Chapter 54: Lancelot - I'm a useless knight! (;???Д??`)
When Kayneth's research on Heroic Spirits reached a temporary conclusion, Shinji returned his fiancée to him. He gave Director Kayneth the opportunity to rehearse acting with his fiancée, creating a chance to improve their relationship.
As mentioned before, perhaps due to living a too smooth-sailing life, Kayneth appeared quite naive when it came to matters outside of magecraft, especially in the realm of romance. It's not that Kayneth didn't want to fall in love; he just didn't know how, like an ant facing an elephant, unable to exert any force.
Shinji understood quite a bit about romance, but he leaned towards a philanderer style, which was quite different from Kayneth's pure love style. All Shinji could do was to create more opportunities for them.
As Shinji was leaving the studio warehouse, ready to go back to his own work, he heard several thunderous sounds in the clear sky. Subsequently, a chariot pulled by a bull, flashing with lightning, descended from the sky and landed steadily in front of Shinji.
"Ha-ha, Master, how's it going?"
The man driving the chariot laughed heartily at Shinji.
Shinji pinched his brow and said, "I'm telling you, don't casually waste magical energy."
The chariot, pulled by the flying-hoofed thunderous bull, counted as a divine beast among the Phantasmal Species, and the manifestation of these legendary creatures required considerable magical energy.
Shinji had always hoped that these Heroic Spirits wouldn't squander magical energy outside of filming.
"What? Did you see a bull in the sky?"
Don't ask, just say it's a gas explosion that sent the bull up there.
But it seemed that Iskandar didn't take Shinji's words to heart; he continued to laugh heartily.
"Well, Master, don't be such a nag. You sound just like a woman. And, you know, I have a reason for doing this."
Saying that, Iskandar pulled out what looked like a tattered cloth from the chariot.
Squinting, Shinji stared at it for a while before confirming that this "cloth" was indeed Waver.
"Hey, kid, we're back."
Iskandar said as he shook Waver with force.
"Ugh– Ugh–!!
Woken up by the shaking, Waver shivered and covered his mouth. He raised a middle finger with all his strength towards Shinji.
"Ugh!"
With a fierce glare at Shinji, Waver grumbled something incomprehensible, then hurriedly rushed into the warehouse behind Shinji.
"What's up with that guy?"
Shinji wore a puzzled expression with a big black question mark on his face.
Iskandar responded in a perplexed tone, "I took him for a spin in the sky, and then he ended up like this."
Fine, it seems Waver gets motion sickness.
Shinji gave a disdainful look to the King of Conquerors, "How did you even think of taking him for a joyride in the sky?"
"Building relationships between men involves the three things: cars, guns, and balls, right? Didn't you tell me that, Master?" Iskandar replied with a grin.
Shinji's eyelid twitched, "So you took him for a joyride..."
Well, a bull cart is still a type of vehicle, so technically it's not wrong...
Unfortunately, explaining such intricacies to this man who loves to talk to himself is quite challenging. Therefore, Shinji could only emotionlessly command, "Don't play him to exhaustion; he still has scenes to shoot."
Waver, who had just come out of the restroom, happened to hear this.
If Wavevr has the capability to say something right now, it would be: What the hell?
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In the following days, Shinji worked on both filming and revising the script for Fate/Zero.
The original story written by Nasu was indeed excellent, but Shinji couldn't simply transfer the entire story to the screen. Besides the differences caused by the medium shift from text to audiovisual, the most crucial point was that Shinji's Fate/Zero was a mainstream commercial film for the general audience.
This meant that the dark and profound aspects of Nasu's "black, deep, and maimed" story had to be modified to ensure broader acceptance.
Although in today's film industry, Shinji's act of modifying the story to make it more acceptable was considered somewhat unprofessional and lowered the artistic value, Shinji believed that as a commercial director, not caring about box office results would be a rogue move.
For a commercial film director, box office performance was always the most important and irreplaceable indicator of their ability and success.
Moreover, Fate/Zero was different from the previous Fate/Stay Night, which operated on a small workshop model. It was Shinji's first attempt at creating a large-scale commercial film following the normal procedures of mainstream commercial cinema, and it was set to serve as a "template" for future large-scale commercial films.
If Fate/Zero failed, it wouldn't bring Shinji back to square one, but it would undoubtedly hinder the operational model of the special effects blockbuster that Shinji was trying to promote.
Thus, for various reasons, Fate/Zero, as a film, had to make compromises. Although Shinji retained the main plot and core story, some excessively dark content needed modification.
The most significant changes were made to the Caster group and the Matou family sections.
After all, one was a child murderer, and the other involved child abuse—contents that would be challenging to pass in Europe and America.
[Children] have always been a strict area in Europe and America, and related content is scrutinized by very stringent standards.
Why the governments in Europe and America regulate it so strictly... those who understand, understand.
Shinji couldn't be bothered with the dirty affairs of Europeans and Americans, but he agreed that the three views of a film or TV series aimed at the general public should be correct.
Therefore, in Shinji's script, Ryuunosuke Uryu became an ordinary serial killer, and the victims were replaced by adults instead of children.
