Don't Call Me Master, Call Me Director

Shinji sought confirmation from Ria Acherlot.

In the original FZ script, Kenseth's fiancée's character had been given a different name and appearance. But anyone familiar with Clock Tower gossip could tell at a glance who the character had been based on.

Shinji had changed Sola's appearance for the same reason he had changed Kirei Kotomine in the early FSN script: the characters had real-life counterparts, and he had altered them to avoid trouble.

He was not afraid of that Old Man Lufraeus, but there was no need to make trouble for himself.

However, Ria Acherlot, who stood before him, requested that neither the name nor the appearance of the character she would play be altered.

"I want to play Sola."

Ria Acherlot nodded firmly.

"Can you tell me why?" Shinji asked, tilting his head. "Of course, if it concerns your privacy with Kenseth, then forget I asked."

Ria Acherlot gave a slight shake of her head and explained directly, "I just want to get back at that ridiculous woman. She actually abandoned a good man like Kenseth to pursue her own romance."

"Whew~~"

Shinji whistled. He seemed to have heard some pretty astonishing information.

It seemed that although this world's Sola had not participated in the Holy Grail War, she had still found her own "Diarmuid."

"She's just a Young Lady living in a dream," Ria Acherlot said disdainfully. "Since she enjoyed the comfortable life provided by the Yurifis Family, she should have contributed to the family. If she truly wanted freedom so badly, why didn't she throw away her name and go beg for a living in the slums?"

Shinji rubbed his nose and offered no comment, merely asking one question.

"You don't mind Kenseth giving up everything for Sola in the movie?"

"Doesn't that just prove Kenseth is a good man?" Ria Acherlot gracefully played with the end of her braid. "That woman is in the past. I'm the one by his side now."

Shinji shrugged. As long as Kenseth and Ria Acherlot did not object, he had no reason to refuse.

"Then it's settled. But your hair is rather different from Sola's." Shinji pointed at her long pink hair. "You'll need to wear a wig during filming."

"That naturally won't be a problem." Ria Acherlot nodded, then added with some hesitation, "But will close-up shots cause issues? Would it be better to dye my hair directly?"

Miss Li was an actress herself, so she naturally knew far more about filmmaking than Kenseth, an amateur.

Though the times had progressed, wig technology had seen little improvement from Shakespeare's day to the present. They were fine for everyday wear, but when filmed with movie cameras, the "fake" quality of wigs would be exposed in high-definition footage.

"Don't dye it. Dyeing damages your hair too much," Shinji explained. "Don't worry. We'll use a new type of wig developed by the technical team. It'll fit very closely when worn, practically flawless."

This so-called new type of wig had been an accidental byproduct of Touko improving Shinji's "body-modification slime"—Rin's name for it.

It was non-toxic and harmless, with an extremely natural appearance. Its only issue was that, because it sealed completely, it was not particularly good for the real hair beneath it. But compared to dyeing, that damage was insignificant.

Of course, beyond filmmaking, Master Shinji had already spotted a much larger market for these wigs.

Wigs might damage real hair, but they had absolutely no effect on scalps that had no hair to begin with.

Shinji believed this invention would hold unparalleled appeal for balding and half-bald, Mediterranean-haired men—especially British men.

Lancelot: I Really Am a Useless Knight! (;???Д??`) ### Once Kenseth had reached a stopping point in his research on Heroic Spirits, Shinji returned his fiancée to him and had Director Kenseth practice his Acting Skills with her. It also counted as creating an opportunity for his old friend to earn some affection points.

As mentioned before, perhaps because his life had gone too smoothly in this lifetime, Kenseth was remarkably innocent when it came to matters outside magecraft—especially romance.

It was not that Director Kenseth did not want to date; he simply did not know how. It was like an ant trying to fuck an elephant: all the strength in the world, nowhere to use it.

Shinji knew quite a bit, but he belonged to the free-love camp, while Director Kenseth was devoted to pure love. They simply could not see eye to eye. All Shinji could do was give them more opportunities.

Just as Shinji stepped out of the studio warehouse, preparing to return to his own work, several thunderous booms rang out from the clear sky.

Then, a chariot pulled by bulls descended from the sky in flashes of lightning and came to a steady stop before Shinji.

