A night with Mike Figgis doing a 'live' sound mix of his new film
Director Mike Figgis, who has a background in experimental theatre and music, is attempting to kick-start the digital-video revolution with his latest project Time Code. And if he doesn’t succeed he most likely will be credited with pushing the boundaries of what the new technology is capable of doing.
Figgis shot Time Code using four handheld Sony DSR-130 DV camcorders. He and three cameramen and a large number of actors rehearsed and shot for 15 days from an improvised script. At the start of each day the four cameras were set up in roughly the same area around West Hollywood and the cameramen were equipped with digital watches all set to the exact same time so that each camera would shoot simultaneously in real time.
For fourteen days they rehearsed and the final product was what they got on the 15th day. Amazingly – and what makes the work unique – is that the film was shot in real time on November 19 last year from 3:00 to 4:33 in the afternoon. The final product (like live theater) is four 93-minute movies with absolutely no edits of any kind.
The shooting of the film was innovative enough but the final presentation that the audience sees is what makes the project refreshingly inventive and fun. The audience sees what transpires in a split screen of four grids; two images on the left and two on the right.
The technique of the split screen concept is not new. All the way back in 1927 Abel Gance presented sections of Napolean using three separate screens (and three projectors). Warhol used two projectors and two separate sound tracks simultaneously in 1967 for The Chelsea Girls, and split screen -- from one projector -- has been used in numerous movies including Woodstock, Carrie and More American Graffiti. What’s different in Time Code is that each of the individual movies was shot at the exact same time and -- since each section overlaps at some point -- the action had to be choreographed to perfection.
Then in one-minute intervals each story fades into the other squares on screen. In the upper right a rich woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) lets the air out of the tires of her girlfriend's (Salma Hayek) car so that the two are forced to have to ride together in the same limo. In the lower left we see a security guard in the casting agency building and in the lower right we see a group of agents (which include Holly Hunter, Golden Brooks, Richard Edson and Skarsgard) debating, laughing, brainstorming about the casting of some new sexploitation movie while a masseur (Julian Sands) moves around giving everyone a massage. For the next 90 minutes all the action will take place in this locale.
Essentially, Time Code is an experimental film that makes a comment on the shallowness and the hypocrisy of the people who make up the film industry in Hollywood. It’s very similar to the cynicism of Robert Altman’s The Player crossed with the histrionics of a soap opera. Each of the ineffectual characters quarrel over their love life, deal with their work and stroke their egos. But since it is rather thin on character development the story is the weakest thing about the project and the acting definitely feels improvised. But for anyone who sees the movie, the feat itself – not the cliched performances – is what makes the project work.
On April 28th (1999) at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles, Figgis digitally projected Time Code with a "live" sound mix for three shows. There were two significant differences in the Nuart presentation than from what everyone else will see hereafter. First, the film was digitally projected as opposed to film projected. All other screenings in theatres across the U.S. will be a film projection of a 35mm transfer of the same version. What this meant to the audience who saw the three "live" screenings is that the image was about five times brighter than the film projected version and there were no distracting reel change-over cues.
The second difference was the sound. In the final version the sound is mixed onto two channels and alternates between the four separate screens. Sometimes two images can be heard at once but usually only one. For the "live" performance Figgis sat at a mixing board in the back of the theater and had the choice of four channels of dialogue, two channels of music and two channels for special effects sound. So he was able to play around much more by fading sound in and out of the four screens and ultimately giving the audience a different version according to his whim.
Before the screening Figgis said he was surprised to see an advance sell out at all three shows. He mentioned that when first offered the opportunity to do a live sound mix he figured it would be like his old avante garde days where maybe ten people would show up and half of them would leave.
After the screening Figgis was asked why he would do this, his only response was "why not?" But he then mentioned that the budget was somewhere in the $3 million range. When someone asked where he got the story idea he said, "no comment." Someone then asked what kind of camera he used and he shrugged off the question by motioning his two hands close together and saying, "Oh, it was about this big."
Figgis noted that the limitations of film is that no scene can be shot for longer than ten minutes because a "magazine" can only hold that much film. While with digital video you can shoot upwards of two hours without cutting. When asked about the difference in sound he mentioned that the only real difference in the sound was that he added in "one-liners" from the other screens to make it more interesting and to help move it along faster.
He said that what distinguished the two versions from each other is that the film version is warmer and friendlier to look at but that he really liked the digital projection since it is uninterrupted by any changeover cues or dirt that collects in film projection.
At four separate times in Time Code a low rolling earthquake hits. Although it looks kind of hokey, with the cameras shaking in unison and the actors falling over, it has the desired effect of showing us how technically efficient and synchronized his project is. This prompted someone to asked why he used earthquakes. As the audience groaned at the question Figgis laughed and said, "It’s LA, dude!"
Afterwards numerous people lined up to shake Figgis’ hand to tell him they were inspired and wanted now to go on to make their own movies. No doubt with digital cameras and computers this is much more of a financial reality than it was when Abel Gance made Napolean.
- Matt Langdon