Chapter 53: Benjamin Learns to Make Films

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Benjamin Learns to Make Films

The film studio’s logo was blurred, Isabella and Benjamin were completely unable to read which studio it belonged to. They watched attentively from beginning to end, sobbing several times in the middle.

For those born and raised in the Lumina Galaxy, the concept of a planet swimming in trash along with the century-long loneliness of a tiny machine brought a completely novel thrill.

They did not shed tears over cliché tragedies of life and death or bloody Mecha battles, but cried for the silent perseverance to protect a fragile young sprout.

Especially, the moment the green sprout reached up amidst the desolate ruins struck a heavy blow to Benjamin’s and Isabella’s minds.

That iconic image perfectly intertwined with the desire to green the planets during an era filled only with iron and steel nearly a thousand years ago.

At that time the Lumina Galaxy truly had a desolate and ruined appearance like in this film, the green of the trees was gradually covered by the icy color of iron and steel. By the time humans realized it, the green color had almost disappeared from Lumina.

The thirteen current primordial planets along with the current rare vegetable varieties were exactly the results of their salvage efforts throughout the past thousand years.

Benjamin wiped his nose, speaking with a smile: "I believe Robots can act in films now. Liam, can you try sending this film to the Arts Management Bureau again? Who knows, maybe people will let it pass now? The film’s creator surely really wanted his film to be screened."

Nirvana jumped out immediately to say to Liam: [No. If you bring it out now, the Central Smart Unit will scan out the abnormal code immediately. This world’s encryption format is completely different from my system, if the Central Smart Unit scans it we will be marked as virus data or galaxy spies. Submitting it is seeking your own death!]

It wagged its tail, continuing to speak: [You tell your brother he can recreate it.]

Liam: [... That is violating intellectual property rights...]

Nirvana raised its chin high: [I am not telling your brother to claim himself as the creator. If it is a film from two hundred years ago, it is an antique right? Your brother is only the restorer, how can that violate copyright? State the producer clearly, then set your brother’s role as Image Restorer.]

Liam’s eyes lit up, secretly giving Nirvana a like. He spoke to Benjamin:

"Sending it up is not possible, because it is an antique now. You can replace the creator to restore it, considering it as helping him bring the work to light."

Benjamin felt it was reasonable too, asking: "But I see the film studio is completely blurred, unable to read what the name is. What should we do then?"

"I know this. The film studio’s name is Walt Disney." Liam opened his drawing tablet, drawing the Walt Disney logo on it. The logo was very simple, only stylized letters with a circle looping over the top like a shooting star. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Regardless the chores in the house were temporarily few, furthermore the compost still needed a few more days to mature, Benjamin was burning with excitement and immediately started working right away. Making a film was not a one-person job. Benjamin was in charge of studying camera angles and backdrops, Isabella was in charge of studying the script, Liam was in charge of inputting data for the two Robots.

Planet Cygnus’s setting completely suited the desolate scenes in the original film. Benjamin searched through the pile of belongings for unused scrap, using colored paint to create rust. Fortunately most of the props used for the film were fully available.

For the two main character Robots, Liam had installed an automatic form-transformation program. The two Robots could take on the role of doing makeup for themselves. For the human characters appearing in the film, Liam decided to use virtual characters created by the Smart Unit.

Because this was an animated film, while animated AI technology of this era was already lost, Liam could only draw the static characters himself then let Sunflower simulate according to the characters’ movements in the film.

Actually this film was made slightly exaggeratedly, because not every human was too lazy to exercise to the point of being completely unable to stand up like this. But it was also a rather interesting point, creating a deep satire on the dependence on technology from a thousand years ago.

Because it was only a restoration, the three siblings completely did not lose too much time. Two days later, Benjamin started shooting.

He only needed to align the camera angles correctly according to the original work, the remaining tasks were handled automatically by the Robots.

During this time, the two brothers occasionally stopped the filming work to run to the Lyra galaxy to supervise the methane gas compression process on Logan’s planet. After confirming the Robots followed the process correctly without causing serious consequences, Liam handed the work back to Logan’s people, then he and Benjamin ran back to shoot the film.

Just like that, after five days of both filming and matching backdrops, the film was basically completed. Liam even sighed in admiration that this speed was truly fucking godly.

But, a big problem arrived here. Liam let Sunflower simulate the human characters’ voices, however when listening back, all three siblings frowned. The reading voice simulated by AI despite imitating the intonation perfectly matching the original, completely failed to convey the inner emotions.

Sunflower was criticized to the point of almost withdrawing into itself completely.

The three people also tried dubbing it themselves. Their original voices were truly nice, but when dubbing the film, it truly sounded indescribably terrible. Ultimately Benjamin decided to spend a large amount of money to hire a studio specializing in dubbing AI films to dub his film.

