“It’s not that I don’t want to help you. As your counselor, I really don’t want to see a student get expelled.” Kent Thompson sighed and spoke from the heart: “The school leadership already knows about your situation. If your film ‘Six Frames’ does well in either box office or reviews, or if your short film wins a notable award, then we could still say the school is nurturing a young director. But…”

I forgot to mention, not only did the original’s film flop at the box office, but the reviews were also extremely bad. It got a 3.1 rating on Douban, ranking among the bottom ten. Forget using it as leverage—it was downright embarrassing for the school.

Online comments said that even if you strapped a camera to a dog, it wouldn’t look this bad.

“I’ll ask Director Miller again this afternoon to see if there’s any way you can repeat the year and retake the course.” Counselor Kent Thompson said after some thought, but added, “But don’t get your hopes up.”

“I understand. Either way, thank you, counselor.” Shawn Carter expressed his gratitude. Compared to the many web novels he’d read, where counselors and teachers made life difficult for transmigrators, he felt his own counselor was actually pretty decent.

After leaving the counselor’s office, Shawn Carter wandered near the “Pyramid.” As expected of the Beijing Film Academy, the girls here really were beautiful.

Before transmigrating, Shawn Carter’s side job was a eunuch… no, wait, that was Wendy Grant’s influence. Before transmigrating, his second profession was a seasoned film critic.

After all, Grant once said: Film critics talking about movies is like eunuchs talking about sex.

He thought that made a lot of sense. Of course, that didn’t stop Shawn Carter from continuing to rant as a film critic. In real life, as an assistant director, he was smooth and polite, but online he pulled no punches.

Actually, film critics can be divided into two broad types. The first are those who work with the media—the kind everyone knows. The other type works with cinemas; their reviews are mainly for theater operators, who use them as a reference for scheduling films. Strictly speaking, it’s a bit like market research in the financial industry.

Shawn Carter belonged to the latter group, but his hobby was using alternate accounts to argue with people online.

He recalled the plot of ‘Six Frames’ in his mind. It was an independently shot feature composed of six short stories, mainly about a good person, a murderer, an ordinary person, a dog, a beggar, and a dead person. These corresponded to the realms of Deva, Asura, Human, Animal, Hungry Ghost, and Hell.

“This filming technique is just too honest. For the dog, they literally strapped the camera to a dog. For the dead person, it’s even more extreme—they put the camera in a wooden box, and there’s over ten minutes of black screen to represent a corpse lying in a coffin, with only the occasional conversation from people passing by to pay respects.” Shawn Carter couldn’t help but marvel—this original really was something else. As a film critic, he actually thought the concept was pretty interesting.

“No wonder the Douban score is so low. Fifteen minutes of black screen, plus the first story about the good person uses tons of overexposed shots that make your eyes hurt. It’s not even about depth or meaning—the viewing experience is just terrible from the start.”

“Speaking of which, I have to defend the original a bit. People say even strapping a camera to a dog would look better, but wasn’t the camera literally strapped to a dog from minute 43 to 59?”

Shawn Carter muttered. Before transmigrating, he was a keyboard warrior of some renown, and his film reviews were definitely up to par. Plus, he’d worked his way up to assistant director on set, so he wasn’t just talking nonsense.

Getting into the film critic circle was like coming home to the “ancestral land” of internet trolls—everyone was talented and sharp-tongued. In his previous life, he’d also roasted directors to make a living.

Chapter 2: There’s Actually a System

“What can I do to turn around this awkward situation?” Shawn Carter fell into thought.

If he didn’t accept the suggestion to withdraw, the next step would be for the school to report him to the Ministry of Education, then issue a formal expulsion notice. Strictly speaking, Shawn Carter still had four months left.

After refusing to withdraw, it would take fifteen days for the school to file with the Ministry, then about another fifteen days for the school to send a written expulsion letter. But the Beijing Film Academy’s rule is that the expulsion letter must be delivered in person. So as long as Shawn Carter doesn’t receive it, the school would have to use another method: posting a public expulsion notice. Only after ninety days would it be considered delivered, and his student status would be canceled.

“If I can make a movie and become famous within four months, the school will retract the notice.” Shawn Carter thought he was quite the clever fox for coming up with such a “brilliant” idea.

The reason this was the first thing that came to mind was mainly because of the conditions in this parallel world.

But the reality was right in front of him—where would he get the investment? He’d just made a universally recognized flop, so it wouldn’t be easy to ask his original’s parents for more money.

It wasn’t that Shawn Carter was too thin-skinned, but as a seasoned film critic before transmigrating, he couldn’t guarantee box office success. He could probably bring some creative ideas from the parallel world to ensure good reviews, but there are plenty of movies that critics love but audiences ignore. If he lost money again, his parents’ factory and publishing house would be in real trouble.

Shawn Carter might be shameless, but he was still human.

[The system may be late, but it never misses an appointment. Congratulations to host Shawn Carter, you have obtained the Film Fund System.]

[Binding—]

[Binding successful. The Film Fund System will wholeheartedly serve the host.]