Also, Sakura's inhuman experiences in the Matou family were removed, after all, Fate/Zero's Sakura was still a child; how could she be harmed?
But when it came to adult characters, Shinji wasn't as considerate.
His uncle Kariya's half-dead appearance was definitely going to be there, just to ensure it passed censorship, the wriggling worms inside his body were changed to burning magical circuits.
Of course, these modifications by Shinji wouldn't touch the core of the movie. Fate/Zero, as a film, still leaned towards a dark and intense atmosphere.
Therefore, naturally, the tone of the Fate/Zero movie would be darker than Fate/Stay Night.
For a movie, the tone often directly reflects the film and the protagonist.
This doesn't mean that a movie using black as a color is a dark film, but the color scheme of dark films undoubtedly tends to be more shadowy, creating a palpable atmosphere of oppression through the visuals alone.
As a director who had already completed one film, Shinji was well aware that as long as the film's tone remained on track, not only would it prevent the movie's production from deviating from its core, but the shooting process would also be relatively more relaxed.
Starting from the second day after Kayneth and others joined the crew, Shinji began to incorporate a large number of action scenes into the filming, using these relatively easy scenes to help the actors quickly get into the rhythm.
At the same time, Shinji deliberately added shots taken with a high frame rate camera during the filming process.
This type of camera is specifically designed for shooting in slow motion.
In the feedback from many Fate/Stay Night viewers, there were comments about the fight scenes in the movie being too fast, making it difficult to follow and even causing confusion.
In order to allow the audience to appreciate the heroic battles of the Heroic Spirits more clearly, Shinji decided to incorporate some slow-motion shots in Fate/Zero.
Audience suggestions for Fate/Stay Night covered more than just this aspect, and Shinji carefully reviewed these suggestions, extracting useful parts to improve in Fate/Zero.
Shinji was well aware that the success of Fate/Stay Night wasn't because he made a perfect film but because the audience had limited exposure and found it fresh.
If he didn't humbly accept the criticisms from the audience and make improvements, he would quickly be eliminated from the market.
There might be omniscient and omnipotent individuals in the world, but his name is Gilgamesh, not Shinji Matou.
So, being not omniscient and omnipotent, Shinji could only continually improve himself to become a bit more omniscient and omnipotent.
Fortunately, Shinji had watched a lot of movies in his previous life, with more experience in appreciating special effects films than anyone in this world.
Although Shinji, as an outsider in his past life, didn't know how those spectacular scenes were created, he found a way to achieve similar effects.
Swoosh, swoosh.
In the sky, two figures, one gold and one black, flashed by, followed by a white figure.
Meanwhile, sitting on the ground, Shinji was intently staring at the monitor screen, occasionally looking up at the sky.
The Fate/Zero crew was currently shooting the quite classic aerial battle from the Fourth Holy Grail War—the Vimana vs. F-15J dogfight.
The filming of this scene could be said to have almost exhausted Shinji's brain cells.
With the Vimana physically present, using practical effects was undoubtedly the most convenient option.
However, figuring out how to incorporate F-15J fighter jets was quite tricky.
Firstly, Shinji couldn't actually obtain a fighter jet for shooting. Not to mention the sensitivity of such powerful weaponry, just the cost of a single aircraft exceeded the entire movie budget.
Renting one was also impractical. It wasn't that it couldn't be done, but transforming a fighter jet into a Noble Phantasm made it easy for it to get damaged during the shooting process.
Ultimately, after a long discussion with Rider, Shinji came up with a compromise.
He had Touko create a one-to-one scale model of a fighter jet and squeezed a motorcycle into it to give it vehicle attributes. Then, he handed it over to Artoria to drive.
This way, not only could Artoria control the "aircraft" using her Riding skill, but she could also use the King of Storms Reality Marble to envelop the entire model, ensuring it wouldn't get damaged in the air.
To ensure that this strange "fighter jet" could indeed trigger Artoria's skills, it was designed to be able to drive on the ground. Functionally, it resembled more of a motorcycle encased in a fighter jet shell than a conventional motorcycle. However, compared to a regular motorcycle, this prop had many fighter jet functions (such as launching projectile missiles, machine gun strafing, etc.), but it couldn't fly like a real fighter jet.
To solve the flying issue, Shinji had Touko construct a frame for Iskandar's chariot, allowing the chariot to carry the model and fly.
At the same time, to ensure the best camera angles, Shinji had Rider carry a camera on a Pegasus and film behind Vimana and the chariot.
One could say that Shinji used props to forcibly recreate the aerial battle described in the script.
"OK— Medusa, raise it a bit more and shoot them circling from a top-down angle. Be careful not to capture the chariot in the frame."
Shinji issued instructions to Medusa through the intercom.
At this moment, the surveillance monitor captured the scene of a knight yelling while lying on the "airplane."
"What's that foolish knight doing? Didn't I tell him to wear his helmet when filming?"
"Master." Medusa, through the intercom, imitated the tone of Lancelot and said, "It seems like he's saying, 'To actually have the King drive for me, I, this incompetent knight, really can't escape blame!'"
"...In that case, let that guy fly a bit more. Whenever he remembers to wear the helmet, that's when we'll wrap it up."
Shinji coldly issued the command.
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