I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 434: I'm In
"All departments, stand by! Prologue, Scene 156, Take 112—Action!"
Thanks to Shinji shamelessly cheating with magecraft, the young Lord of the Department of Astromancy had finally learned what betrayal and despair truly meant.
After that, everything progressed naturally. Following a short break and some emotional preparation, filming resumed once more.
The actor playing Lev had been someone Shinji asked Waver to scout from Britain. For some unknown reason, this parallel world simply did not have a man named Lev Lainur Flauros.
Which was honestly a blessing for Shinji.
If Lev actually existed here, who knew whether this worldline would suddenly veer straight into the FGO timeline.
For the same reason, Shinji had never once entertained the idea of summoning King Solomon from the start.
If anything went wrong, humanity itself might end up getting a giant "GG."
Imagine it: hiring an actor for a movie, only to accidentally destroy Human Order in the process.
If things really developed that way, Shinji suspected that after death, both Alaya and Gaia would personally nail him onto the pillars at the entrance of the Throne of Heroes.
That said, although the actor was merely hired from Britain, his acting skills were leagues above Olga Marie's. Not only could he switch effortlessly between the faces of a kind mentor and a deranged villain, he had also memorized every single line perfectly before filming even began.
As Olga Marie rushed toward him, "Professor Lev" calmly bid farewell to this unfortunate tool character.
"Lev!"
Olga Marie shouted furiously.
"What did you do to my Chaldea?!"
"It was never yours to begin with…"
Lev replied darkly. With a casual flick of his finger, the girl's body floated upward as lightly as paper.
"Honestly, I've had enough," Lev said with open disgust. "You remained nothing more than a noisy little girl until the very end. Still, we've known each other for some time… so allow me to show a little mercy."
He smiled cruelly.
"I'll let you die by 'your treasure.'"
"No…"
As her body drifted uncontrollably toward the globe suspended in the air, Olga Marie's face turned pale with panic.
"S-Stop… stop it…"
"Chaldeas is an ultra-high-density information body… for humans, it's basically equivalent to a black hole!"
"Yes. Exactly."
Lev let out a hysterical laugh.
"The moment you touch it, you'll be decomposed down to the molecular level! A literal manifestation of hell."
"No…"
Desperately, Olga Marie reached toward Ritsuka and Mash, begging them to pull her back.
"No! I don't want this!"
"Why is this happening?!"
"I don't want to die here!"
Her fingertips stopped mere millimeters away from Ritsuka's—close enough that just a little more effort might have bridged the gap.
"I finally earned someone's praise…! I finally gained someone's acknowledgment…! So why… why does it have to end like this?!"
"I don't want to die in a place like this! Someone—someone save me!!"
"Director!!" ×2
Ritsuka and Mash lunged forward, but all three missed each other completely.
"Stop it!! Lev, stop!!"
Olga Marie screamed in despair. Helplessly, she could only watch herself draw closer and closer to the burning Earth, until the flames dyed her orange eyes crimson red.
"Hey, Father… what should I do?"
Carrying with her a question that would never receive an answer, Olga Marie disappeared into Chaldeas.
"DIRECTOOOOOR————!!"
Inside the massive cavern, only Ritsuka's grief-stricken scream continued to echo.
"Cut! That scene's a wrap! Excellent work, everyone!"
The moment Charlemagne called it, Shinji stood up from behind the monitor and gave all the actors a thumbs-up.
"That troublesome scene is finally done. Though, Shinji… are you really sure you don't need to visit a hospital for your face?"
Archer turned to look at him.
After suffering Olga Marie's violent outburst, Shinji's face had swollen an entire size larger.
"No need."
Shinji casually brushed back his hair.
"I totally deserved this."
Archer's face twitched.
"Sometimes you're way too honest for your own good."
"Well, duh. If I didn't let the girl vent her frustrations first, how could I keep messing with her afterward?"
Shinji grinned shamelessly.
"Besides, didn't you notice? Once I started acting pitiful, Olga got embarrassed immediately."
"You bastard. Give me back my emotional investment."
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A few days after wrapping up the Director's farewell scene, filming for Prologue finally came to an end as well.
Most of the Heroic Spirit actors still looked somewhat unsatisfied, as though their acting addiction hadn't quite been fulfilled yet. With lingering reluctance, they headed off to other film sets to continue working.
Important FGO cast members like Charlemagne and Sakura didn't have any other productions to move on to, so they remained with the crew to film promotional material instead.
What surprised Shinji, however, was Olga Marie.
Contrary to the original plan, the young girl didn't return to the Clock Tower to continue ruling over the Department of Astromancy like its proud queen. Instead, she stayed in Fuyuki City and frequently visited the Type-Moon company offices.
Sometimes she came to see Sakura, Charlemagne, Arturia, and the other actors she had worked with during filming.
Other times, she came specifically to see Shinji and watch how he made movies.
As for the incident during the filming of Prologue, where Shinji had sneakily used magecraft against her…
After delivering a thorough round of physical punishment and sternly warning him never to pull something like that again, the young girl had temporarily decided to let the matter rest.
The reason it was only "temporary" was simple:
Shinji knew her personality far too well.
The next time they got into an argument, she would absolutely drag this incident back out again.
Of course, the complicated relationship between Shinji and Olga Marie was merely a small side story.
For the actors, the end of filming meant the completion of the project.
