News Unexpected surprises caught on camera

Duration of the event is not just the only thing to consider when making the perfect time-lapse edit.

To ensure the best possible video at the subject’s conclusion, planning ahead is vitally important. From power source and mounting location to lens selection and capture intervals, every element of the time-lapse process needs to be properly scoped and relevant processes put in place.

When it comes to editing the images captured, which for the projects Time-Lapse Systems usually work on can be well over 30,000, there are a number of different things to take into consideration. Removing periods of activity, colour-correction and stabilisation processes are just three of the countless post-production techniques used to create a time-lapse video of the very highest quality.

Sticking with removing quieter periods, this is particularly important to make a smooth final edit. Large sections of inactivity disrupt the narrative of the time-lapse and also result in very long videos (10 minutes or more!) And there is no automated way of doing this. It requires an experienced editor to painstakingly work through every individual frame captured over years of activity and manually delete those that will not enhance the finished sequence.

Time-lapse tends to be used to show very long periods of time ‘sped up’ to fill a short video. But it can also inadvertently result in capturing split seconds of activity, which like activity that happens very slowly, cannot usually be seen with the naked eye.

For this blog we have pulled together some of the ‘outtakes’ we occasionally see when editing time-lapse sequences together. It is removing images like this that allow us to produce such smooth and ‘free-flowing’ edits for all our clients. If you would like to find out more about services, please get in touch.

For a split-second there was a gathering of insects around one of our camera systems.

But most of the time it does not – just like this bird.

And seagulls do seem to have a habit of flying past just as the shutter is going!

No, it is not a giant spider. This eight-legged friend must have been pretty close by.

Perhaps one of the most bizarre, is that a team of unidentified car drivers?

And also unidentified, a UFO appears to be flying over a site we were capturing on.