A film by Mike Figgis

Time Code was not so much directed as it was conducted, harmonising four distinct story lines into one, similar to a chamber orchestra composition. Few film directors are more suited to such a task than Mike Figgis, who is also a renowned orchestral composer, used to thinking in terms of multiple melody lines and instrumentation. Figgis is also a committed film minimalist – always seeking to find more immediate and purer expressions of cinematic storytelling without the contrivances of editing and effects. He foresees a new era of cinema – precipitated by advances in digital technology – that will be like the punk era in music. That is, stripped down, rule-breaking and totally revitalising.

For Figgis, Time Code is the culmination of this impulse. He first conceived of the project while using split-screen for his recent adaptation of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. "I thought the split screen was really cool so I started thinking about the idea of shooting three screens and then four," explains Figgis. "You see parallel action and synchronicity have always been obsessions of mine. I began diagramming out how it might work using flow charts. Eventually I came up with a system of writing the structure of the script on music paper, using bar lines to indicate minutes, which is what we ended up using."

The concertina script seemed like an exciting idea, but Figgis also knew the challenges ahead would be enormous. "I knew that shooting the film would be fraught with technical issues such as how do people co-ordinate their timings, how can we anticipate physically what is going to happen next and how would we be able to correlate spontaneous performances with hitting precise marks at precise times. Everyone involved in the production had to think at great length on these topics," the director comments.

He made the decision early on to use hand-held digital cameras – not the same kind that people are using to make home videos on their bedroom computers but specially-designed, high-definition digital videocams created by Sony for feature film-making – preparing for the imminent day when celluloid becomes obsolete. These cameras offer an image quality that rivals film, but have all the creative advantages of malleable digital information. The fact that the digital video format allows for cheaper production, greater mobility, extreme flexibility, the use of natural light and automatic playback made it the ultimate tool for his story-forward concept. "Every era has its movement where people say enough of the over-produced, over-manipulated high-end stuff, and we’re in the midst of that right now in cinema. Digital cinema allows us to get back to the basics of filmmaking and human relationships," says Figgis.

For Figgis, the production process on Time Code cut to the core of film-making creativity. "I think this film is an example of how we can use the process of filmmaking to create art, rather than the time and resource-heavy processes of script development, package casting and studio participation.

Those things get in the way of the real creative process: which is working with actors and technicians to bring a story to life."

Figgis was also determined that he would break with the tradition of post-production editing. "In some ways editing is a corruption, a lie that feigns continuity," he states. "To me, this film is in part an attempt to show that we can edit in an entirely different way, through montage rather than cutting, and we can have simultaneous action. This allows each individual to have a very different interpretation of what’s happening on the screen. I don’t believe in one interpretation – that’s not rich enough for us today."

Figgis gathered his skeleton crew and his actors in the 8-story brick Ticketmaster building on Sunset Boulevard, which served as both production headquarters and one of the primary filming locations. Other locations were found in the same neighbourhood including a therapist’s office up the street and a couple of nearby houses. The local streets served as exteriors, with occasionally comic results, such as when passing directors and agents stopped to say hi to the actors, not realising they were on camera in the middle of a scene.

Each day of the production, the four cameras started rolling and did not stop for anything until the video ran out. There were never any cuts in the action – if a character moved to a new location, the camera followed. If a character tripped, it became part of the naturally evolving storyline. This was a process of such enormous intensity that by the end of the first day’s shoot Figgis and his crew were drenched in sweat. "Very few people anticipated the toll of the film on a physical level," says Figgis. "Most cameramen don’t operate a camera for a full 90 minutes, so it becomes an entirely new challenge."

Having four cameras running at once, and actors in different locations reacting to the same external stimuli – such as the earthquake aftershocks that occur throughout Time Code - resulted in many mishaps and unexpected outcomes. But this was all part of the plan. "I like a certain amount of anarchy," comments Figgis "because anarchy begets art."

Each day at the end of the shoot, director, cast and crew sat before large television monitors and watched the day’s filming unfold. These were not dailies in the traditional sense, but wholly completed individual digital video features. "Watching the dailies was like being in university again," says Figgis. "Everybody was furiously taking notes, going through their new timings and ideas. And it was the same for both crew and cast."

Following emotionally intense discussion and further refinement of on-camera movements, the group gathered again the next day to shoot the same film, but with an entirely different outcome. Each day, characters changed their style, behaviours and actions, so that no two takes of the film were even remotely the same.

Eventually, Figgis was faced with the task of choosing the best single take from the shoot. "There were many possibilities," he admits, "and each one would have been a different but equally plausible film. It made me think that the potential for greater interactivity, for multiple outcomes, is enormous."

In fact, Figgis notes that films such as Time Code connote not only a change in the future of cinema, but also a change in movie audiences, a new generation of whom has grown up on the constancy of multiple images and infinitely revisable narratives. He thinks viewers bored with Hollywood’s 20^th century conventions are actively seeking new experiences. Time Code delivers on that, allowing audience members to literally edit the film in their own way, choosing which images and plots to focus on and follow.