Caster + Fan = Fan Caster?

That's right, besides Tokiomi Tohsaka, the entire family group including Kiritsugu Emiya, Matou Kariya, Risei Kotomine, Matou Zouken, and even Gilgamesh's family member Enkidu was present.

Not only that, these "parents" were also carrying handheld video cameras, resembling parents watching their children at a primary school sports meet.

"So! Why did they come here?!" Rin asked through gritted teeth. "Isn't this just putting more pressure on us while we're filming?"

Anyone who has been a student knows that the pressure of parent open classes is definitely greater than usual.

Shinji shrugged helplessly. "There's nothing we can do. Back in Fate/Zero, the older generation suffered terribly from these kinds of filming and retakes. Now that it's your turn, of course you have to get your revenge."

"But..."

Don't tell me you didn't laugh then.

Shinji teased Rin.

During the filming of Fate/Zero, the older generation of actors were quite embarrassed, making themselves look rather awkward in front of the younger generation.

After all, apart from Kariya, none of them are professional actors, so it's quite normal for them to burst into laughter, forget their lines, or have to do retakes.

Back then, Rin, Shirou, and the others would come to the set to watch whenever they had free time.

They claimed they came to help, but they were really just there to watch their elders make a fool of themselves. Rin laughed so hard she almost passed out more than once.

Now the tables have turned; the younger generation is making movies, and it's the older generation's turn to watch the younger generation's monkey show.

"I've never mocked my father, it's always Uncle Kariya... Ah! So that's why you didn't make any plans for yourself today!"

Since the scene is set in the school in the morning, there will naturally be a scene where Rin and Shinji meet.

Shinji, citing the need to oversee the overall filming on the first day, skipped his own scenes, saying they would be filmed separately later. However, thanks to editing techniques, the final product wouldn't show that they were filmed separately.

"At first I didn't think much of it, but now it seems you're probably trying to avoid them, Shinji, right?"

The Buddha said, "It cannot be spoken."

"Screw you!"

If the elders hadn't been there, Rin would have desperately wanted her black stockings to make intimate contact with Shinji's genitals—at a speed of 120 km/h, of course.

Rin felt that it would be more conducive to social harmony to castrate this thief who enjoyed watching others fall into traps while ensuring he never suffered any losses.

"Alright, hurry up and touch up your makeup," Shinji said with a sly smile. "The next scene is about to start."

"Thank you so much, Director!"

As Miss Rin's eyebrows twitched wildly, she let out a sinister laugh.

"You're welcome."

Shinji curled his lips into a wicked smile.

"Shinji..."

Miss Rin witnessed the other party's shamelessness once again.

"Archer, move Unit 1 to the corridor entrance!"

Taking advantage of Rin's momentary lapse in attention, Shinji quickly escaped the wall slam and began directing the Photography Team.

"Camera number two, move and film, pay attention to capturing Rin's facial expressions."

The crew quickly adjusted their positions, and Rin's makeup was soon touched up, making preparations for the next scene complete.

Shinji nodded in satisfaction and returned to his Director's seat to announce the start of filming.

"UBW, Scene 1, Act 4." The script supervisor stood in front of the main camera, holding the scriptboard. "Action!"

This scene isn't difficult; it's just that Rin encounters Sakura, Shinji, Shirou, and Kazunari, among Issei classmates, at school in the morning.

It's a fairly formulaic scene, showcasing the personalities and relationships of several characters through their dialogue.

Although it's a very old formula, it's very effective. It allows you to easily introduce the character to the audience without feeling abrupt.

Shirou was one of the first actors to prepare for filming, and he frequently discussed his role with Shinji during this time. He grasped the character very easily, and his performance was much better than that of the complete newcomer in FSN.

However, the performance of another complete newcomer actor Issei Ryuudou, was somewhat disappointing.

"Cut!"

When the camera zoomed in on Issei's face, Shinji immediately called for a stop.

"Issei, your reaction to Rin and Shirou's expressions wasn't different enough! Don't worry about making the changes in your expressions too natural; you can exaggerate them a bit more, and the audience will understand that you're doing it on purpose for Rin."

"Sorry, Shinji." Issei gently rubbed his cheeks to relax them a bit. "I'll try again."

"You'd better get yourself together."

