How to Improve Storytelling With Time-Lapses

September 25, 2019
How to Improve Storytelling With Time-Lapses
Posted in: All Quick Tip
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Whether it’s an adventure-fueled mission, the unfolding of elaborate beach tagging or an urban cityscape as it passes from night to day, time-lapses are an incredible tool for capturing and condensing the passing of time. 

In fact, we reckon they’re a bit of an unsung hero in the film world. They can add depth and texture to your narrative, whether you’re working on a commercial production or a passion project. Filmmakers aren’t just capturing nice visuals, after all - we’re storytellers. And storytelling is an intricate art. 

Here are a few benefits of time-lapses, according to us:

They’re a smooth, fresh way to transition from one location to another or one day to the next
They illustrate the passage of time and movement (because who has the hours or the attention span to watch an entire van get kitted out in real-time, right?)
They  and   by capturing the span of a project, event or journey.
In other words, they can add a whole lot of spice to your filmmaking. And, there’s more than just landscapes and cityscapes.  As video geeks, we’re a little obsessed with how we can take our productions to the next level, so we zoomed in on time-lapses and got pretty granular. 

In this video, we’re going to walk you through four different types of time-lapses which you can integrate into your next project to uniquely enhance your time-based narrative. As always, a lot of it comes down to the gear, and the creative ways you put this gear to use. 

Car time-lapses

Vehicle time-lapses are an awesome way to really capture that ‘on the road’ feeling, and they’re quick and easy to set up. As always, a little bit of DIY and resourceful thinking goes a long way to get a truly original shot. In this case, we used a couple of Genie II’s, some Magic Carpt Sliders and Manfrotto 241S Suction Mounts.

We loaded the mounts onto the sliders, which we attached to the truck, and away we went. We’re all about getting the tech to do the hard stuff so we can focus experimenting to get the best results. We wanted several different angles, and we pre-programmed all our time-lapses as a preset on one device, so we could just hit go when we were ready. 

Now for a bit of experimentation. We used a one-second exposure, which was pretty long, so everything in the frame was blurry. But, another vehicle going the same speed as us for a long enough distance was actually really sharp. 

We played with setting up our cameras both inside and outside the car for a mixture of shots. Time to get creative and find your own flavour!

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Top-down packing time-lapses 

Nothing showcases the build up to a mission quite as well as a timelapse of packing the car. Capture the sheer volume of gear or the ins and outs of a building project. Top-down packing time-lapses are a great way to capture a big job, without losing your viewer's attention. 

Using height adds a birds-eye-view effect to the scene, too. We used a Genie mini and a Joby Gorillapod, wrapping the legs of the mount around some tree branches for that top-down effect.

Landscape time-lapses 

As incredible as any camera is, capturing the scale and pace of the natural world is a hard task. This is where time-lapses can be super helpful, and add gold to your storytelling. Capture crazy cloud patterns, water movement or wind effects, or the blooming of flowers and the changing of light. 

The crafty use of sliders and mounts can take your time-lapse to the next level, too. For our mission, we went to one of New Zealand’s most extreme, fast-changing regions: Fiordland. It rains there. A lot. 

Here we used the Slingshot Cable Cam which enables you to create tracking shots over extremely long distances. We constructed our own waterproof housing for the Slingshot and we were able to show the change in weather patterns across four hours in this epic spot. 

Urban time-lapses 

The city, on the other hand, is a whole other ballgame. Time-lapses can capture the movement of people and traffic, the scale of buildings or projects, and are also great for capturing promotions, events, or street art in the making. 

We thought we’d capture a classic: sunset over Auckland Harbour bridge. We used a Genie II 3 Axis Kit. A smooth and sexy outro to any project, if you ask us. 

So there you have it. A run-down of some time-lapses you may not have thought of using, and some of the sweet gear that makes them happen. Alright, your turn. Give it a go, get creative. It’s time to add some gold to your storytelling. 

September 25, 2019

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