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Chapter 1: Cranial Imaging Technology
“Whoa, I actually fainted.”
Li Fanxi was stunned as he opened his eyes after he recovered from his unconsciousness.
His room was still the same, but all the decorations in the room had changed slightly. The color of the wallpapers have changed from grey to green, and the posters that were affixed on all four sides of the walls were completely altered as well!
Li Fanxi could not recognize all the movie titles and the names of the movie stars on the posters.
Could it be that… I have crossed over to a parallel universe?
Grabbing the mirror, Li Fanxi looked at his own reflection, and found that his appearance had not changed by much, just that he seemed have become a little more good looking.
Li Fanxi actually did not care much about his appearance, he was fine with his appearance as long as he does not become too ugly.
What he really cares about was-
Are there any good movies in this world?
Turning on the computer, and searching for the word “movies”, the first result was a website link called “Qiying”.
Entering the Qiying site, the first sentence that leaped into view was:
“Qiying. Feel the power of cranial imaging.”
“Cranial imaging?” Li Fanxi was a complete stranger to the concept.
On the website of Qiying, many exquisite posters could be seen.
[The Grandeur Life of Anna]
[Dark Shadow]
[Crazy Mechanic Arm]
[Top-notch Bridesmaid]
[Superb Magician]
Whoa, these are all movies that I have yet seen!
Li Fanxi played two movies among them to view randomly.
The first movie was [The Grandeur Life of Anna]. After the movie started, Li Fanxi was dumbfounded.
The protagonist Anna was supposed to be a very dignified lady, however, she frequently made some crazy faces, and often quivered in a creepy way as well.
This… Is this a horror flick?
Clicking on the play button for the second movie [Crazy Mechanic Arm], he discovered that the protagonist has an almighty mechanic arm. The plot was passable, but the characters in the film were often missing their necks and legs, and the elements that made up the images were extremely unstable. The scene of a barstool from a second ago, would suddenly turned into a low stool in the next second. The degree of completion of the two movies were so bad, that it makes one’s blood boil.
According to the tags, the total duration of the two films should be 120 minutes each.
But now, the length of one of the movie was 36 minutes and the other was 18 minutes in length.
In other words, this meant that both of the films were in fact an ongoing serialization.
These kind of works are allowed to be published? What is going on with this world!?
Li Fanxi pondered for a moment, clicked open the hard drive titled “work” in his computer, and discovered a folder titled “production” inside the hard drive.
“Could it be that these are all my creations?”
Li Fanxi had a hunch that the other him of the parallel world was also tinkering with matters relating to movies as well.
It was as he had expected, after opening the folder, there were 4 video files inside, and they were titled respectively as:
[The Hero of the Sling]
[Vanity Dream]
[The Scenery of the Day That No Longer Exists]
[Terrifying Green Teeth]
It turned out that the alternate version of him in this parallel world was a movie maker too. He had even produced numerous works, and was preparing to open a career path for himself through the method of submitting his works for publication.
Playing the videos successively to watch, Li Fanxi discovered that the works created by “himself” had childish plots; laughable actions; blurry and shaking scenes; weird expression on the characters—
It was laughable. It were all merely short videos that couldn’t even be considered as “finished products”!
The characters inside the videos does not resemble real person in the slightest of way, they looked more like CG (Computer graphics) characters that were poorly executed.
Li Fanxi scratched his head awkwardly. All of a sudden, he noticed that a “thing” was sitting quietly beside the computer.
The “thing” resembled a helmet. Its appearance was similar to a shower cap that was spreaded out. Other than the thin sheet of plastic film on its outer layer, there were also circles made up of light violet thin lines as the material texture of the object.
What the heck is this?
As Li Fanxi had never seen this object before, he couldn’t help himself but to be in a daze.
After wearing the helmet in an attempt to test it out, Li Fanxi did not feel any difference, only that a video player popped up abruptly on the desktop interface of the computer.
The contents that was playing live on the video player, was exactly the scenes of what Li Fanxi was thinking of in his mind at the very moment!
It was quite obvious that the thing could connect to the cranial nerves of a human, and that any scenes that appeared in the brain would be recorded by the video player immediately!
Li Fanxi had a sudden realisation. All the works in Qiying site, including the work-in-progress in his own folder, were not produced through the use of filming equipment in the real world, nor was it made from some software. It was through the use of the helmet, and the use of a brain solely, to animate and render the scenes for the completion of the “film” one step at a time!
I see now, that’s how the two words “Cranial imaging” came about!
After understanding this matter, Li Fanxi couldn’t stop his surging heart: With this thing, doesn’t I have the means to realise my lifelong ambition?!
Unable to hold back his eagerness, he started the process of creating the first film of his in this world.
And of course for Li Fanxi, the so called “creating” process was in fact just “remembering”.
