So in an earlier post, I sort of took a shot at timelapses. They are popping up all over the web and have mixed watchability value in my opinion (I know that doesn’t sound right).  Anyway, I’m posting one here for you. I think there are elements to this timelapse that transcend the normal watch the sky go by video.

Kaj Kjellesvig over at Mysterybox Films sent us this write up. This timelapse is a compilation of shoots over the course of 3 months, and almost everything was shot at night. And on a kit lens. Wow.

Here’s the write up:

I feel kind of guilty when experienced cinematographers rant about how “any ol’ person” can pick up a digital camera these days and call themselves a “Director of Photography”. I guess you can call me, “any ol’ person” then. Actually, I prefer to be called Dr. Time-lapse PhD (sarcasm… har har). A screenwriter by trade, I was more focused on writing a clean and compelling action line then picking up a camera… that is until I started hanging out with a DP by the name of Don Nguyen. A cinematographer with training from Columbia College Chicago, Don has undergone trial by fire in one of the most intense cinematography programs in the world. Notable DPs from Columbia include Janusz Kaminski and Mauro Fiore. It was Don who started feeding me little tidbits of advice and technical knowledge. It was like he was Harold and I was Maude… except I’m a guy. That was a terrible analogy but I’m moving on.

When the 7D came out I had no preexisting knowledge of DSLRs that shot video. When Don showed me a picture of the camera I said, “We aren’t trading the HVX200 for that. I think that would be a stupid idea.” He then showed me the beta cam test, “Perya,” and I quickly changed my mind. We ditched the HVX 200 like a gas station burrito.

I’m a purist and prefer working with film, but when you’re a student and consider selling your kidney to pay off student loans, I’d rather opt for digital for all-purpose shooting.

“The Dark Night: A Time Lapse in Chicago” is a compilation of time lapses that I captured over three months. My camera package is rather crude but I work with what I have.

Camera:

Right now I’m working with the basics. For a lens, I’m sporting a Canon 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS. The chromatic abrasion visible during the day is pretty frustrating but it’s not too evident at night. The fact that the aperture is not fixed is kind of a pain in the butt, however, I’m happy with how some of it turned out. For all of the night lapses, I shot in manual mode at 100 ISO with a typical exposure time of 4 seconds (usually less time when I was in the city with more light from car headlights). The typical time allotted for the lapse was about 20 minutes.

Gear:

I mount the camera on a set of cheap Manfrotto sticks and use the Canon TC-80N3 to capture the image manually. In the shot at :27, it is a manual pan. In fact, it was my first attempt at doing this.  If you have any Mumford mocos lying around feel free to send them my way.

The Shots:

Chicago is an architectural playground sporting the first modern steel skyscrapers engineered by Daniel Burnham as well as a neo-classical style that is evident throughout the city. After living here for three years, I’ve found some spectacular spots by the Chicago River and Lake Michigan to get some great shots. Highlights include the Sears Tower (:24. NOTE: no one calls it the Willis Tower), 77 West Wacker building, John Hancock Center (:09), the Harold Washington Library (:27 and 1:08),  and the Trump Tower (:14). The skyline shot at :48 was taken by the Adler Planetarium. The skyline at the beginning was taken by my house as I was walking to class. I had my camera with me to take some B Roll of the city and after seeing the view, I decided then and there that it was okay if I was a little late to class.

Post:

I shoot in JPEG for a faster post workflow but will begin shooting in RAW once I get a better lens and start to license more of my clips. I sequence it in QuickTime at 24 fps and convert it to Apple Pro Res at 1920×1080. Also my picture profile was pretty basic except I lowered the contrast a little to get more details in the darks. I’m not a big fan of the super-flat profile floating around online. With this profile I’ve found that skin tones are way more blotchy and harder to fix than they already are.

I colored using Magic Bullet Looks. The hardest challenge I ran into was eliminating the disgusting orange glow given off by the streetlights. I fixed this by giving most of the clips a cooler look. In most of the shots I raised the blue curves in the highlights and mid-tones, lifted some of the red gamma gain and lowered most of the mid level saturation with the ranged saturation tool. I wanted to retain more detail in the blacks but just decided to forget it midway through. This was a learning experience more than anything else.

Problems I ran into:

They don’t call it the Windy City for nothing. There would have been a lot more lapses in here if the wind had not taken its toll on the camera when the lens was in the 70-128mm range. The John Hancock Center shot (:09) was noticeably shaky (easily fixable in After Effects) but I covered it up a little bit with a vignette and made sure the clip didn’t stay in there too long. If you look closely at the bottom of the frame by the other buildings the shake gets way more noticeable.

My lens. Period. It was hard to do anything in aperture priority mode without the flickering becoming a dominant part of the shot. I haven’t tried bracketing yet but I intend to experiment more and get some more unique images in future time-lapses.

The Verdict:

After watching the works of time-lapse phenoms like Tom Lowe and Philip Bloom, I usually cry myself to sleep and buy a tub of Ben and Jerry’s to cope with how my lapses pale in comparison. However, I learn something new everyday and this style of photography is a great chance for me to work on my scripts while I’m waiting. I hope you enjoyed this.

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