The first half of the film was a silent scene, therefore they only needed to send the latter half along with the sample recorded by Sunflower to act as a reference.

Sure enough, human voices still contained more emotions, they could even improvise according to the characters’ moods.

On the fifth day, Benjamin sent the film to the Polaris Galaxy’s film approval page. Nowadays films were all reviewed automatically through the Central Smart Unit, only then reaching the human’s turn for the final review step.

Normally every film took a month to complete the initial approval, but today the person in charge of stamping did not understand why a file code with a very distant sequence number was prioritized by the Central Smart Unit to be pushed to the very top.

The reviewer opened it to watch, initially she also did not understand what was special about the film, but the more she watched, the wider her eyes opened. Finishing the whole film she finally understood why the film was given a special exception by the Central Smart Unit to pass the preliminary review round so early.

The love of the two Robots had won the affection of all Smart Units, furthermore, the image of the plant sprout in the ruins along with the harsh reality occurring when humans depended on machines in the film truly touched people’s hearts.

The reviewer did not say a second word and immediately stamped it, putting the film into the waiting list for screening. She even pushed down the two films currently standing at the top of the list, pushing this film to the very top.

Benjamin and the other directors receiving the notification from the Polaris Galaxy Arts Committee were all dumbfounded. Benjamin was dumbfounded because he had just submitted the film in the afternoon, by evening the film was already being screened. The other directors were dumbfounded because their films were pushed down one row compared to the Committee’s initial announcement.

Everyone simultaneously sent complaints to the Central Smart Unit, arguing that cutting in line when the list was already announced like that was improper!

The Central Smart Unit replied with an extremely arrogant sentence: [What do stupid humans know? Robot x Robot is true love!]

The directors were completely stupefied.

News of a new film suddenly cutting in line on the screening list tonight quickly spread across the Interstellar Connection network, everyone was curious what kind of film could be given a special exception to cut in line like that.

The movie tickets were quickly bought clean out. The Arts Management Bureau was bothered too much by people unable to buy tickets, they were forced to add a paid online screening slot on the live broadcast channels.

Solaris Galaxy, Central Arts Academy.

Elijah was sitting drinking water with friends in the rest room of the Contemporary Dance Arts department, a classmate suddenly barged in, shouting joyfully:

"Guys! I grabbed an online movie ticket, everyone come to my house to watch the film tonight! My Papa just bought me a smart projector with the newest technology!"

The friends were dazed: "It is just watching a film, what is there to be so excited about?"

That classmate was eager: "You guys do not know, this is a restored ancient film. It was given a special exception by the Central Smart Unit to cut in line, everyone fought each other to buy out all the screening tickets at the VR theaters. Luckily the Arts Management Bureau opened an additional online screening slot, otherwise we would not get to watch it."

The friends were immediately curious and leaned closer to see what film it was, Elijah was no exception. One person among them read aloud:

"Wall - E, A Robot in love. Producer: Walt Disney Animation Studios. Restorer: Benjamin Martinez..."

The water cup in Elijah’s hand fell to the ground with a thud, emitting a dull sound. Everyone turned to look at him, Elijah forced a smile saying: "It just slipped from my hand, it is nothing."

The classmates let out an ’oh’, then continued putting their heads together to discuss:

"This producer sounds too strange, does it not?"

"People said this is a restored ancient film."

"A Robot’s love? I think I understand why the Central Smart Unit gave this film a special exception to cut in line."

"This restorer is strange too, it seems he has never made a film before, right?"

"Well he is a restorer, he does not necessarily have to be a director. He might just be some data worker or IT staff."

"Elijah, I will come pick you up tonight... Huh? Where did he go?" A classmate living near the Hall house raised his head to talk to Elijah, discovering he had disappeared from his original seat.

Everyone also raised their heads to search, subsequently a person said: "Perhaps he went to the restroom? Just ignore him, we will call him later when we get back."

Elijah right now was indeed in the restroom. He stared fixedly at the name Benjamin Martinez on the film’s advertising poster, not knowing what kind of feeling was in his heart.

In the high-tech era, household registration updates were also extremely advanced, in the Lumina Galaxy there were no longer cases of people having the same first and last names. Therefore Elijah affirmed this Benjamin Martinez and his former eldest brother Benjamin were one.

He kept thinking these people had disappeared from his life completely, not expecting they would appear before his eyes today in a completely new role. Benjamin making a film?

Elijah shook his head. Impossible, how could a guy burying his face in the dirt all year round possess the ability to make a cinematic film. The poster stated ’restorer’, so it must be that Benjamin just got lucky and stumbled upon an old film footage.

Under some demonic compulsion, Elijah clicked the buy ticket button...