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News Making sure you are getting the complete service

11 September 2015 Daniel Curtis

One size really does not fit all when it comes to video production.

What may work perfectly for a particular job or client might not translate over to another business or project. This can be anything from length of works right through to accessibility and safety.

Professional time-lapse photography companies will have spent years perfecting their camera systems to ensure they run smoothly throughout the required capturing times and are also easily installed in the most challenging of environments.

Any company considering hiring a time-lapse camera system needs to ask whether the product is both durable and adaptable. These should be key considerations when deciding on whom to work with and completed videos are the most accurate way to measure overall, finished quality.

In this blog we explore both time-lapse-only edits and more bespoke videos. Please watch the embedded media we have produced and look at the different ways that time-lapse can be used – both as the focal point of a piece and as an enhancement to videos.

Long-term time-lapse capture

Construction photography is becoming incredibly popular for many of the world’s major firms. Balfour Beatty, Laing O’Rourke and Kier – all in the top 10 of Construction News’ 100 Top Contractors 2015 – are just some of the thousands of companies now hiring time-lapse camera systems for their sites.

For many construction and demolition projects, a single point of capture will be sufficient. More and more contractors are utilising two or more cameras, however, to fully document the whole site.

A video of the new energy from waste facility in Lincolnshire is a prime example of long-term, single camera system capture. Images were taken at set intervals for almost three years and were turned into this fully post-produced edit:

A great example of a multiple camera system project is this demolition work for the Berkeley group. Shots from two different angles create a complete narrative of the difficult-to-frame Central London construction site:

Time-lapse with video

For other projects – particularly when works are only occurring over a matter of weeks or months – integrating time-lapse with video can be the most effective solution.

By definition time-lapse is a way of capturing long-term works, ones that show little change to the naked eye but only come to life when part of the ‘bigger picture’. Capturing for years-on-end and then removing periods of inactivity during post-production creates the effect of skyscrapers rising from the ground or structures tumbling to the floor – all in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Short-term construction works – or, as is more often the case, interior fit-outs of buildings – benefit from rapid capture, where intervals between photographs being taken are reduced significantly. By nature this does result in shorter periods of footage.

To enhance this – and create a proper narrative – firms often want video edited into the sequence.

In just two months Southampton Freight Services’ new headquarters went from a warehouse shell to a fully-fledge logistics hub and office space. Due to the short nature of the project, a fixed-position camera system was utilised along with two full days of video footage, creating a concise and momentous edit:

Even shorter than that was the construction of a two-tier stand at The Open Championships 2015, which specialist tiered seating provided GL events had just three weeks to put up.

As well as a single camera system, video was shot at the links – near Edinburgh – to coincide with the build and edit into place at both the start and end of the time-lapse footage:

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Time-Lapse Systems are a part of Hideaway Media Ltd (est. 2007). World leader in the provision of bespoke time-lapse capture and site monitoring solutions. UK and Worldwide.