Time (thesis film)

"'I did it! I did it! [laughs] It's possible... my Time Machine worked!' - Dr Mark Richards"Time is a film made by Matt for his GCSE Moving Image Arts coursework, submitted to the Northern Ireland exam board CCEA; the film set a trend for many projects Matt would make for that subject, whereby old ideas would be re-purposed to suit the occasion. In this instance, elements of The Long Arm Of The Law and Another shot at redemption were mashed together to create the plot. The film lasts 2 and a half minutes long, and was made over two days in late 2018/Early 2019, and would later spawn a series that has yet to be made public.

Plot
Dr Mark Richards, who is a junior scientist in the Legion Of Scientific Thinking (L.O.S.T.) fails to convince his peers that Time Travel is possible. Seeking to prove it, he builds a basic Time Machine and subsequently goes mad when he discovers that his gizmo actually works, successfully travelling to two weeks prior. Doing an obscure victory dance, he attracts the attention of Law Enforcement android CHR-L13, who mistakes this dance as a form of intimidation and is about to inact the Instant Death Penalty via Article 14.

In an interesting turn of fate, Richards from the past shows up and begins to scold himself, before realizing who it is he is speaking to. CHR-L13 powers down, trying to figure out what exactly is going on. Past Mark and Present Mark then have an argument about the risks of Time Travel. Present Mark notes that he has forgotten to bring a Time Travel guide that he himself wrote, saying (though muffled) that it is used to hold the toilet rolls, as he needed something to hold up the rack.

Whilst this is going on, CHR-L13 decides that he wants to kill both of them and powers back up again. Before he does, he spots the time machine and tries to figure out how it works; he activates it and is sent forward in time. Past Mark and present Mark finish their argument.
 * Present Mark - But look on the bright side, we could be famous!
 * Past Mark - Famous... AND Stupid.
 * Present Mark - That's the best type of famous my friend.

They then realize, to great annoyance, that the Time Machine is missing."'Some say that Dr Richards is still stuck in the past. Only time will tell...' - End card"

Production
Primary filming took place on the 30th of December, 2018 over a period of 4 hours. Re-shoots and a few reaction shots took place in February of 2019. The weather itself had improved on the day of re-shoots, so a few editing tweaks, as well as an extra two lines of dialogue were added to hide the join.

The main issue during filming was the fact that the general public were walking around during filming, which led to several stops and restarts to get all the footage needed. CHR-L13 could be seen holding a script in one shot, but it was fixed in editing. An entire introduction to the film was recorded but eventually scrapped. A small segment of it, however, does show up after the title boards, but was edited from two different takes.

Editing itself took a while, as Matt was only really getting to understand the basics of Final Cut Pro, though once edited, the film looked perfect... mostly. A sound effect went unused due to bitrate issues and the voices went a little quiet during rendering; both of these were fixed in a later re-edit.