After nearly two weeks of hellish preparation,
Beyond All Things, I Saw Time has entered the filming stage.
Because the theme revolves around consciousness traversal and individual growth,
extra care was put into casting supporting roles across different time periods.
Especially this scene in Episode Three—
where the protagonist is first confronted with the aesthetics of primal violence—
the entire crew was on edge.
The green screen area had already been fully set up.
Five ape-man actors,
after nine hours of special-effects makeup, were concealed in their respective positions.
Their facial features had been meticulously reshaped,
with hair applied to a level of near realism.
Not far away,
the actor playing the prey crouched behind the grass props,
dressed in a motion-capture suit, breathing lightly.
The camera was positioned directly in front of the actors,
mounted low to the ground,
ready to capture every detail from tension to eruption.
The director sat before the monitoring screens,
fingers tapping lightly against his knee,
exchanging a glance with the cinematographer.
After receiving confirmation,
he spoke in a low, steady voice:
“Action.”
The ape-man actors scattered like arrows released from a bow.
With the motion, the camera lifted into an overhead shot,
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capturing the five spreading into an expanding encirclement,
the prey’s panic clearly visible at the center.
At the next cue, one actor portraying an ape-man raised his arm and hurled a preset prop stone toward the target with full force.
Whoosh—!
The sound cut through the air.
On cue, the prey actor jolted, feigning a solid hit to the hind leg.
Almost immediately, the remaining four ape-man actors erupted,
sprinting at full speed toward the prey.
A compact tracking vehicle activated in silence.
Carrying the camera operator, the rig accelerated smoothly,
the camera locked tightly onto the group, maintaining a distance within seventy centimeters.
On screen, the prosthetic fur flattened against skin under the rushing airflow,
muscles drawn taut, veins standing out—details rendered with almost exaggerated clarity.
Jaw clenched, the camera operator held steady.
The stabilizer trembled slightly in his hands, yet the frame never lost focus.
Following the pre-set movement path, the prey actor tumbled and skidded forward, limbs splaying awkwardly as he hit the ground.
The next second, the ape-men swarmed in.
Downward swings of the clubs followed, carefully choreographed, each strike landing in precise rhythm.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Muffled impacts fed back through the audio channels into the headsets,
almost enough to make even those in the monitoring area feel their blood surge.
Panting, the five formed a circle, lightly striking one another’s shoulders and arms as scripted.
Everything hit its mark.
“Cut!”
The director pressed the stop button, a smile finally breaking across his face.
For a brief moment, the entire set fell silent—
then erupted in gasps that could no longer be held back.
The art lead stood at the edge of the set,
still clutching a clipboard,
frozen for several seconds before finally snapping back.
“How should I put it…”
A blink. A low murmur under their breath.
“Only the ape-men actors have special effects makeup,
and the prey is still wearing a motion-capture suit…
but watching them hunt, I still felt a sense of shock…”
The screenwriter beside her couldn’t help muttering under his breath.
“I totally get it.
It’s probably like when city people see Tarzan for the first time.
He’s basically just swinging around in trees, and everyone already thinks it’s amazing.”
The art lead rested their chin in one hand.
"I can't wait to see what this looks like after post.
Did we just get a pie falling from heaven with this script?"
"Yeah," the screenwriter said.
"And it's got gold filling."
They exchanged a smile,
ears still ringing with the raw, violent impact from moments before.
That kind of force—
life itself, erupting straight out of the screen.
