R+P Post 11: Our Timeline

We decided to create a timeline to plan out our opening sequence. We decided to do this because of the nature of our plot- lots of interviews are condensed into what is essentially one conversation, so to avoid the confusion of crossing story threads we wanted to map out exactly what was going to happen.

Here is our full, finished timeline. As you can see, on the left it contains the three tracks we needed to plan to map out our plot, namely video, voice, and sound. Do not worry if you cannot read much else, close-ups of relevant areas will be provided later on. Click to enlarge.

The first step of the process was planning out the visual component of our opening, which we then used as a base for the other two tracks. We used simple yet expressive terms as well as visual aides to create what was for us an easy-to-read basic layout of our story. We found that not all our shots would necessarily fit, so we tried to compromise by creating extra space on the top right, as you can see in the image below.

The 'END' section of our timeline. You should be able to see our visual depiction of the arc shot on the left, a montage of character shots in the centre (with the initials of the characters concerned taking up the video portion, and the description of the shot being handled by the dialogue,) and where we have tried to make space without ruining the flow of the timeline on the right. Click to enlarge.

Our second step, which actually started during the first step to ensure flow, was to get down dialogue. This started in the first step so that we would have a better idea of what was going on in each shot- the changing characters meant that just the video on its own was confusing, but including dialogue at key points meant we could see how shots fit together. We went on to fill in the rest of the voice track, making sure everything sounded like a coherent conversation.

The 'MIDDLE' section of our timeline. You should be able to see snippets of conversation, with the character's initials being used to save space, as well as areas where we are as of yet unsure exactly what is going to be said. An example of this would be the vague "Raj being banter" on the left- this is quite casual and non-specific but descriptive enough to keep the flow going and let us map out the opening. Click to enlarge.

The third and final step was to simply fill in the sound track and then make final checks. We did this last so we could place the music's beginning and ending exactly at the beginning or end of certain shots. This helped us line up the timeline's story with the shared vision in our heads. We were also able to further build on the previous two tracks by adding detail in the form of sound effects.

The 'BEGINNING' section of our timeline. You should be able to see how the music lines up with the video, and how we have made the music go from non-diegetic to diegetic at a chosen point to integrate it with the visual component of the opening. There is also an example of a sound effect on the right. Click to enlarge.

By the end of the process, we had a full timeline. This gave us a non-confusing text layout of our plot that we could reference whenever we wanted to. We learnt that our story was good and coherent so far, which bode well for later in the project, but also found out that we would have to work on the dialogue more, and maybe shorten the video a bit.