After Defying the System, I Became a Genius Director

Li Xingyu maintained his final position looking toward the bedroom door, feeling his neck growing sore.

Why hasn’t Senior Sister called “cut” yet?

After waiting for nearly half a minute, he finally couldn’t help breaking this unusual situation—maintaining facial expressions was quite tiring, after all. He parted his lips again and quietly asked: “Senior Sister, is this shot…” finished?

He transformed from “Wu Pu” back to Li Xingyu.

Only then did Shao Yichen snap out of her trance, hurriedly stopping the camera in her hand and nodding haphazardly, watching Li Xingyu’s expression switch back to his naturally calm demeanor, feeling somewhat unsettled.

Damn it, I miscalculated! Who would have thought his acting skills would so greatly exceed expectations!

Indeed, even if Shao Yichen was truly clueless about acting and had been deceived by Li Xingyu’s ornamental appearance for a week, after seeing this performance, she should have realized where her judgment had gone wrong.

She finally belatedly confirmed that the Junior Brother she had casually selected as the lead was actually a hidden acting master.

Shao Yichen now felt like a gamer who had pulled the featured character in a single draw when she actually wanted to pull several common cards for fodder material. Now, looking at this dazzling powerhouse, she felt her impoverished account couldn’t afford such a high-tier character.

Moreover, unlike mobile games where cards could be dismantled, she had already signed a contract with him, leaving no room or time for regrets.

If only she had known! How had she misjudged him, mistakenly believing he was a harmless pretty face!

Furthermore, as long as Shao Yichen had eyes, she should have realized that the performance just now was probably considered high-level.

Even through the camera lens, when her gaze met Li Xingyu’s at that instant, she couldn’t help being moved by the emotions contained within.

This made her extremely distressed.

A scene that was meant to drag down the entire film—how could it be saved by a master’s performance!

Of course, Shao Yichen could choose to have Li Xingyu reshoot the scene, but on one hand, she didn’t know if the master would perform even better on a second take, and on the other hand, she had always tried to approve scenes in one take whenever possible no matter how well the master performed. Now, if she asked to reshoot a scene of such obvious quality, it would inevitably arouse Li Xingyu’s suspicion.

There was actually another reason Shao Yichen was unwilling to admit: she had genuinely been moved by the performance and felt that her conscience might trouble her if she didn’t include this shot.

Well, it’s just one shot! Shao Yichen consoled herself. Whether one shot is bad or not doesn’t matter; what matters is that the entire film is bad!

Even without this shot dragging down the whole film, she was confident she could produce a terrible film based on the script alone!

With this dose of encouragement, Shao Yichen returned to the subsequent filming.

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Since they had already reached the climactic part of the film when shooting this scene, they were already in the latter half of the movie. The remaining shots weren’t particularly difficult, and with Li Xingyu’s increasingly skillful performance and Shao Yichen’s growing abandonment of quality requirements, the filming speed increased dramatically. Surprisingly, they not only completed all the required shots within a week but also had an afternoon left to restore the filming location to its original state.

Afterward, Shao Yichen bid farewell to Li Xingyu—at least until the film was released, she didn’t want to see this Junior Brother’s handsome face again! It was this deceptively ornamental appearance that had led her to misunderstand his true acting level!

Shao Yichen resolved not to see that frustrating handsome face until the film officially lost money, at most inviting him to view the test footage.

After completing the shooting, the next task was editing and color grading.

One shouldn’t underestimate editing and color grading; sometimes different editing and color choices can create entirely different film styles, and there’s no shortage of classic editing sequences that have made film history. Of course, for a film aimed at losing money, she naturally needed to do the opposite—edit it herself, making it as chaotic as possible.

Shao Yichen had originally planned to edit it herself, giving herself two weeks to mess around with the footage, determined not to remain a slacker but to use all her power to edit the film to be as terrible as possible.

…Then she happily lay in bed for two days, sleeping and spending money on mobile games.

On the third day, she finally felt a twinge of guilt, painfully crawled out of bed, opened the editing software on her computer, and prepared to start working.

But after working for less than two hours, she threw her hands up in surrender.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to edit a terrible film with her own hands; it was just… too troublesome!

The raw footage contained all shots, including failed ones such as those where Shao Yichen accidentally entered the frame or where continuity errors occurred. Therefore, the first step in editing required removing all the unqualified shots.

Theoretically, in a formal film crew, the set workers would mark the status of each shot according to the director’s instructions, making it clear during editing.

However, Shao Yichen’s crew had only two people—where would she find set workers! Naturally, there were no such detailed shooting records.

So what she faced was… a pile of video clips with no indication of what was what.

Even if she wanted to edit it into garbage, she needed something to work with!