But for behind-the-scenes staff like Shinji, filming ending was merely the beginning.
An endless mountain of tedious post-production work was waiting for this so-called top-tier commercial film director to "grace it with his presence."
Especially since Prologue would be released exclusively online.
Even for the highly experienced Times Group, this was an entirely unprecedented venture.
The modern Times Group might not have reached the terrifying heights of the Disney empire from Shinji's memories of the 2020s, but it was still the number one film production company in the world today.
The reason it wasn't called the world's number one commercial conglomerate was because several North American corporations possessed parent companies far larger and more influential than Times Group itself. To those giants, the film industry was merely one tiny branch of their business empire.
That said, Times Group had advantages of its own.
Because many of the core board members belonged to magi families like Cloris's Flora family, the company possessed far stronger unity and execution capabilities than the massive conglomerates constantly tearing themselves apart through internal power struggles.
Take Prologue's online release strategy, for example.
If this had been any other movie company, Shinji would have had to waste endless breath convincing upper management to accept his ideas.
Instead, the executives at Times Group simply reacted with:
"Ah, yes, yes, absolutely correct."
Whenever facing Shinji's demands, the company always displayed an almost excessive level of sincerity.
Of course, this also had something to do with the increasing influence of Cloris and the Flora family within Times Group itself.
Even so, Prologue's revolutionary distribution model still made some people within the company uneasy.
A number of executives suggested releasing it simultaneously in theaters and online to secure a baseline level of box office revenue.
After all, in the current era, with Shinji Matou's drawing power alone, there was practically zero chance the movie would lose money.
On top of that, the film featured the return of a huge number of classic FSN actors. Even without a specially produced 3D version, theaters would definitely be packed to capacity.
However, Shinji rejected all of those suggestions completely.
He believed their box office projections would probably come true, but doing so would also destroy his reputation.
Because the pacing of Prologue simply wasn't suitable for theaters at all.
If audiences actually bought tickets to watch Prologue in cinemas, then afterward, a significant number of them would definitely start screaming:
"Who the hell told me to buy this?! Give me my money back!"
And if that happened, both Shinji and the entire FGO franchise would end up with ruined reputations.
Rather than obsessing over one movie's box office earnings, it was far more important to get as many people as possible to watch this "trailer."
Because yes—in Shinji's eyes, Prologue was nothing more than a giant trailer.
And if it was a trailer, then spreading it far and wide was its entire purpose for existing.
But that created another problem:
When exactly should the movie go live?
The streaming platform jointly launched by Type-Moon and Times Group had already been operating for quite some time.
Thanks to the subscription model—which allowed viewers to watch all films produced by the two companies on their computers for free, as well as gain access to the latest episode of Type-Moon television dramas one week early—the platform's subscriber count had remained fairly decent.
Though it's only fairly decent.
Compared to the era before Shinji's transmigration, where streaming platforms flooded the market one after another, the subscriber count of the Type-Moon Channel hadn't even reached what could be considered "mid-tier."
As such, Prologue also carried the responsibility of promoting the streaming platform itself.
Originally, Shinji's plan had been simple:
Since Type-Moon had no theatrical releases scheduled for the first half of 2008 anyway, they might as well launch Prologue online at the beginning of the summer season in early May.
To put it bluntly, Shinji's plan was simple:
He wanted audiences to spend the money they would normally use for summer movie tickets on subscribing to Type-Moon's streaming platform instead.
However, Cloris suddenly called him with what she claimed was a brilliant idea.
"How about we release the movie on February 24th, 2008?"
Shinji frowned.
"The 24th? That date is awkward as hell. Does it even mean anything?"
"Of course it does."
Cloris sounded delighted with herself.
"That's the day of the Academy Awards ceremony."
"…And why exactly does that matter?"
In this world, the Oscars' influence was nowhere near what Shinji remembered from his previous life.
"You didn't know?" Cloris laughed softly. "Europe is doing a live broadcast of the Oscars this year for the first time ever."
"Why?"
Shinji was genuinely confused.
Had they taken the wrong medicine or something?
"Because we don't have any theatrical releases during this year's summer season~"
Cloris explained succinctly.
"The old men over in Europe want to use this opportunity to reclaim the glory of artistic cinema."
Normally, by the time the European Big Three film festivals concluded and award-winning films started being promoted, it would already be too late to seize the momentum.
So this time, they planned to use Hollywood's Oscars as a promotional platform instead.
"To make that happen," Cloris continued with obvious amusement, "those old fossils actually went out of their way to praise the Oscars in the media, calling them 'the benchmark of North American cinema.'"
Even through the phone, Shinji could practically picture the teasing smile on his flower goddess of an older sister.
"You know…"
Her tone grew increasingly playful.
"If we managed to sabotage the Oscars' ratings, and viewers couldn't even be bothered to watch the ceremony… what kind of expressions do you think those old men would make?"
For award-winning films, the ceremony itself was merely the beginning of the publicity campaign.
But if nobody even paid attention to the awards in the first place, the promotional effect would plummet dramatically.
European audiences in this world didn't have the habit of religiously following the Oscars every year, nor did they particularly care about award-winning films.
If they skipped this rare live broadcast, then even if they later saw the list of winners, they probably wouldn't feel anything at all.
And if that happened, all the effort those European elites had poured into this strategy would amount to absolutely nothing.
"…Interesting."
A slow smile spread across Shinji's face.
"I'm in."
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
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