Regardless of the series, FSN is a purely commercial film and television production, Shinji certainly wouldn't expect every actor to perform like an award-winning actor.

It's because Shinji always prefers to use amateurs in his films that he finds it so tiring. If the actors are professional, the performance pressure in Shinji's works isn't actually that great.

Actually, the role of Issei isn't difficult. As long as he steadfastly criticizes Rin while exchanging some flirtatious glances with Shirou, the character's image will be established.

"Shinji."

Shirou shivered and said with a dark expression, "I think you're thinking something bad."

"That's your imagination, Shirou."

Shinji's skin is as thick as ever today.

Chapter 91 Caster Medea + Fan = Fan Mom?

As a visual novel game aimed at young people, school scenes are an essential element of FSN.

Even though FSN has far fewer school-related storylines compared to other school romance games, it still occupies a major portion of the first half of the story.

However, Shinji did not stay at the school for long. After filming a few dramatic scenes in the morning, he led the crew out of the campus.

Summer vacation is over, and the film crew can only rent two and a half days a week from the school to film.

Fortunately, Shinji planned to have plenty of time for filming. Unlike other dramas that are filmed and broadcast simultaneously, Shinji of UBW intended to complete all the filming before finding a TV station to broadcast it.

So it's okay if the filming at the school is a little slower, as long as it doesn't affect the overall schedule.

The filming at the school in the morning didn't mean the crew could rest and go home. In the afternoon, Shinji immediately started filming action scenes, including the classic first battle—the school playground battle between Lancer and Archer.

Fate, UBW, and HF are essentially three branches of the same game, and no matter what Shinji does, he can't change the fact that the beginnings of the three routes are similar.

This raises the question: how can we prevent viewers from rehashing old material, and especially ensure the initial viewership and ratings of a TV series?

Especially since the most repetitive parts are in the first few crucial episodes of the TV series.

Despite the fact that the "school night battle to Uncle Hai's attack" segment has been recreated countless times by the animation team, the final result still doesn't particularly satisfy Shinji.

You can't say that several animation studios didn't stay true to the original work, but directly adapting it into a live-action film or television series is really inappropriate.

In particular, the two versions of UBW are not very useful for Shinji's reference.

The two animated versions of UBW were almost polar opposites: the theatrical version was so fast-paced it felt like they were rushing from one scene to another, while the TV series version was so slow it felt like a snail's pace.

Of course, the Fate/Zero anime also suffers from a slow pacing.

This is mainly because of the limited budget and the need to fill in more than 20 episodes of script, which forced the production team to slow down the pace.

Shinji didn't have this problem. He had plenty of funding for his filming, and he was filming a 13-episode anime series. The game script was already very substantial, so there was no need to drag out unnecessary time.

Therefore, Shinji's live-action version of UBW is not a live-action adaptation of the anime series, but a completely new production based on the game's script and referencing the two anime versions.

However, Shinji also knew very well that since the overall framework could not be changed, he could only try to work on the details to bring the audience a different and fresh experience.

In terms of dramatic scenes, Shinji can take advantage of the advantages of a TV series to film more details to fill in the gaps.

As for the action scenes, Shinji needs to come up with some new tricks.

Shinji believes that fans will definitely compare the movie version with the two TV series versions.

Therefore, the different versions not only need to have vastly different styles, but also need to maintain a very high standard.

Only in this way can the audience genuinely say Chu Yunfei's classic line, "You always manage to come up with something new."

Like the film versions of Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero, neither of the two TV Series FSN had an action director; the specific design of the fight scenes was entirely done by the Heroic Spirit themselves.

After the release of the Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero movies, the fighting style of the Heroic Spirit has been fully accepted by audiences worldwide.

Unlike the clunky style of traditional movies, or the overly flashy style of Hong Kong martial arts films, the fighting style of the Heroic Spirit, which combines speed and power, can be described as both simple and swift.

More importantly, because these martial arts skills were acquired by the Heroic Spirit through countless battles, they are far more ruthless and direct than those performance-oriented martial arts.

In Type-Moon Company's photography studio, Shinji stood in the shooting area, which had been set up like a school playground, giving Red A and Big Doggy his final instructions before the shoot.

"You've filmed this scene before, so you should know that the final edited footage of this opening action scene won't be very long."

