Video Time

1. Video Time Media Concepts The Spill Resource Page

2. Video Time • Video Time operates differently than time in the real world and has its own set of rules. • Alter time by cutting, pasting, stretching, squeezing, and other-wise manipulating it to suit your own purpose. • Not only can you control it, you must control it. The Spill Resource Page

3. Real World Time vs. Video Time • Speed – Real World time always passes at the same speed. • Flow – The pace in never interrupted. • Direction – Real time always flows in one direction – forward. • Coherence – Everything moves together. • Video Time is always controlled and continually changed by the director and editor. The Spill Resource Page

4. Video Time Speed • Screen time is the real world time in which a video program is actually displayed on-screen. • There are two ways to change time speed: • Alter the actual speed within individual shots • Alter the apparent speed of the action by editing different shots together. The Spill Resource Page

5. Altering speed within a shot • Altering speed within a shot is achieved by recording or playing the shot at a slower or faster rate than normal. • Slow motion • Moderate Slow motion imparts a dreamlike effect. • More Pronounced slow motion allow us to see otherwise invisible actions The Spill Resource Page

6. Altering speed within a shot • Fast Motion • Moderate fast motion alters the mood usually making an ordinary action look funny. • More pronounced fast motion condenses actions to make its overall shape or pattern easier to see. (Example – sky full of clouds boiling up to a thunderstorm). • Extreme fast motion can compress whole months into a few seconds. The Spill Resource Page

7. Altering speed in editing • The action within every shot unrolls at a perfectly normal, realistic pace. Editors control video time in two ways: Overlapping and Omitting. • Overlapping – slow time down. • Omitting – speed time up. • Figure 4-4, 4-5. • Altering Video Time to edit performance – page 49. The Spill Resource Page

8. Video Time Flow • Three main forms of video time progression: • Serial Time Flow – a stream of events moving forward in a single sequence. • Parallel Time Flow – Two or more sequence of action that are happening at the same time. (“The Chair”) • Disjointed Time Flow – the way sequences are shot during production (almost always out of sequence to save time and money). The Spill Resource Page

9. Video Time Direction • Time Running Backwards – reverse-motion can be used to simulate actions that would otherwise be impossible – Figure 4-8. • Flashing Backward (and Forward) – contrasting it to the present or explaining the present. The Spill Resource Page

10. Video Time Coherence • Video makers manage time another way by splitting apart their video and audio components and mixing them with those of other moments. • Voiceover narration • Split Edits • Video leads – When the video changes first, the old audio continues off-screen, over the new video. Figure 4-9. • Audio leads – When audio changes first, the sound from the new scene begins over the preceding video. Figure 4-10. The Spill Resource Page

11. About Time • Video time behaves very differently from actual time because nothing about it is fixed. • The skillful video maker uses the changeability of video time, manipulating it to condense the action, unfold the narrative, and create special effects. The Spill Resource Page