After two hours of struggle, the former rich second-generation slacker Shao Yichen decisively abandoned this difficult task.

In fact, there was another reason why she so easily gave up on editing herself—the Director System provided an automatic editing service.

Although the system’s automatic editing service didn’t require additional payment, this option was marked with a large red [NOT RECOMMENDED] label.

After examining this feature, Shao Yichen discovered that the reason it wasn’t recommended was because the system claimed it “would only perform simple shot selection and editing according to plot logic and script, without intelligent editing functions, and would not provide post-production sound effects.”

In other words, however the script looked, that’s how the system would edit it, and there would be no BGM or sound effects.

But Shao Yichen was satisfied.

Wasn’t this exactly the garbage editing she needed!

Although she couldn’t use editing to take the film’s garbage quality to the next level, maintaining its original garbage level was actually sufficient!

Moreover, Shao Yichen was very clear about the quality of what she had filmed—the room had poor lighting, most shots were pitch black, and she had shaky hands. When not filming with a fixed position, her arms holding the camera could rival those of a Parkinson’s patient.

It was easy to imagine that her shots were also… a shaky mess.

Even the most skilled person probably couldn’t edit these shots into anything presentable. Add to that the lack of sound effects and BGM, and Shao Yichen could already imagine how unbearable the final product would be!

With this in mind, Shao Yichen decisively submitted the material to the system and contentedly became a salted fish in bed, entering a beautiful dreamland.

The system’s editing time was twelve hours. Shao Yichen slept in, played some games in bed, and then heard a “ding” in her mind—the sound of the system completing the editing and automatically exporting the file.

Shao Yichen leisurely climbed out of bed, yawning as she opened her computer. Seeing a conspicuous “Untitled Video” on the desktop, she clicked to open it while thinking that this film still hadn’t been named.

Never mind, after watching the test footage, she could spend ten minutes coming up with a name, something like “Room 502,” or “Ghost Traces,” or “The Last Wish”—hmm, that last one actually sounded pretty good…

While these random thoughts ran through Shao Yichen’s mind, after a brief loading period, the edited video began to play.

As soon as the video started playing, Shao Yichen felt something was off.

—This color grading! How is it different from the deathly natural light I originally filmed!

—This shot! It’s also different from my shaky camera work!

Shao Yichen was greatly shocked. This was different from the “simple editing and selection” the system had promised! This was like miraculous healing—Hua Tuo incarnate!

And Shao Yichen, who had wanted to commit film suicide only to be resuscitated by the system’s Hua Tuo, was internally devastated.

She opened the system’s notes about automatic editing and only then saw a tiny note at the very bottom stating that it “would perform quality restoration on some shots.” Her mood was like that of an innocent consumer who had unwittingly signed a predatory contract, wanting only to curse the swindling system.

However, in reality, she had misunderstood the system. After all, under normal circumstances, who would produce footage of such poor quality? What film crew would shoot without lighting? The system’s automatic correction, under normal circumstances, would at most be equivalent to applying a beauty filter. Moreover, the system would indeed edit strictly according to the script, shot by shot, which was truly not recommended for ordinary directors aiming to produce excellent films.

But Shao Yichen was different! Her footage was already as bad as it could get, which inadvertently allowed the system’s normally mediocre automatic correction to demonstrate its tremendous capabilities!

If the Director System had independent consciousness, it would probably find this ironic twist particularly amusing.

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No matter how angry Shao Yichen was, the correction had already happened, and further objections were useless. She could only restrain herself and continue watching the test footage.

The test footage wasn’t long, only an hour and a half. Shao Yichen propped her cheek on her hand and grabbed a bag of chips to eat while watching.

By the time the film ended, she had also finished her chips.

Her only thought was… compared to barbecue-flavored chips, she preferred cucumber flavor.

The content of the test footage she had just seen had receded like the tide from her mind, leaving no trace… As for whether the test footage was good or bad, she had no way of judging…

Shao Yichen asked herself honestly, this really wasn’t her fault. After all, she rarely watched movies and knew little about the entertainment industry, so she couldn’t appreciate the beauty of film. Moreover, she had supervised the entire film process and knew how each shot was taken. Her cameo as the female lead would occasionally pop up in the film to scare people, making it impossible for her to experience any pleasure or excitement.

Under these circumstances, the fact that she could persist in watching the entire thing was already quite inspiring.

This wouldn’t do. It seemed she couldn’t determine whether this was a terrible film on her own. After much thought, Shao Yichen finally sighed deeply and dialed a number.

“Hello? Junior Brother Li, are you free right now? The test footage has been edited. Would you like to take a look and give some feedback…”

Author’s Note: Li Xingyu: You know what the film will show next, but don’t I know too?

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