Chapter 293 - 263: You Shoot with Yuanbao
Chapter 293: Chapter 263: You Shoot with Yuanbao
Second District, Silver Moon City.
"You think this new video is their way of stringing us along? Trying to raise the stakes?"
Deviant watched Gu Demiao Ning’s new video over and over, praising it repeatedly. "This Gu Demiao Ning guy has an impeccable aesthetic when it comes to modeling. His set design used to be pretty bad, but it’s gotten much better in his last two videos."
"It’s a shame that Gu Li beat me to it." Deviant slapped his thigh. The thought that he had been a step too slow, becoming a secondary partner, still left a bitter taste in his mouth.
If he had known that Gu Demiao Ning was dead set on going to Zone 5, he should have negotiated terms with him the moment he asked about it. Then this difficult Gu Li wouldn’t have shown up out of nowhere.
"I made such a huge investment in Zone 5, but it never even occurred to me to lock him down. I just wasted a golden opportunity." Seeing the popularity of Gu Demiao Ning’s new video skyrocketing, Deviant slapped his thigh in regret again.
Getting Gu Demiao Ning into the Wolf Pack would have been easy—all it would have taken was a word from him to that Alihot fellow.
But back then, Gu Demiao Ning was asking for a Second District residency permit. Deviant had been more focused on getting him under his thumb, so he didn’t give it much thought. The result was that another fox beat him to the punch, which angered him so much he lost sleep for several nights.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. In a fit of pique, he dumped a whole pile of scripts and proposals—approved or not—on Gu Demiao Ning and that fox.
He just couldn’t swallow this insult without getting something back from them.
This was the off-season, a time when everything usually quieted down, yet the two of them were acting incredibly busy. Either he couldn’t reach them at all, or when he did, there was zero progress on their work.
His investment luck hadn’t been great these past few years, but he’d never been led around by the nose like this. Mulling over the entire sequence of events, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being played.
Gu Demiao Ning was cold and distant, while the little red-furred fox had a prickly temper. And now, they were nowhere to be found.
He had to take precautions now, just in case they refused to cooperate later or simply bolted.
"The guy’s smart, releasing a video now to stabilize his reputation," Deviant said to Idelos. "You go have a good chat with Gu Demiao Ning. While the hype is fresh, get him to cooperate with you on another promotional video. I’ve already sent you both the script."
"Oh, right." Deviant remembered something that made him happy. "That guy Forest got into a brawl and is locked up. He probably won’t be able to work all winter. I managed to get you a few of the scripts and commercials he was holding. You’ll shoot them with Yuanbao. It’ll be perfect revenge for him bad-mouthing you at that press conference."
Idelos ignored him, his eyes lowered as he stared at the virtual female in the video. After it finished, he dragged the progress bar back to the twenty-five-second mark.
The video was half a minute long, and its content was different from the previous ones, but the new character model and set design only appeared in the final five seconds.
For an independent creator without the support of a company, funding, technical staff, or artistic consultants, it was perfectly normal for the video to be short, given the high quality of the virtual female.
Judging from the new video’s title and content, he felt this creator with the strange name had some real ideas; he wasn’t just trying to make a quick buck off a virtual female.
Although he had always been resistant to the idea of virtual females, Deviant had already signed a contract with them. He always took his work seriously, and once he committed to a job—or was forced into one—he would never half-ass it.
That was why, even though Deviant often saddled him with all sorts of garbage scripts, he had no choice but to swallow his disgust and shoot one awful series after another, all because of his long-term contract.
Now, he had no choice but to treat this collaboration with the virtual female just as seriously.
And it was a good thing he wasn’t taking it seriously before, because the moment he did, he noticed something wasn’t quite right with the videos of this virtual female named Yuanbao.
Before agreeing to work with Gu Demiao Ning, he had just assumed this Beastman was a bit more talented and had a slightly better aesthetic than other creators of the same type.
But after watching the videos repeatedly, he found himself with many questions, both about the content and about the virtual creator herself.
Setting aside the virtual female who looked almost real, if he wasn’t mistaken, the scenery in the video was filmed on a real location.
He had shot plenty of scenes that required composited virtual backgrounds, and he could tell the difference between a real set and a digitally created one.
If you looked closely at the videos this Wolf Clan Beastman had posted, you could see traces of post-production work.
If he was a Beastman from the Lower District, it would be reasonable for him to film on location and then use post-production to cover up some of the less sightly areas.
Perhaps he was aiming for a photorealistic effect, which would explain the meticulous attention to detail.
Most Beastmen would only focus on the core of the video—the virtual female—and wouldn’t look closely at anything else. After all, if the female was fake, whether the background was real or not was completely unimportant.
But that was precisely the problem.
When something seems too reasonable, it can mask the things that aren’t.
All of Gu Demiao Ning’s videos gave him the same feeling: they were too careful, as if terrified of something being discovered, as if they were trying to hide something.
All his camera shots followed and focused on Yuanbao, unconsciously drawing the viewer’s perspective to her.
Given this filming technique, to then meticulously blur the background seemed far too deliberate.
As a "veteran actor" with over a decade of experience, he could easily tell which scenes were specially arranged sets and which were filmed on location.
The last five seconds of the new video were clearly an outdoor location shoot.
Idelos’s gaze lingered on the petite female in the video, standing in a world of ice and snow with her hair fluttering in the wind, his confusion growing.
As he watched, he caught a single, discordant frame in the video. He paused, took a screenshot, and zoomed in.
A strand of Yuanbao’s hair resting on her shoulder was grayish-white, similar to the color of her clothes.
He rewound the video to that five-second segment and compared it. Before landing on her shoulder, that strand of hair had been black.
’The color of the clothes was altered in post-production.’
Post-processing the background was normal, but the character herself was a virtual model. Her design should have been finalized from the very beginning. It was strange that Gu Demiao Ning, who was so meticulous with the unimportant background, would have an issue with the most important element—the character.
"Where did he even go to film this on location?"
Deviant suddenly asked.
Deviant had also noticed that the last five seconds of the new video were filmed on location. He froze the video on a frame and studied the scenery. "These ruins... they look like something you’d only find in the Lower District..."
Hearing this, Idelos paused. He thought for a moment before saying softly, "There should be some near the Central District too."
"Where in the Central District would you find a ruined town like this?" Deviant said. "All the Central Districts were redeveloped decades ago. Nowadays, if you want to shoot a ruin-themed project, you have to go to the Lower District to find a location."
"Zone 15," Idelos said, his eyes glinting. "Zone 15 used to be part of the Lower District. It’s close to Zone 19 and is the safest city in the hazardous region."
As soon as he said that, Idelos added, "He’s from Zone 19."