"Haha, Master, hello there."

The man driving the chariot greeted Shinji with a hearty laugh.

Shinji pinched the bridge of his nose. "You, stop wasting mana whenever you feel like it."

The Flying Hoof Thunder Bulls pulling the chariot were divine beasts classified as Phantasmal Species. Materializing those legendary creatures required no small amount of mana.

Shinji had always hoped that the Heroic Spirits would refrain from wasting mana so extravagantly when they were not filming.

Compared to the mana it consumed, the Great Emperor racing through the sky in an ox cart and being spotted by people was hardly a big deal.

What? You saw a cow flying in the sky?

Don't ask. A Gas explosion sent it up there.

But Shinji's words clearly went in one ear and out the other for Iskandar, who continued laughing boisterously.

"Come on, Master, don't nag like some woman. Besides, I had a reason for doing this."

As he spoke, Iskandar lifted something from the chariot that looked like a filthy rag.

Shinji narrowed his eyes and examined it for quite some time before he dared confirm that this "rag" was Waver.

"Hey, kid. We're back."

As Iskandar spoke, he gave him two vigorous shakes.

"Ugh... urgh...!!!"

Waver, shaken awake, shuddered. With one hand clamped over his mouth, he used all his strength to raise his middle finger at Shinji.

"Ugh!!"

Waver glared viciously at Shinji and mumbled something incoherent before scrambling into the warehouse behind him.

"What's with that guy?"

Shinji had a face full of confused question marks.

Iskandar answered in a baffled tone, "I took him for a spin in the sky, and then he ended up like this."

Well then. Looks like Waver had gotten airsick.

Shinji rolled his eyes at the Great Emperor. "How did you even think of taking him for a ride in the sky?"

"Brotherhood between men is built on the three unbreakable bonds: shared misfortune, shared vice, and shared hobbies. Didn't you tell me that, Master?"

Shinji's eyelid twitched. "So you took him street racing..."

An ox cart was still a cart. Put that way, it seemed to make sense... like hell it did!

Unfortunately, it was hard for Shinji to explain something so nuanced to a man who loved talking to himself.

So Shinji could only instruct him emotionlessly, "Don't cripple him. He still has a movie to shoot."

Waver, who had just come out of the restroom, happened to hear that.

Polite Waver: Your mom?

Over the next few days, Shinji filmed while revising the script for FZ.

The original story written by Urobutcher was indeed good, but Shinji couldn't simply transplant the entire thing onto the screen.

Aside from the differences caused by adapting from text to film, the most important point was that Shinji's FZ was a mainstream commercial film aimed at the general public.

That meant Urobutcher's "dark, deep, and depressing" story had to be altered to ensure it could be accepted by most people.

In the current film industry, Shinji's practice of changing the story to make it more accessible to audiences was considered extremely lowbrow, a major blow to artistic prestige.

But in Shinji's view, a commercial director who didn't care about box office revenue was just being a hooligan.

For a commercial film director, box office had always been the most important measure of their ability and reputation, without exception.

Not to mention that FZ was different from the small-scale production model of FSN. It was Shinji's first large-team commercial film built according to standard industry practice, and it would serve as a template for future large-scale commercial movies.

FZ failing wouldn't reduce Shinji to square one, but the operational model for blockbuster special-effects films that he was trying to promote would inevitably suffer a setback.

For all those reasons, FZ had to make compromises. Although Shinji retained the main plot and core of the story, some excessively dark elements had to be changed.

In terms of the setting, the biggest revisions involved the Caster team and the Matou Family.

After all, one involved a child murderer, while the other involved child abuse. Without changes, it would be difficult to pass review in Europe and America.

Children had always been a heavily scrutinized area in Europe and America, and any related content would be judged by exceptionally harsh standards.

As for why Western governments regulated it so strictly... those who knew, knew.

Shinji couldn't be bothered with the sordid affairs of Westerners, but he also agreed that a film aimed at the public needed to have proper values.

Thus, in Shinji's script, Ryunosuke Uryu became an ordinary serial killer, and all his victims were changed from children to adults.

Sakura's inhuman suffering in the Matou Family was also removed. After all, FZ's Sakura was still a child—how could he bring himself to do that?

But Shinji wasn't nearly so kindhearted toward adult characters.

