

"It's hard to say. Magecraft are known for being almost superhuman. It wouldn't be surprising if Master liked any type, would it?"

"Didn't he always claim to have 'cannons all over the Clock Tower'? He has such a peculiar appetite!"

"I wonder if he'd be interested in that kind of [beep--!]?"

Suddenly, the conversation among the group became chaotic.

"Hehehe, tell me, who did Master have a romantic heartbreak with yesterday? Could it be someone we know?"

Afu suddenly said.

"Most of the people, including my father, attended the party yesterday... Could it be that he's keeping someone else on the side?"

That's a bit daring.

These guys, always eager for a good show, started jeering.

"Hmph! Even if I'm keeping a mistress outside, I'm still your father!"

Shinji suddenly appeared behind Mordred, his breath brushing against the back of her neck.

Suddenly, the area on set fell completely silent.

Shinji raised an eyebrow at the few guys in front of him who had pressed the pause button.

"You lot... are quite interested in my tastes, huh?" Shinji sneered. "Are you trying to portray me as a pervert?"

Mordred looked embarrassed and secretly took a step back. "Master, you know me. If it were me..."

"Stop! Halt!"

Shinji didn't give them a chance to take turns explaining, and said directly, "I know you are all highly skilled, no need to say anything more."

"..."*N

You're not playing by the rules here.

Although no one said it aloud, everyone's eyes conveyed the same meaning.

Shinji didn't mince words and went straight to the point. "Have you finished memorizing your lines? Have you memorized your blocking? Have you thoroughly grasped the character's emotions?"

With each question, Shinji's tone rose a notch, while Mordred companions' momentum weakened accordingly.

"Since you haven't even finished, how can you still be chatting here?"

Shinji keep talking? Have you no backbone?"

"Master, let's go prepare our lines."

Seeing that things were going badly, Mordred immediately chose to run away.

Joan of Arc, seizing the opportunity, covered her mouth and chuckled, "Yes, yes, I want to go see the set design."

"Huh? Didn't I finish filming my scenes?"

Only little cutie Afu didn't understand what was going on and stared at Shinji with an innocent look.

Then he was carried away by Joan of Arc and Mordred, one on each side.

"Come here, you."

"Let's go, let's go over there."

"Hey? Why are you leaving? I wanted to ask Master which woman dumped him?"

"Shut up!"

"These brats."

Watching the group's departing figures, Shinji out another heavy, cold snort.

Although these kids are not young anymore, Shinji feels that nothing represents them better than "bratty kids".

"Alright, Master. They're just concerned about you. If they really didn't care, would they have discussed it the moment you broke up with your boyfriend?"

Amakusa, who came with Shinji, tried to defend the others.

"..."

Shinji was actually quite speechless about this.

The way you're talking makes it sound like I really broke up with my boyfriend yesterday! I was just upset because I didn't get to eat a fancy meal!

Finally, Shinji realized that getting angry over missing a meal was really beneath him compared to heartbreak, so he didn't explain or hold a grudge.

"Amakusa, you should also focus your efforts on movies. I remember saying before that you want to save humanity, so everyone needs to understand your thoughts. If we make a good film like FA, your future prospects will be much brighter."

Shinji repeated the words he had used to Amakusa.

"In reality, you only have a chance to be Human Order if the movie is well-received after its release."

"Why?"

"This..."

Shinji, and realized that he didn't consider his own benefit—that would damage his image as a wise and powerful figure in Amakusa's eyes.

"This is, after all, a film that presents your ideals to the world. Even if it doesn't follow the right path, at least it can make people try to trust you. Not to mention, our new warlock is trying."

"... All right."

Seeing that Shinji didn't intend to elaborate, Amakusa didn't press the matter further and silently left Shinji's side.

But Amakusa had a vague feeling that his Master Director was hiding something from him.

"I hope it's just my imagination?"

Amakusa offered a somewhat unconvincing consolation.

Unfortunately, Amakusa only realized later that this was not his imagination.

Chapter 270 Shinji: I have a new technology for making movies...

"Master, didn't you tell Ruler what you plan to do?"

A moment later, Artoria came over and asked in a low voice.

"That could very well shake his inner emotions, and if that gets caught, the new technology will have the opposite effect."

Shinji shrugged, annoyed.

"Not only Amakusa, I didn't mention Joan of Arc either."

"Keeping them both in the dark like this just seems more troublesome."

Artoria was a little worried after learning about Shinji's plan.

Now that it's out in the open, at least the two Rulers are somewhat prepared.

What if something goes wrong while filming without any prior knowledge?

