In the morning, after Shirley's breakfast, Harvey heads out to visit Kenneth Randolph, the special effects artist of the Brenda Theatre Troupe and a mid-caster of illusions. The Brenda Theatre Company is a well-known theatre troupe that tours the country, and only stays in each city for a few months, holding theatrical performances every six months.

Although Harvey has become a sought-after figure in the city of Elroy, few people can recognize him when walking down the street, and most people who have seen "The Count of Monte Cristo" probably only know the author's name as Harvey Adrian.

Arriving at Kenneth's prop house, Harvey explained his intentions, first hoping to buy a few more illusion crystals, and secondly, asking about other functions of illusion crystals.

The Brenda Theatre Troupe's prop room is crammed with all the tools needed for the troupe's performances, including some scene props, wigs, and theatrical costumes, making the room cramped and dark.

Kenneth huddled in the room and tinkered with his illusion crystals, and after listening to Harvey's intentions, he couldn't understand why Harvey asked such a question, stopped his research and thought about it, and said, "Mr. Adrian, I do have a few spare illusion crystals in my hand, which can be sold to you at a reasonable price." Another question you have is whether the illusion crystals can store flat images, this question is for sure, but the flat images have no three-dimensional sense and no visual effect, and can only be used in a few fields, what do you want to use those illusion crystals for? ”

After listening to Kenneth's words, Harvey smiled and explained: "Making an interesting tool, after studying the illusion crystal, I always had a question in my mind, that is, can I store an image in the form of a flat image. "Since there are already illusion crystals with similar functions, he will save the effort of research.

Kenneth seemed to understand Harvey's intentions and said with some amusement: "Mr. Adrian, you must know that the recorded flat image is not dynamic, and the effect of a flat plan is far less than what you see or project with your own eyes. I've also used illusion crystals that have stored flat images to record a scene, but unfortunately it's not as good as a projection in terms of both static and dynamic. ”

"Can't a static image be made into a coherent picture?"

Kenneth rightly said, "Of course, how can a static flat image be coherent. ”

Harvey thought about it and realized that the method of recording projection of illusion crystals has always been coherent, and there is no such thing as the so-called number of frames, so flat images are just static pictures in the eyes of illusionists, and there is no such thing as coherent to form a moving image. It's not that no one has ever discovered this, but because of the projection of the Illusion Crystal, most casters believe that the projection function is the mainstream, and that recording flat images can only be used in some areas of information recording.

Looking too far and ignoring the present, the film has a rather awkward position in this world.

Harvey said dumbly, "Mr. Randolph, do you know the magic disk?" ”

Kenneth stroked his beard, his old face showed obvious doubts, he had never heard of the magic disk for so many years of studying illusion, and the name must be related to illusion, he shook his head and replied suspiciously: "I have never heard of this name." ”

The magic disc has nothing to do with illusion, it is the name of a simple and interesting device on Earth, which can shape the wrong visual effect, and is known as the earliest demonstration of the principle of cinema.

Harvey smiled mysteriously: "Then I can make one for you now, can I use the props here?" ”

"Yes."

Harvey found a wooden board representing the sun from the set props, and drew a bird and a birdcage on the front and back of the board. Harvey showed Kenneth the magic disk he had made, and he was puzzled when he looked at the two different patterns: "Mr. Adrian, is this a magic disk?" And what is the mystery? ”

"Not now, this side is just a picture of a bird, and this side is a birdcage." Harvey chanted the "Small Miracles" spell, and the round plate in his hand immediately levitated, and his right hand pressed on the edge of the round board and turned it down forcefully, and the whole round board quickly turned.

In the round plate seen by Kenneth with the naked eye, the pattern of the bird and the cage overlapped, and finally the pattern of the bird trapped inside the cage was formed.

"This is the magic disk, as you can see, why two unrelated patterns come together. The reason is simple, even if the pattern is static, when it flashes at a certain speed, our eyes will recognize it as dynamic. ”

"It seems so, but what does that have to do with flat images?" Kenneth frowned, still unable to comprehend Harvey's vague explanation.

Harvey was a little helpless: "So, can you give me a book?" ”

Harvey did what he used to do in textbooks as a child, drawing a stickman in succession in the lower right corner of the page, and then showed the book to Kenneth, who carefully explained, "Mr. Kenneth, see if these patterns are static. ”

"That's true."

Harvey twisted some of the pages, and as he gradually released them, the stickman with the different pages of the book running quickly, forming a coherent movement.

Seeing this scene, Kenneth finally suddenly surprised and said: "I see, I understand a little, it seems that it is indeed a feasible method." ”

The magic disc and the stickman running that Harvey just showed are the basic principles of filmmaking, and movies are known as the most beautiful mistakes of people's eyes, and it is because of visual errors that people can see the work presented in a cinematic way. There is still a lot of controversy about the basic principles of film, and there are two most common ideas.

The first is the phenomenon of quasi-motion, when people see a coherent picture that flashes quickly, objectively speaking, the picture is not enough to form a coherent, but the human brain automatically fills in what is lacking in it.

The second is visual residual, that is, the human eye sees the image for a very short period of time, about twenty-four tenths of a second, according to this principle, most movies are twenty-four frames, that is, twenty-four images appear in one second to form a coherent image.

Kenneth was surprised by Harvey's strange assumption, and didn't seem to have any other opinion on it. In this world where projection technology exists, movies that don't produce actual results are empty talk in the end, and everyone will probably think that it's better to get some projection before they really see it.

After all, the world's popular drama can only show the most shocking and complete effect by projection.

Noticing Kenneth's disapproving attitude, Harvey didn't intend to continue emphasizing the role of this thing after explaining the principle, and purchased several illusion crystals from Kenneth, one of which was an illusion crystal that had a flat image to record, and its role was for the caster to record important picture information like a camera, and it was the tool Kenneth used to collect information about the horses in the first place, and now this illusion crystal also stores a large number of flat images of horses.