News Time-lapsing in iconic UK locations – Part Two

Above and below ground, brand new structures and historic vessels, theme parks and iconic venues.

Our work takes us to extraordinary locations across the UK but whatever the unique requirements of the project, none are too demanding.

As we detailed in part one of this double-feature on time-lapsing in iconic UK locations, we have provided the highest quality capture for various developments on treasured heritage sites – above ground, below ground, on waterways, and more.

From heritage sites and museums, to theme parks and other famous venues across the country, we deliver the best visual narratives for our clients and their special projects.

Event monitoring

Our time-lapse UK portfolio consists of unique events across various sectors, including construction, music, sports and leisure. For some projects our Ultra HD capture provides comprehensive, remotely managed event monitoring, along with completed time-lapse edits for our clients to utilise with their various outputs.

Internal & external events, the Royal Albert Hall

This prestigious venue, with its Central London location and its history of housing many notable British cultural events, is an important UK landmark. Our varied work at the Royal Albert Hall – some of which is ongoing – has helped to contribute to its continuing legacy.

We are currently capturing a major construction project that is set to transform the exterior of the Hall’s south-west quadrant into a new multi-purpose space.

Officially entitled The Great Excavation, these works are preparations for the venue’s 150th birthday in March, 2021. Our specially commissioned time-lapse video provides a birds-eye-view of nine months worth of progress, involving the removal of 5,000m³ of earth and the installation of 104 15m-long sheet piles as support.

Any external capture may present challenges but working in a historical location – the Royal Albert Hall is a Grade I listed building – warrants diligent management. In order to obtain an appropriate vantage point over the exterior work, we built a free-standing fixing solution for the camera system that would not compromise the building in any way.

This resulted in faultless capture of the excavation works, and continued visual documentation – which we are able to manage remotely – as the next phase of this project unfolds.

Previously, we have securely rigged a camera system inside the Royal Albert Hall to time-lapse 365 days of the venue at full working capacity.

As with external event scenarios, we provided constant monitoring remotely to ensure the quality of capture was consistent throughout, despite the changes conducive to an indoor environment fo this size and scale.

Above: time-lapsing in the iconic UK venue, the Royal Albert Hall. Our camera system remained in situ for one whole year to capture 390 events on the main stage and the 1.7m visitors who came to the venue.

Our ‘A Year in the Life’ edit is still one of our most popular videos to date.

Events & leisure developments, Alton Towers Resort

Above: the iconic Corkscrew roller coaster before its demolition at Alton Towers.

More of our time-lapse work that has been extremely popular in the public domain is that which we have captured for one Merlin Entertainments’ biggest UK attractions.

Located in the heart of Staffordshire, England, Alton Towers theme park operates ten roller coasters – some of which we have been commissioned to film.

We were on site to make an historic time-lapse of the final weeks of the iconic Corkscrew, as it was demolished to make way for a brand new ride.

Other roller coasters, rides and attractions our cameras have captured include:

• Th13teen
• The Smiler
• Sharkbait Reef
• Galactica
• Nemesis: Sub Terra
• Minions at Splash Landings
• A P!nk openair concert.

Our innovative media solutions have also been fundamental in publicising major ‘firsts’ at Alton Towers, including the first-ever 360° video to be filmed at the park (featuring the Congo River Rapids ride), and construction of the Wicker Man: the UK’s first wooden roller coaster in over 20 years.

Other iconic firsts

Our expertise have also been utilised for other unique projects with ‘first time’ significance.

In Glasgow, our camera system time-lapsed major preparations works for the inaugural European Championships 2018. We provided a quick turnaround of this time sensitive edit, which tracked the transformation of an indoor tennis court into one of key aquatic venues for this mini Olympic-style event.

This was an incredibly significant moment for Scotland and for the UK, meaning that our time-lapse helps to document an important part of history.

The time-lapse video was specifically requested by the BBC for use as part of their news reports on this event.

Back in the capital city of London, we were commissioned by the British Film Institute to time-lapse the very first construction of the now annual Embankment Garden Cinema.

Capturing both internal and external developments, our time-lapse helped to drum up anticipation for this unprecedented cinema project. Situated in an idyllic green spot on the north of the River Thames, between Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge, the prominent location matches the unique nature of the project itself.

We are very proud to have worked in all these iconic locations across the UK and will continue to deliver innovative media solutions for all manner of special projects.