There are so many classic movies in my mind, isn’t this too easy if I simply recall them?
Soon, scenes of “Batman: The Dark Knight,” directed by Christopher Nolan surfaced frame by frame.
It was his favourite movie, and in the movie, Joker that was played by Heath Ledger was his favourite character.
“Hehe, let me show you guys what a real movie is, and what true acting really means!”
Li Fanxi had carried away, he felt that he had already stood on the summit of the movie industry in this world!
Shutting his eyes tightly, every frame of the movie was like butterflies dancing in the air, gathering inside his mind!
One minute later…
Li Fanxi’s felt heavy dizziness in his head. Anxious to see the outcome, he took off the helmet, and opened the video player with some mouse clicks.
In the first few seconds, there were only jumbled codes and snow on the screen. At the fifth second, the images started to appear…
Under the control of the former director Nolan, in the first minute of the movie opening scene were a few clowns finishing their preparation before the beginning of their bank heist. In the set of shots, the camera works were complicated but not chaotic, scattered but organised, and the editing technique was masterful and skilled.
However, when it comes to Li Fanxi –
Skyscrapers… clowns… extras in the bank…
All the essentials elements were there, however the quality of the imagery was extremely atrocious. The characters’ body parts were missing, and furthermore, the human anatomy and facial features were crudely made as well.
As for the scenes, endless egg-wrenching errors emerged such as still frames and shaking scenes.
In addition, the phenomenon of jittering limbs would inevitably happened to every character in the video.
Li Fanxi fainted.
This was clearly the unique style of [The Grandeur Life of Anna] and [Crazy Mechanic Arm]!
The produced result of this one minute short video was 10 times more disastrous when compared to the other two movies!
Why is it like this?!
Actually, everything was not as simple as Li Fanxi thought.
The “helmet” that he is using is a Phantom Capture Head Rig.
It is a set of devices to extract consciousness. It can directly transfer the images produced in the user’s brain to the computer accurately and clearly.
The users in this world gave it a very cute nickname: Head bra.
In theory, as long as the user has mastered the highest level of “cranial imaging” technology, it is possible to create movies that are infinitely close to the shooting effect from filming in the real world with the help of the power of the head bra.
Of course, it can only be achievable in theory. In fact, due to differences in users’ ability and talent, occurrence of unavoidable distortions and missing details will exist in the static and dynamic images of the scenes.
Most of the times, the characters and sights produced with “cranial imaging” technology will look like CG images of a game, and are very amateurish CG images.
This is a technical mistake that is hard to avoid with “cranial imaging,” especially for newbies, and it is technically impossible to produce a film to be considered as highly completed within a minute.
Furthermore, there’s another significant drawback with regards to cranial imaging-
It is very, very, very draining to the brain.
A one-minute film will often require more than an hour long to render with the head bra. During this one hour time, the brain is like a overclocking CPU, constantly working.
Having learned this, Li Fanxi got lost in his thoughts.
What is his weakness?
Very obviously, it is technique.
The films that he can produce are all trash if he is unable to fully utilise the cranial imaging technology skillfully.
What is his strength?
It is content.
Inside his brain, it is filled with classic movies that are ready to be made.
The scripts, story telling, imagery, editing are already at a top-notch level. Furthermore, it had been tested in the market, reaping rewards from both reviews and box office sales
As long as he could master the cranial imaging technology, it will allow him to break away from the layers of shackles that are chaining him down, and instantly dispatch the other movies, dominate the movie industry, and become a real great director!
Right at this time, an attribute menu appeared in Li Fanxi’s mind:
Color: 5
Image: 5
Expression: 17
Anatomy: 3
Action: 8
Music: 2
Transposition: 0
Interaction: 0
Stability: 0
Free attribute points: 0
“Huh? Is this my ability list?” Li Fanxi was stunned.
On the list, there were a total of 9 abilities. Li Fanxi carefully cross referenced them one by one, and felt that it was quite reliable.
The strongest ability is “expression”. That’s is correct. Li Fanxi had always knew that he has an acute sensitivity with regards to remembering microexpressions.
The second strongest is “action”. Li Fanxi’s had a pretty good sense of what every action should look like as well.
As for the other 3 abilities “transposition”, “Interaction”, and “stability”, they were a straight 0.
And that’s for sure. That is because Li Fanxi doesn’t even know what the three abilities meant.
Immediately afterwards, a quest list popped up in Li Fanxi’s mind:
Quest: Sign a contract with Qiying successfully
Time available: Within 24 hours
Reward: Ability power up (Free attribute points +5)
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Seems like a wonderful start to a good novel, but have to read until the second arc to really find out. Thanks for the chapter and hope you have more motivation to post more chapters! Also, what is the current release rate? I hope it’s at least 1/day.