"Master, I know you want to create a sense of immersion, but if we don't say anything at all, what if they accidentally develop a different feeling during filming—for example, the France Saintess thinks Ferrero Rocher is delicious?"

[Are you talking about yourself? You're afraid that you'll record your gluttonous thoughts during filming, right?]

"A minor mistake won't affect the outcome, as long as the two of them put their emotions into it."

At this point, Shinji sighed, "If even the smallest details of our thoughts could be recorded, then I might as well not make movies. Making money with mind-reading would be so much easier!"

Artoria solemnly reminded him, "Master, breaking the law is wrong."

"Pshaw, there's no law against making money by reading people's minds."

"But, Master," Artoria reminded her, "This isn't mind-reading Magecraft; it's being read."

Shinji tapped her with the script. "Hey, this is a trade secret of our production team, don't tell anyone."

"Hehe, it's a trade secret."

Artoria wrinkled her nose, seemingly disagreeing with Shinji's statement, but ultimately said nothing.

What she and Shinji were discussing was the new technology they would be using in the filming of FA, which was what Artoria called "being able to read minds".

This new technology also came from Touko and Medea, but it has nothing to do with 3D without glasses. Instead, it is an extension of another technology called "mind vibration".

When Shinji was working on the post-production of "Super Eight," he suddenly had an idea while adding vibration techniques to the master tapes: since the film could directly shock the audience's spirits, could the "vibration" be made even more complex?

For example, could the emotions a character experiences during a particular scene be conveyed to the audience through "vibration" to create a stronger sense of immersion?

Second Master's greatest strength is his strong ability to execute ideas; he does what he thinks of.

After all, he's not the one actually doing the work; who would complain about just talking? (Just kidding)

But Shinji's "ingenious ideas" can sometimes bring unexpected surprises.

Ultimately, through the efforts of Touko and Medea, Shinji's wild idea was finally realized through some means.

Shinji's original idea was to encode the emotional vibrations using Magecraft and then fill them in according to the plot.

But Touko and Medea quickly discovered during their research that this approach was not feasible.

The reason is simple: simulating human emotions is far too complex to be programmed using sleight of hand.

The "vibration" technique is very simple to write; you only need to adjust the intensity. However, when it comes to a specific emotion, there are far too many things to consider.

After extensive discussions, Touko and Medea ultimately adopted a clever approach—directly recording the actors' emotions during their performances and then transmitting them directly to the audience when the film was shown.

In layman's terms, writing emotions is somewhat similar to programmers writing their own program code, while Touko and her team's solution is to directly "copy and paste" existing code for their own use.

Touko and Medea's solution solved the problem of writing emotions, but it created a new problem.

Because it replicates the actor's emotions during the performance, the actor must be able to completely align with the character's mindset during the performance.

If there's any discrepancy, such as an actor crying while actually laughing inside, it won't make the audience feel more immersed; instead, it will make them feel even more disconnected from the story.

However, if this technology is used properly, it will definitely be a powerful tool—actors' performances will be upgraded in a whole new dimension, and the audience's credibility with the characters will take a qualitative leap.

Shinji originally intended to add corresponding emotions to most of the film's plot, but the technology was too expensive.

It's not that this technology is expensive, but rather that it requires too much magic.

It's not a big deal to show a single movie, but when dozens or even hundreds of screens in a city are showing a movie simultaneously, and it's shown many times a day...

Moreover, unlike simple "vibration," which is instantaneous and equivalent to a point, "emotional transmission" is continuous and equivalent to a line.

Whether it's the magic of the Ley Lines or the money in the hands of fans, Shinji's attitude towards exploiting freebies has always been the same: sustainable exploitation.

Since sustainability is the goal, we can't just take advantage of everything at once.

After analyzing various aspects of the Ley Lines, Shinji estimated that the longest possible time for a movie to depict "emotion" should not exceed 10 minutes.

This means that most movies can only use this technology in one scene.

Good steel should be used where it counts. Since there's only one chance, Shinji naturally wants to use it on the most crucial plot point—the clash of ideals during the final battle between Amakusa and Joan of Arc.

"We must make Amakusa truly believe that he is saving humanity, and we must also make Joan of Arc Amakusa deny Amakusa from the bottom of her heart."

Shinji explained to Artoria, "The climax of a film is achieved when these two emotions collide."

"Master, I strongly suspect you're involved in pornography, and I have evidence."

It wasn't that Artoria thought Shinji's statement was problematic, but rather that she worried Shinji might use this technology in intimate scenes later on.