Hey everyone,

I have a question regarding "time shortening" of a work in process in film. For example, how can I shorten a work in process that takes an hour for example into something that's 5 minutes long with a sense of continuity, so that the viewer doesn't even notice it was shortened?

Thanks in advance!

Write the story so that whatever takes an hour to do can be shown in five minutes.

Examples:
- A drive from point A to B includes conversations along the way, a review of whatever's on the radio, stops along the way including brief exchanges with interesting characters, etc.

- Preparations for an event may include the arrival of relevant characters, the briefing/breakdown by the team leader, witty repartee between friends, ugly exchanges between rivals, the assembly & handling of the equipment, characters working together, characters undoing the work of others, the accident, it's recovery through team work or key character followed by group relief, etc.


Did you have in mind an hour long process to knock down to five minutes?

Yeah. For example cleaning my room. I'd make a really big mess about it and judging from my previous house sweeps it would take me an hour. I need to shorten that into 5 minutes.

No. Seriously.
No one wants to watch five minutes of anyone cleaning their room unless it's... Emma Watson in her Victoria's Secrets.

What hour long process did you have in mind you wanted to edit down to five minutes?
Not an example.

Jump-cuts. The modern audience has become accustomed to jump-cuts, and they recognize that they signify a passage of time. You use a number of jump-cuts to show progress of the thing that is being done. In this sense, you're basically making a non-musical montage. Or, you might want to make an actual musical montage. Works like a charm. :)

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@Rayw - Im not kidding about cleaning my room, in fact this is just an exercise to shorten the time as much as possible, from one hour to 5 minutes, regardless of how attractive the video is.

@Cracker Funk - thanks for that but since my school is a little old school we tend to avoid jump-cuts. Any other ways of shortening? I saw that 30 degree rule and it seems pretty interesting.

30 degree rule wont help you on this, unless the object magically disappear in the frame.. Which will result in:
A. Ugly edit or
B. jump cut (has to be done right)

How about speeding up the footage? Like in "clockwork orange" sex scene. Speed it up to x5 in post.

30 degree rule wont help you on this, unless the object magically disappear in the frame.. Which will result in:
A. Ugly edit or
B. jump cut (has to be done right)

How about speeding up the footage? Like in "clockwork orange" sex scene. Speed it up to x5 in post.

It has to be unnoticable and smooth - I'll see what I come up with :) thanks for your input.

dude, you didn't just suggest that montage is somehow NEW... lol, I think its as OLD SCHOOL as it gets.. I mean, heck its a french word.. all the old school film terms are french..

common ways..
montage of activities
show a clock changing,
show calendar pages peeling
Show shadows moving across the wall
fade out, then fade in.

for your specific task..
Shot A:
You wake up and get out of bed, you look around at the dirty room and roll up your sleeves, with a go get em look on your face.
fade out..

Shot B:
Fade In:
Your tucked in to your nicely made bed, you reach over to pull the lamp chain from your bedside night light, you give one last look at your now spotless room (camera to your POV and scans the clean room)
you give a satisfied smile and pull the chain

fine..

common ways..
montage of activities
show a clock changing,
show calendar pages peeling
Show shadows moving across the wall
fade out, then fade in.

I hate when I see those! So cheesy!

Yeah, as wheat pointed out, montage isn't exactly a new thing. Does it break the rules of continuity? Yes, but so does a fast-forwarding clock. And really, modern audiences are hip to the jump-cuts. If it's clearly intentional and done right, they get it, without having to think. It's not weird, it's not new, happens all over the place.

If you really insist on conforming to strict rules of continuity, you can show passage of time, without any jump-cuts, by showing something else.

1. Quick scene of you diving in to clean your super-messy room.
2. Mom comes home from work, walks into hallway and opens the door to your room, discovers that you are putting the finishing touches on a damn-near impeccably-clean bedroom.

Audience fills in the blanks. Technically, that follows the rules of continuity. But really, the jump-cuts are often better, in my opinion, and do the same thing.

This really belongs in the post section where you can either apply jump cuts or really ramp up the frame rate while muting out the original sound and creating a whole new track of audio.

Ever see the opening of Forever Knight with the sunset? That is an example of a scene with ramped up frame rate where the sun sets way faster than real life and sound effects are used to replace the original sound.

Even in my Artemis Arrival on ME21 Revised scene with two suns and a moon in the sky, I ramped up the frame rate of the cloud movement considerably faster than real life. In real life, I had my camera aimed at the sun and clouds for a good hour. The ramped up frame rate makes it look like a good 30 seconds. I'm at working on my phone, so I can't post the link to the vimeo clip.

Okay! Now that I'm home, the fun begins.

See how time is sped up with this intro to the vampire cop show, Forever Knight intro?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPhIEG3JYtg

I used a similar technique to speed up the clouds here:

http://vimeo.com/33727279 PW is mdmpllc

Here is a bad recording of the first episode of the BBCs 2005 version of Dr Who doing speed effects to speed up time too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxXzKK83BrU&feature=related

So, you can see modern ways to speed up time.

Hey everyone,

how can I shorten a work in process that takes an hour for example into something that's 5 minutes long with a sense of continuity, so that the viewer doesn't even notice it was shortened?


You can't, unless you are Theo Angelopoulos

Breathless - Jean Luc Goddard . did not shrink from 60 min down to 5.. but might see something

If you look at the Dr. Who clip, from the time when the character Rose wakes up from her alarm, which is 7:30 AM to the time she arrives at work, more than an hours passed in a matter of seconds with a combinnation of real time and speed effects used.

A wide of room a mess followed by medium and close shots where items are moved, picked up, or put away. If you want to avoid jump cuts make sure you are out of frame before each close shot.

A wide of room a mess followed by medium and close shots where items are moved, picked up, or put away. If you want to avoid jump cuts make sure you are out of frame before each close shot.

Doesn't matter if there is a person in the frame. If the level of mess in the room changes between shots, those are jump-cuts. Besides, I hate to beat a dead horse, but I really don't understand the hesitance to use jump-cuts. If there is an assignment in which the entire point is to learn how to shoot and edit continuous action, then of course jump-cuts are out. Otherwise, what's the prob?

Montage and Jump Cuts are much too new fangled for this class.. lol

How is the story suppose to be good though, if you can take that much out. Is it suppose to have 55 minutes of anything relevant happening?

How is the story suppose to be good though, if you can take that much out. Is it suppose to have 55 minutes of anything relevant happening?

From a screenwriting perspective, a good general rule for beginners is that every scene needs to accomplish one of two things. It has to either advance the plot, or reveal character. And as soon as one of those things is accomplished, then the scene is over.

Watching a dude clean his room for 55 minutes doesn't advance the plot, and doesn't reveal the character unless he cleans in a particular way, like if he has OCD, but we can convey his OCD cleaning style in a minute or two. We don't need to see an hour of it. Show the audience what they NEED to see in order to "get it", and cut out everything else.