Timelapses

I've gotten really into timelapses recently. I think they can add a lot to a video if you use them in the right place, and use decent ones.
I've been experimenting with a few, but only out of my front window, obviously no-where near as epic as these two I'm about to post. It really does suck living in a small place like Exeter. There's not much interesting stuff to timelapse, and not many big hills to get out onto. Hopefully I'll be able to get some much better ones next year when I'm travelling.

Anyway, I follow John Reynolds 'likes' on Vimeo, and he liked these two stunning Timelapse videos. I find that Vimeo is a great tool not just for uploading videos, but for watching. I 'follow' a lot of great videographers on there so I can see their likes and it enables me to see some awesome videos that otherwise I wouldn't see.

Anyway, first off this one. I'm going to try and film something similar to this at some point, as stars aren't hard to come across, you just need somewhere with hardly any light pollution, and obviously, no clouds. But oviously minus all of the meteors!

Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

I'd reccomend following the link and watching it in HD on Vimeo. Also, look out at 31 seconds in the bottom left for a meteor actually burning up and turning into dust.

Second is probably my favourite timelapse video of the year, or in fact, ever. You don't realise what clouds actually do when you look at them from below. The name of "The Unseen Sea" is really appropriate. This is why somewhere like San Francisco is so much better to film than somewhere like Exeter.
Again, follow the link to watch in HD.

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Last of the Summer, and a few experiemental timelapses.

I keep saying to myself that I'm going to update this more, but I never think that I have anything interesting to say. So I'm gonna do some more interesting things with my time!

Anyway, first up I've realized that my National 4X Champs video didn't post. Whoops. So here it is!


Right. A few weeks ago now Adam "Pinner" Price mailed me asking if I wanted to go up to his local out at East Hill and do a little video with him and some mates. So I went out and made one! Wasn't the greatest days filming and didn't get heaps of footage but got a lot of good stuff which made for a pretty cool edit. I'd been wanting to make a chill edit for quite a while now, so that's what I did. A few people have said that the music isn't good. But personally I love it and think it fits cool. Would have liked to have had more shots though, but nevermind!


MPORA Action Sports >>


Now I've recently started using Vimeo a lot more for uploading and watching videos. One popular videographer who's work I've bumped into is Phillip Bloom. Not only does he get some stunning shots but he also does some absolutely amazing timelapses.
Timelapses are a thing I've always liked in videos as they break it up a little, but mine have always been a little bland and not that creative. They've been of the clouds or something. I also used to always shoot them on my video camera. So I set it running, then sped it up in post. But that takes ages, and it takes up tape space. So I wanted to learn how to do it with my photo camera.
The first one I did was at night. I set the camera up just outside my bedroom window on a tripod (I live in a bungalow). I had a stopwatch, and I set it to 2 minutes. Every 2 minutes, I got up from my desk, went to the camera and pressed the shutter. then taking a 30 second exposure. I did this for about an hour thinking that would be enough. I then followed Phillip Blooms instructions on how to make the timelapses, and got them into QT Player 7 and created the timelapses. The first timelapse I did (shown below) was the one I did for an hour. And it's only 3 seconds long.


I wanted to obviously make it longer, but not have to get up all the time. So I went and bought a remote shutter so I could sit at my desk and do it from there.

So I tried one in my front room looking out towards the hills and the sunset. This is the first one I did. It's a little jumpy as I did one every 10 seconds. If I missed that 10 seconds it would appear faster, if I did it too soon it appears slower. It's pretty hard to do. Anyway, here it is.



And now, finally. The one I figured it out. Someone then told me I had an 'intervelometer' on my computer with the software that came with my photo camera. So I loaded it up, and there it was. An Intervelometer is something which tells the camera to shoot a photo every so many seconds. You type in how many photos you want it to take, and how long apart, connect your camera to your laptop, and leave it, and it does the whole process for you. The sunset isn't so great in this one, but at least I know how to do it now and I can go out and get some better ones!



Until next time!