"Therefore, you must showcase the essence of your martial arts skills in the shortest amount of time, and make it completely different from the first take!"

Cú Chulainn nodded emphatically, assuring him, "Don't worry, Master. We've practiced many times. There won't be any problems."

"It's precisely because you're patting your chest and saying everything's fine that I'm even more worried!" Shinji glared at the guy and added, "Don't damage the filming props; those things are worth more than your salary."

"Master, you're making me so sad..." Cú Chulainn feigned sadness, wiping the corner of his eye as if he were wiping away non-existent tears.

"And the answer?!"

"Yes, mission accomplished."

Cú Chulainn quickly straightened his back.

The filming prop Shinji mentioned wasn't a camera, but a crystal ball the size of a fist.

This was certainly not an ordinary crystal ball, but a prop specially made by Medea for filming.

To make the battles between the Heroic Spirit feel unique, in addition to the Heroic Spirit's own movements, the filming method and editing are also very important.

Shinji thought for a long time about how to make the film more innovative, and even went through countless fight scenes from movies he had seen in his mind.

In the end, Shinji decided to film this fight scene from a crotch-down perspective.

When it comes to the crotch-view perspective, most tokusatsu fans will first think of Sakamoto Koichi, while special effects movie fans might think of Michael Bay.

Let's not even talk about Sakamoto Koichi; his only specialty outside of erotic films is the "crotch view"—although the term "crotch view" itself is quite suggestive.

As for Explosion Bay, although his crotch-view shots are not as famous as his explosion scenes and slow-motion shots, he is still quite well-known in the industry.

The characteristic of the crotch-down perspective is to highlight the size of objects in the picture, but in the application of these two Director, people have seen another use for the crotch-down perspective - to increase the sense of presence.

In particular, the scene in Ultraman where Zeta, Geed, and Karikare fight each other in the groin area under the setting sun has become the best video material to introduce newcomers to Ultraman Zeta.

Achieving the desired effect is not easy, especially for Shinji in his current state.

The biggest obstacle preventing Shinji from turning his ideas into reality is the issue of filming equipment.

Those who have seen the behind-the-scenes footage of Zeta know that the battle was performed by actors in suits, while the city stage and skill effects were created using CG post-production.

Post-production CG is unnecessary, as the battle takes place in an open playground.

The problem is how to capture this battle on camera.

To avoid interfering with the movements of the costumed actors, Sakamoto used a selfie stick to extend the camera below the actors and film them from below.

However, the 2004 Shinji didn't have a miniaturized high-definition camera. If they had crammed a bulky camera under the two people, not to mention whether they could have made agile camera movements, given the height limitations of the camera, they probably could only film the upper bodies of the two people, and their lower bodies would definitely be gone like eunuchs.

Fortunately, Shinji has developed a path dependency for this kind of problem; if he can't solve it, he hands it over to the technical team and lets them handle it.

Shinji didn't care whether they used scientific or Magecraft methods in the end, as long as the desired filming effect was achieved.

Ultimately, Medea solved the filming problem by creating a crystal ball capable of recording and playing back images.

All that's needed is for Red A and Cú Chulainn to fight once on set, and then have the crystal ball play the recorded video.

With the help of ancient Magecraft, the process of playing the video was like a 3D Projection in a science fiction movie, and it was a 100% realistic Projection with no blind spots.

Since it's Projection, there are no actors to block the view, allowing the cameraman to freely shoot the video, even if the phantom stomps through the camera.

However, this kind of filming is not without its drawbacks. The crystal ball prop is extremely expensive, and the recording time is also quite short.

It's only useful for a few special shots occasionally. If you keep doing this for the whole fight scene, the crystal ball obviously can't handle it. It would be better to just use a camera to record it.

Actually, if this scene hadn't been the opening scene of the entire series, Shinji might not have been willing to let Medea create a prop crystal ball.

Just like writing an essay, the opening scene is absolutely the most important.

This is why, in his previous life, every action movie Shinji watched, whether it was Hollywood or Hong Kong films, always had an action scene that could grab the audience's attention.

The same principle applies to TV dramas; the first episode is crucial, and the action scenes in the first episode are even more critical.

"UBW, Scene 16, Act 24, Action!"