News Time-Lapse Systems: our 2018 round-up – part one

Here at Hideaway Studios – Time-Lapse Systems, we are seeing out yet another busy year with a look back at the past 12 months. 

2018 has seen fresh recruitment to our team, more in-house innovations and, as always, an incredibly diverse range of projects initiated and successfully completed for our growing number of clients.

Each venture that we undertake in every year is significant to us and to the companies that we work with. We strive to help each of our clients realise their vision through our industry-leading time-lapse photography and media solutions.

Time-lapsing timely events

This year has seen additions to our UK time-lapse portfolio, where our work has helped to mark special events and important milestones by a number of renowned public organisations.

Back in October 2017, our team helped capture the movement of historic canal vessels moored at Ellesmere Port – the biggest operation of its kind ever to be seen in the UK – as part of ongoing conservation efforts by the National Waterways Museum and the Canal & River Trust.

We utilised a variety of our specialties – including time-lapse photography & aerial capture – to meticulously document the careful manoeuvre of each craft.

These iconic vessels were crane lifted one-by-one from the water and onto a low-loader vehicle, before being transported to safe storage to undergo extensive maintenance.

12 months later, the newly restored boats are on display at the National Waterways Museum and our completed time-lapse video (above) has been widely shared by the institution and other invested parties.

As well as this heritage project, we also helped to mark sporting history in Scotland with our time-lapse work, commissioned by the 2018 European Championships.

This inaugural multi-sport event, hosted in the city of Glasgow in August, brought together around 5,000 athletes from across the world to compete in the brand-new multi-sport event.

Offering a quick turnaround for our clients, we utilised another of our core specialties – rapid interval capture – to bring to life the transformation of a tennis court into a major aquatic venue for the synchronised swimming competitions.

We have also continued our work with longstanding clients in the leisure industry, Alton Towers, to deliver a time-lapse showcasing the milestone construction of the UK’s first wooden roller coaster in over 20 years: Wicker Man.

Above: our time-lapse capture of the Wicker Man roller coaster construction at Alton Towers – the first of its kind to be built in over 20 years.

This involved installing our camera system onto the theme park’s cable car ‘Sky Ride’ in order to provide focused capture of the 2,000ft wooden track and fire-themed ram head centre piece.

Our editors skilfully arranged our long-term capture into a two-minute time-lapse video which was released in March this year, helping to drum up anticipation for the roller coaster’s public unveiling; the video racked up over 240,000 views on Facebook alone.

Time-Lapse Systems on TV

In addition to seeing through these exciting developments at Alton Towers, our time-lapse construction video of the Wicker Man roller coaster was shown on Channel 4 documentary, Inside Alton Towers.

Above: screenshot from BBC iPlayer showing our time-lapse video footage tracking the development of Gloucester’s new bus station.

The special hour-long feature takes a behind-the-scenes look at the design, build and launch of the new roller coaster attraction, of which our time-lapse video grants unprecedented access to.

Another of our construction time-lapse projects – showcasing Gloucester’s new £7.5m transport hub – has also been televised nationally this year by the BBC. Our final edit debuted during an episode of Points West on BBC One, revealing the first completed milestone for the city’s Kings Quarter regeneration scheme.

These broadcasts join others from previous years, including our time-lapse capture of the Mary Rose and an NHS Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, which are among our video edits to be televised nationally by renowned British broadcasters.

Other developments

This year has also seen the culmination of several major long-term developments in various sectors.

In education, we successfully time-lapsed the first phase of the brand new London Screen Academy in the heart of London, for Pristine London.

We have also added more landscaping projects to our time-lapse portfolio, including capturing throughout a particularly soggy spring to track the execution of an incredible Mediterranean-inspired garden by Arbour Landscape Solutions, at a residence in Radlett, Hertfordshire.

Elsewhere, in Hull, we utilised multiple camera systems to facilitate a comprehensive view of various construction works for the city’s council and BAM, one of the highest ranking contractors in the UK.

This included a dual-camera system set-up to capture the exterior build and the internal fit-out of the auditorium at Bonus Arena, Hull – a major new event space in the city which opened in August this year.

Our time-lapse construction images were fundamental during each phase of this project, helping to publicise progress from start to finish across multiple online platforms.

We also documented other public realm developments in the City of Culture, with targeted capture of regeneration and infrastructure works at Hull Paragon Interchange and Humber Street, as well as time-lapse capture featuring the ceramic Weeping Window poppies at Hull Maritime Museum, a 28-tonne wind turbine in Queen Victoria Square and a £310,000 bespoke timepiece sculpture in Queen’s Gardens.

Collectively, these various points of capture contributed to a wider initiative that have been years in the making – part of Hull’s title year as City of Culture.

Further south in the UK’s capital, we also continue our work with another iconic venue – the Royal Albert Hall – in preparation for their 150th birthday celebrations in 2021.

Above: The Great Excavation under way at the Royal Albert Hall – the first of many phases which will contribute to the iconic venue’s anniversary celebrations to be observed in 2021.

We have been commissioned once again by the London venue to time-lapse The Great Excavation, a prestigious and challenging project, which will see transformation of the Hall’s south-west quadrant into a new multi-purpose space.

Documenting the first phase of the 5,000m3 excavation required us to develop an innovative free-standing fixing solution on which to mount our time-lapse camera system on the roof of the Hall without compromising the building in any way.

The Great Excavation is just the beginning of this exciting project and we look forward to our continued involvement with the Royal Albert Hall in the lead up to their anniversary milestone.

Our round-ups always come in two parts due to the busy nature of our business each year. Check back to read part two tomorrow.