Time lapse sequences

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ned c
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Time lapse sequences

Post by ned c »

PLEASE - no more time lapse sequences. On my daily feeds from various film/video sources the time lapse sequences keep coming. The stars wheel overhead; the clouds zip by; the water trembles as the camera creeps pointlessly across the scene accompanied by the worst selections of music ever. The latest; 17 days in Iceland to produce the most boring effort yet of high contrast; over saturated images and dreadful music. Or is it me; am I missing something? The first two or three were fascinating but these are now mostly pointless demonstrations of technology.

ned c

(i wait for the brick through my window)
col lamb
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by col lamb »

Far from hurling the brick you are right

Done some timelapse myself but nothing like Moscow or Singapore which are on Vimeo.

Watching two is about it, once you have seen all the effects, the tracking shots etc a couple of times enough is enough

At the first sign of a star trail its time for me to click on the stop button and time to move on
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Peter Copestake
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by Peter Copestake »

Timelapse on BBC natural history gives no idea of actual speed of development. I find this very annoying as I do slo-mo of animals unless to prove a technical point.
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TimStannard
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by TimStannard »

Whilst I agree with the sentiments expressed above, every now and then something like this comes along. It's worth watching through - after the initial "wow" has worn off it's a bit samey until about 2:30 when it gets more interesting (clouds moving in different directions and different scenes)

https://vimeo.com/72838060#
Tim
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Mike Shaw

Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by Mike Shaw »

Probably - and I'm having a guess here - the reason is that generally speaking, time-lapse sequences have no beginning, middle or end - they just start, and finish without telling a story. I think time-lapse sequences that tell a story are interesting and fascinating.

It is on my movie-making bucket list in fact to make a film of the comparison between things we see at 'our' life rate, and things that occur very slowly, speeded up (or at the other extreme, very fast, slowed down). I shan't expand that concept further than to say, for example, filming water breaking round a rock (normal speed), and clouds breaking round a mountain (time-lapse) - and merging one into the other. The comparison between different events slowed down, normal and speeded up to show the similarities between them fascinates me. One day, maybe!


I'd agree 100% with the music usually applied to these sequences though - even the cloud one pointed to by Tim, the music is so boringly monotonous ... why? Same cords repeated over and over - doesn't do the scene any justice at all.
col lamb
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by col lamb »

We had an evening at our club of timelapse movies that we downloaded

Singapore
http://vimeo.com/39557378

But head and shoulders better than any timelapse that I have seen is this

http://vimeo.com/45941676

A story, video and timelapse put together to produce an amazing movie

The Lake you will see at 2:10 is named after the English explorer Bill Peyto who lead travellers into the wilderness from Banff in the early period after WW1. I have been to some of the places in the video an they are the most stunning areas that I have ever seen, Enjoy the movie
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TimStannard
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by TimStannard »

Mike Shaw wrote: It is on my movie-making bucket list in fact to make a film of the comparison between things we see at 'our' life rate, and things that occur very slowly, speeded up (or at the other extreme, very fast, slowed down).
No doubt partially inspired by sections of Alan Atkinson's excellent "More Than Meets the Eye". I hope you do get around to making it, Mike. I, for one, will be in the queue to see it.

On a more general note, I'd argue that the best time-lapse sequences do tell a story - a star or the moon across the sky, the sun going down, clouds forming and dispersing. these are all actually pretty big stories! But, of course you're right, they can very quickly become tedious - even in the Canadian Rockies film that Col posted I found myself itching for a bit more of the narration as some relief from watching the images - no matter how stunning they were.

To my mind time-lapse is perhaps best suited to a short segment, maybe up to a minute and a half, which also happens to be my upper limit for a montage sequence - so perhaps it performs a similar function in a film.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
Mike Shaw

Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by Mike Shaw »

The thing that impressed me most in that 'mountain' time lapse film was not so much the time lapse - impressive though that was - but the fact that the camera tracked. The tracking appeared in most of the sequences, and so I guess the camera was mounted on a mechanical gizmo. And left to run for hours/days at a time. With no one nicking it. Try that in London!

The Alan Atkinson film I remember is a day in the life of a kettle ... time lapsed.
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TimStannard
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by TimStannard »

Mike Shaw wrote:The thing that impressed me most in that 'mountain' time lapse film was not so much the time lapse - impressive though that was
... which touches on some thoughts I've been having since this discussion began. It's not the time lapse per se which is impressive, but the superb images.

I have long (OK not very long as I'm comparatively new to this game) held the belief that static subjects (buildings and landscapes) are the perfect subject for still photography. If the image is worthy enough (properly shot, well composed etc) the viewer can study it for as much or as little time as he or she desired. With film, the viewer is entirely beholden to the whims of the director as to how long the image remains on screen and to where his or her attention should be guided. In other words, unless the static scene is illustrating a specific point, it doesn't really belong in a film. How many films do we see at our clubs which may be fiull of beautiful landscapes, but which fail as films because film/video is the wrong media.

To make static images worthy of film, one has to introduce movement. Camera movement is one way. Simple pans and tilts don't really introduce movement. Used well they can direct the viewer from one point to another but they just give the impression of looking through a window ata bigger picture - it's not really movement (it's basically the "Ken Burns effect" except the panning a croping is done agains a live static image rather than a photograph).

Far better camera movement is tracking. This can be particularly effective with architecture and with landscapes if there is something in the foreground. Suddenly this brings a depth to the image which cannot be delivered in a still photoograph. We have justification for video.

Another way of introducing movement is time lapse. This time we're intrducing movement ito the subject. Shadows and light, cloud formations, the stars, the Sun, the Moon, water becoming ice becoming water, all sorts of stuff which we do not see in real time suddenly becomes movement.

So with either (or better still both) tracking and time lapse we have turned what I hold is a good subject for a still photograph into a subject worthy of film/video.

BUT (and here we get back to Mike's earlier point) filming a guide leading us around a Greek temple includes both camera movement and subject movement as well as a potentially interesting subject (we've all seen plenty of examples of these) does not make a watchable film: it still requires a good narrative.
Mike Shaw wrote:The Alan Atkinson film I remember is a day in the life of a kettle ... time lapsed.
How wonderfully ironic :)
Tim
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Time lapse sequences

Post by Dave Watterson »

Koyanisquaatsi ...
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