HOW was it made?

Time-Slice is a film effect made by using lots of stills cameras that take a picture at exactly the same moment. Through bringing these images onto computer and viewing them in sequence, it appears that you are moving around a moment frozen in time.

Tim Macmillan and Time-Slice Films were approached to run a course to involve local school pupils in creating a short film involving the time-slice process. These effects were interspersed with video sequences that tell a story leading up to, or leading on from these moments. The themes of the film were dreams and the hour of 5am.

The week-long course was run as part of At-Bristol's season of special-fx events, running over the autumn half term from 19 October - 10 November 2002.

Action Zones are set up to assist schools that are acknowledged to be working under challenging circumstances. One of the aims of this project for the action zones was to enable youngsters from different areas of the city to work together.

At-Bristol and Bristol Education Action Zone approached 4 Bristol schools - Withywood, St George, Fairfield and Henbury. Year 10 pupils were given a presentation and invited to submit an application form to take part in the course. From these applications, 5 pupils from each school were selected, of whom a total of 13 attended the course.

The students were introduced to concepts and ideas related to the time-slice effect and the film making process. Their role was critical, as it was their ideas that were made into effects and the stories that tie the effects together. They did all the filming and had support from a team of professionals and mentors at every stage of the process.

The pupils were then divided up into 4 teams, with each team concentrating on one segment of the film, containing one time-slice effect and the linking material, filmed around the At-Bristol site. Sound effects and music were also created and added to the film.

The week-long course was divided up into a timetable of different tasks, with each team involved in all the processes of the shooting of their segment.

Read the diary

Pupils and helpers were also encouraged to record their experience of the course for inclusion in the production diary and web log.

After the course, the film was completed on the At-Bristol editing suite. The final film was premiered in At-Bristol and on the Electric December website. The film may also be shown in short film festivals around the world.