Second Uncle Kariya's half-dead state definitely had to remain, though to ensure it passed review, the writhing worms inside his body were changed into burning Magic Circuits.

Of course, Shinji's alterations wouldn't touch the core of the film. As a whole, FZ still leaned toward a darker style.

Naturally, the film's color palette would be considerably darker than FSN's.

For a film, its color palette often directly reflected both the movie itself and its protagonist.

That wasn't to say that using black automatically made a film dark, but dark films undoubtedly tended to use gloomier colors, allowing viewers to feel the oppressive atmosphere simply through the visuals.

As a director who had already completed one film, Shinji understood very well that as long as the movie's overall tone didn't go astray, it would not only keep the production aligned with his core vision, but also make filming relatively easier.

Starting from the second day after Kenseth and the others joined the crew, Shinji began adding a large number of action scenes to the shoot, using these relatively simple scenes to help the actors quickly get into the groove.

At the same time, Shinji deliberately added high-frame-rate cameras during filming.

These were cameras specifically used for shooting slow-motion footage.

In quite a few pieces of audience feedback for FSN, viewers had mentioned that the fight scenes moved too fast to see clearly, even making them feel chaotic.

So that audiences could better appreciate the heroic bearing of the Servants in battle, Shinji decided to add some slow-motion shots to FZ.

The audience's suggestions for FSN went far beyond that. Shinji carefully read through them, extracted the useful parts, and improved them in FZ.

Shinji knew very well that FSN's success wasn't because he had made it perfectly, but because the audience hadn't seen much before and found it fresh.

If he didn't humbly accept the criticism raised by viewers and improve accordingly, he would soon be eliminated by the market.

There was someone in this world who was omniscient and omnipotent, but his name was Gilgamesh, not Matou Shinji.

So Shinji, who was neither omniscient nor omnipotent, could only keep improving himself until he became a little more like it.

Fortunately, Shinji had watched plenty of films in his previous life, giving him more experience analyzing special-effects movies than anyone else in this world.

Although Shinji, who had been an outsider in his previous life, had no idea how those spectacular scenes were made, he only needed to figure out how to produce the same effect.

Whoosh—whoosh—

In the sky, one golden and one black figure flashed past, followed by a white figure.

Meanwhile, Shinji sat on the ground, staring intently at the monitor, only occasionally looking up at the sky.

What the FZ crew was filming now was one of the Fourth Holy Grail War's most iconic aerial battles—Vimana versus the F-15J fighter jet.

Filming this scene had practically drained Shinji's brainpower.

With the actual Vimana available, shooting on location was obviously the easiest option.

But figuring out what to do about the F-15J fighter jet was rather troublesome.

First of all, Shinji couldn't possibly get hold of a real fighter jet for filming. Setting aside how sensitive a weapon like that was, the cost of a single aircraft alone exceeded the budget for the entire movie.

Renting one was unrealistic too. It wasn't that he couldn't rent one, but after Lancelot turned it into a Noble Phantasm, there was a good chance he would damage it during filming.

In the end, after discussing it with Touko for a long time, Shinji came up with a compromise.

He had Touko make a life-sized fighter jet model, then stuffed a motorcycle inside it to give it vehicle attributes before handing it over to Artoria to drive.

That way, Artoria could not only control the aircraft through her [Riding] skill, but also wrap the entire model in Gales Domain to keep it from being damaged in the air.

To ensure the thing could actually trigger Artoria's skill, this bizarre "fighter jet" really could drive on the ground. Functionally, it was more like a motorcycle fitted with a fighter jet shell. Compared with an ordinary motorcycle, however, this prop had many fighter jet functions added to it—such as firing prop missiles and strafing with machine guns—though it couldn't take off like a real fighter jet.

To solve the flight problem, Shinji had Touko build a frame beneath Iskandar's chariot so that it could carry the model through the air.

At the same time, to ensure the best possible shots, Shinji had Rider ride Pegasus while carrying a camera, following behind Vimana and the chariot to film them.

It could be said that Shinji had forcibly recreated the aerial battle from the script entirely through props.

"Okay... Medusa, move a little higher. Film them circling each other from a top-down angle, and make sure you don't get the chariot in the shot."

Shinji gave Medusa instructions through the radio.