Chapter 541: A Mechanical Arm? No, I’m Going to Cheat!

While Shu Han was filming the scene investigating the deceased's body on location, Xiao He ran off to the side to study it, attempting to take it apart to see its internal structure.

But unfortunately, his eager curiosity was stopped by the prop assistant.

The prop assistant was unprecedentedly vigilant, clutching the mechanical arm prop and guarding against Xiao He's movements. "Teacher Xiao, you can't take this apart. It'll break if you do."

Xiao He smiled sheepishly. "I just wanted to take a look."

The main issue was, the quality of this mechanical arm was truly concerning.

Xiao He seriously suspected that after a few days of filming, this thing would break down.

And the finger joint connections were so plastic! That feeling of joint rebound... Xiao He felt there wasn't even a spring inside, just a rubber band tied up.

If this was the level of a custom-made prop, then Xiao He could only say he was extremely disappointed with this prop master.

"How many of these props did the production team prepare?"

"Teacher Xiao, currently our production team only has three sets of this equipment," the prop assistant replied.

Xiao He: ...My goodness, such garbage props, and our production team actually has three sets!

Smoothing the veins on his forehead, Xiao He tactfully inquired, "Which prop-making team was booked here? Who handled the handover on our side? Was there any acceptance inspection?"

"Teacher Xiao, please rest assured, we conducted a serious acceptance inspection. There are no problems," the prop assistant earnestly explained. "I can call the master over to take a look for you."

"Alright, call your master over to ask. I'm just purely curious, nothing else."

After the prop assistant called the person over, Xiao He carefully chatted with the prop master for a while, only to be shocked to discover that such a plastic-looking prop was actually the higher-quality finished product they could currently find.

For a moment, Xiao He felt bewildered.

Perhaps it was because he had seen a real mechanical arm at Song Zhe's place and had personally experienced the power of cutting-edge technology that he now felt disappointed by the inferior quality of the prop arm.

"Teacher Xiao, the difficulty with mechanical arms is essentially disguising a real hand as a prosthetic, and a large part of that work lies in makeup effects and post-production. Mechanical arms are generally only used for close-up and special shots; overall movement still requires post-production special effects fixes," the prop master said. "If we really want to achieve the effect of a genuine mechanical arm that you desire, it would significantly increase costs and budget..."

Through grafting and misplacement techniques, they could indeed use a real mechanical arm, but the prop cost would be dozens of times higher than these simple pieces of sheet metal. It would also require much more time for customization. Currently, almost no one within the industry circle can take on this job. They'd either have to inquire with mechanical-related industries or look for foreign teams.

After all, the sci-fi film sector... is truly a major area within the industry waiting to be developed.

Xiao He understood the prop master's meaning and sighed inwardly.

Alright, so it was because he had seen good stuff that his psychological threshold had been raised.

Thinking about it, the demands he raised were useless to bring to the prop master anyway.

Xiao He gave up the struggle, waved his hand to dismiss the prop master, and stopped dwelling on the matter.

However, soon enough, in the afternoon, Xiao He's first fight scene began filming.

As a mechanical assassin, almost every time he appeared was either killing someone or on the way to kill someone. So throughout the entire plot, his fight scenes were undoubtedly the most numerous.

But just as Assassin A raised his hand again, the weapon in his hand beginning to flash with dangerous lights, a metal-colored sheet metal component fell to the ground with a clatter.

"Cut!"

He Jinnian quickly called for a stop.

Xiao He raised his arm to look at it, then looked down at the already deformed piece of sheet metal on the ground, his mouth twitching. "Is this quality really okay?"

He hadn't even started fighting yet, and the equipment was already falling off!

The prop assistant hurried over, looking at the disassembled prop and couldn't help but mutter, "Teacher Xiao, you need to be a bit gentler with this prop."

Xiao He: "Hehe, I'm already doing my best."

During fight scenes, he also had to protect the "weapon"? What kind of nonsense was that?

So after the afternoon filming was completed, Xiao He's first set of props had clatteringly broken.

The prop master looked at the broken mechanical arm, then at the innocent-looking Xiao He, not daring to say anything, only able to sigh heavily beside him.

He Jinnian also told Xiao He that his fight scenes didn't feel as fluid as before.

Xiao He also had a headache. "I'm already doing my best, but this prop is really terrible."

He couldn't just become a stationary turret, standing in place and having a "magic duel" with the protagonist, right!

He Jinnian also re-examined the prop, his expression somewhat complicated. "If it really doesn't work, we can only try special effects makeup first. If the effect isn't good, just wear green gloves and leave it to post-production."

If the effect truly couldn't be achieved on a practical level, then they could only rely on the power of post-production special effects.

But if Xiao He's fight scenes were too many and too complex, the post-production cost would be genuinely high, and the sense of realism and texture would be greatly reduced.

Everyone says filming sci-fi is difficult, but when they actually started shooting, they realized the complexity far exceeded their imagination.

And to be honest, this production team was one they had assembled and developed themselves. Some were from "Imperial Decree," some were from Linghui Entertainment who joined later, and others were people He Jinnian found through his own connections.

Many of these people had never participated in a formal, large-scale sci-fi film project.

To put it bluntly, everyone was a blank slate with no experience dealing with problems in this type of project, only able to figure things out themselves.

"Old Qian, come, take a look—see if this will work—"

He Jinnian pulled the prop master aside to discuss his proposed solution.

This prop master had collaborated with He Jinnian many times before, so his attitude towards He Jinnian was a bit better than towards Xiao He. He listened carefully to He Jinnian's solution, reluctantly nodded, then took his assistant to urgently modify the props in the back.

Afterwards, He Jinnian apologized to Xiao He again. "Sorry, Teacher Xiao. I also confirmed this prop back then, I just didn't expect the effect to be this poor. It's delayed your time, I'm embarrassed."

Xiao He quickly shook his head. "It's fine, it's fine. When we encounter problems, everyone works together to solve them."

It's just that the handling of this matter ultimately wasn't very effective.

The next day, the prop master's modified arm was repaired. Xiao He reluctantly used it, but this thing truly had disposable quality. Basically, every time Xiao He finished using it, the prop master had to start repairing it. Then they'd rotate through several prop arms, repairing after filming, filming after repairing.

After a few days, the prop master looked quite haggard, and Xiao He was also particularly exhausted.

The atmosphere on set became oppressive.

Finally, He Jinnian had no choice and suggested to Xiao He, "How about just wearing motion capture props? Post-production can build a separate model for you."

Xiao He also had a headache. "Alright, let's film it this way for now."

His demands were too high. How could a high-tech textured mechanical arm like this possibly be made for real? In the end, it still depended on post-production.

But even though he agreed verbally, that night after returning to the hotel, Xiao He began researching the construction of mechanical arms.

He originally wanted to learn from those foreign mechanical enthusiasts and make a simple coded mechanical arm. By inputting pre-written code, the arm could move according to his required sequence, replicating the actions he needed.

Then, as expected, Xiao He, who had stayed up until the next morning, chose to give up.

Guess why he didn't study mechanical engineering but went into computer science instead?

He just wasn't cut out for this stuff!

Finally, Xiao He tremblingly opened the System interface.

Damn it, he had a cheat now, why wasn't he using it!

Why was he torturing himself in a completely unfamiliar field!