TIME PASSING

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Dave Watterson
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TIME PASSING

Post by Dave Watterson »

Maybe it is the change of year ... but I found myself this morning wondering how we can communicate to others the sense of time passing.

I have two particular scenarios in mind:

1) In a club you want to demonstrate or have a workshop on some issue like script development, analysing footage before editing, choosing music ... all processes which can take hours, days, weeks or more to get right. For practical reasons you need to use the: "Here's one I prepared earlier ... " approach made popular by early tv cookery and DIY shows. BUT does that get over to the club members the sheer hard work, brain-bashing, repetition, frustration and occasional epiphany of such processes?

2) In a movie you want to show someone really working hard to write a novel, build a patio, establish a career, woo a partner ... and we resort to montages of scenes along the way or even to a "nine months later" caption. But does either approach really convince the audience that such processes take prolonged time and effort?

Why bother? Well so many people seem to forget that success in most areas of life is 1% inspiration/talent, 9% experience and 90% hard work. Movies show pop-stars dashing off a hit song in the back of a tour bus. Journalists making contacts and getting scoops in an afternoon. Painters whipping up a masterpiece in a night. Lovers overcoming shyness in minutes. Atheletes training enough to win the Olympics in an apparent day or two. It is no wonder that many people fail to realise the hard graft involved in success.

How can we get across a sense of such things without boring our audiences rigid?

Dave
Mike Shaw

Post by Mike Shaw »

I guess, from the lack of answers here, people tend to stick with the traditional 'time-passing' techniques. Transitions (like the inevitable clock-wipe or slow dissolve or fade to-from black). But you've set quite a challenge. (Reminds me of a cartoon strip years a go - one cave-man character asks another 'What makes a good hunter?'. The next 8 pictures show character no. 2 in various poses, scratching his head, gazing skywards etc etc, then in the final frame, with a flash of inspiration, he is saying "Quick thinking!" (OK, you had to be there to see the humour of it...).

I have in mind to put all the film I shot of building a 3.5 foot model of the Titanic - which took me over three years - into a short 'documentary' of about 6 minutes, which also gives a brief history of the Titanic itself (not been done before, huh?!). The idea I have for that is while the Titanic story is being told 'main screen', across the bottom a strip of inserts - about 3 or 4 at a time - scroll slowly across right-to-left with clips of the different building stages. Individually, they're pretty boring to watch, but en masse like that, one would get the idea (I hope) of the inordinate amount of work that went into evey tiny detail. I reckon I could get about 50 clips running across the bottom that way - which should be enough to show the build process. My worry is having two 'subjects' on the screen at the same time, but as the scrolling images are really only to give a 'feel' for what was involved, I may get away with it.

I'm currently building the Victory (another 3 footer! - and much harder). But this time ... no filming the process!
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FILM THURSO
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Post by FILM THURSO »

Hey Titanic, somebody up here made one as well, it was just raffled off in December 07.
Modern world has time messed up. Soaps are very much to blame. People copy them in their real lives especially in their love lives. They don't realise the matter of film time compression-expansion which is used to deal with the issue of time passing. Sometimes events are gone through in brief so as to get to the next key moment in the plot. Then in the opposite direction things are slowed down to give an element in the story a chance to develope. For example: a couple begin to fancy each other so we get a bit of the wooing, then more romance, cozy pillow talks and the like and then we've got them established as a couple. Now of to the next location and a few moments later in come the couple to announce they are or have gotten married (when the director shouted, "take 5 everybody", they took each other). And that's the problem, the soap audience seems to forget that there was a whole pile of boring stuff in between that led up to the marriage which didn't make good viewing.
I think you need to kinda poke people in the eye sometimes with a subtitle or a change of season or add a beard and grey hair! :D
Ray Williamson
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Post by Ray Williamson »

You forgot the bit where the couple are holding the baby.
My late father used to exclaim "Quick work" at this stage.
Of course nowadays it comes well before the wedding......
Ray Williamson, East Sussex.
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Willy
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Re: TIME PASSING

Post by Willy »

["Dave Watterson"]Maybe it is the change of year ... but I found myself this morning wondering how we can communicate to others the sense of time passing.
I hate that clock !
I hate that clock on our IAC website telling us how much time we still have to enter our films for BIAFF ! Finishing my last films is like a time trial in the Tour de France.

My actors were not serious enough. We lost time !
Yesterday I did the camerawork for my last BIAFF film. Of course it will be a short one. I was not always happy with the acting. My actors had to be serious and they laughed all the time. So I had to do everything 7 or 8 times again because they started laughing. I know that some of them complained at about 11 pm. So it was already late, but in fact it was their own fault. I tried to direct them in the best way, but it was also difficult not to "break" the atmosphere of joy.

"Willy is a perfectionist. He always exagerrates.", someone said behind my back. He's not right. I'm very careless. My room is always a mess. You can find books, DVD's, CD's etc... everywhere. In filmmaking however you must be a perfectionist sometimes otherwise you lose time and also the actors you work with. Time can be crucial in filmmaking. After some time the actors get tired and that's not good for the film.

I'm not so kind anymore !
Filmmaking is experience, creativity and indeed hard work as well. Most "laymen" think that filmmaking is only camerawork. Of course that's only a small part of the "job". That's why I hate politicians from time to time. They sometimes ask me : "Could you make of film about this and about that !". They don't realize how much time it takes to make a film. More and more I say "no". I want to film the things I am interested in. I'm now in the "autumn of my life", time to make films about my favourite subjects. I've always done this, but from time to time I also had to do other (non-paid !) projects. Willy is not so willing to do things anymore, some people will think. But I don't mind !
Willy Van der Linden
Ray Williamson
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Time passing by!

Post by Ray Williamson »

Actually, fading out to black and then in again is rather more than just showing the passage of time (although a lot of people think that is what it is for).
It is more like a new chapter in a story. For time passing, in most cases you can stick to a simple lap-dissolve. Avoid fancy transitions as they can be rather a cliché.
If you really need to specify that it is 30 minutes later, or whatever, then you can say so, either in commentary, in dialogue, or (if all else fails) put a subtitle up.
Better to provide essential information clearly than leaving your audience guessing.
See what seems best in your film, and use it.
In some films you can have your character looking out of the window to see daffodils coming up, to show that the action has moved on to spring, for example.
If my answer seems a bit simple, it is because it really is not that difficult!
Film is really good at compressing time. It is one thing that happens naturally in most cases, so don`t worry about it.
Ray Williamson, East Sussex.
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