Out of Time

Out of Time is a 2003 comedy science fiction brickfilm by Chris Salt. The story follows the duo of Mike and Geoff, who, out of boredom, go for a walk and encounter three time-travelling spacemen. It is Chris Salt's "first full-length animated short." Out of Time was created for the BricksWest 2003 Comedy Animation Competition, and later won the NWBrickCon 2003 Animation Competition.

Plot
Friends Mike and Geoff are sitting at home on a quiet Sunday. Mike, bored, prods Geoff into going for a walk, who eventually gives in. While walking, they stumble upon a materializing time machine piloted by three spacemen, led by Major Tom Golightly. Having traveled from 1981, the spacemen are eager to learn about the technological advancements of the future. They are quite disappointed when Mike and Geoff informs them that teleporters, hovercars, and jetpacks haven't been invented yet. Just as they start to learn about reality TV, the spacemen are abducted, one by one, by feral monkeys. Mike and Geoff barely react and return home, where they debate what do to with their newly-acquired time machine.

Cameos
Several cameos and references to other brickfilms appear at the beginning of Out of Time. Namely, Nate Burr's characters Steve and Dave and scenes from Thomas Foote's The Big Match appear on Geoff's newspaper, and posters for Jay Silver's The Gauntlet and Rise of the Empire appear on the walls of the apartment. All cameos appeared with the permission of the original creators.

Production
Chris Salt was inspired to make Out of Time when he discovered his old collection of LEGO at his parent's house, which contained, among other things, the classic red, white and yellow spacemen from the Classic Space theme seen in Out of Time. This led to Chris thinking about the 1980s and how the new millennium hasn't quite lived up to the expectations of the last 20 years, and the BricksWest 2003 animation challenge gave him a challenge to strive to win (which, ultimately, he didn't). Still, Out of Time did win the NWBrickCon 2003 Animation Competition.

Out of Time underwent a number of changes during production. In the original script, the spacemen were to be abducted by giant space mutants, but the action figure that was going to be used for the mutants was too large to fit in frame, so the space mutants were replaced by monkeys. There was also dialogue recorded by Loïc Desjardins and Jeff Leary that did not end up in the film.