AWT4 – Time Lapse Photography (all work done in AWT4/Time Lapse)

This is the art of capturing a natural or man-made process over time with a series of carefully taken photographs at regular intervals.

For example… a flower blooming; clouds and shadows moving over a landscape; ice-cream melting; ants swarming over spilled fod; a fire blazing and burning out; a line-up forming; autumn arriving; snow melting and grass greening; an egg frying; dew evaporating; a spider spinning a web; a shed being built… the possibilities are infinite, and fun!

Here’s a great example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW-AnC_eHX4&feature=dir I will show you other examples made at AHS.

YouTube is full of these – check a few out and get inspired! Yours may not be as elaborate as this example, but you should try for the same feel – interesting processes smoothly animated, time compressed, strange sound effects, maybe a story line or meaning…

Techniques & Tips

All pics have to be put into PowerPoint or Moviemaker, and be framed and exposed identically, so…

• Choose something where you can focus on the same spot every time. Allow for growth of your subject
• If you shoot all in one session, fix your camera in place, either on a tripod or resting on something where it can’t move
• If you shoot at longer intervals (e.g. daily):
• Find a spot or build a stand so you have EXACTLY the same position, focal point, angle, zoom etc.
• Shooting in shade works better, since full sun doesn’t happen every day
• If you can, focus your camera manually, so it won’t jump to different focuses as your subject changes
• You might want to set the shutter speed and aperture manually. This way the lighting will change naturally, rather than your camera trying to even everything out. E.g. if you’re shooting a storm cloud moving in, you want it to get darker, but auto-exposure will counteract this.
• Keep the pic size as SMALL as your camera allows – 640 x 480 pixels is plenty for what you’re doing here, and it keeps the Powerpoint or Movei maker file size down. If the pics are too big, shrink them using the Automate function in PhotoShop (ask me how).

Movie-Making Instructions

Making a Movie in PowerPoint – easier than MovieMaker, but less precise timing, and can’t be saved in movie formats like avi. You can also add a soundtrack in PowerPoint (instructions later…).

Making a Movie in Windows Move Maker – a bit harder, but more precise control of timing, synching with sound etc.

More Examples

“Clouds on Cliffs” and “Dirt” – I will show you these – they’re too big to put on the web!

Bloom – Powerpoint - (click Slideshow on the next page) ç This only seems to work in Internet Explorer, not FireFox. It’s VERY slow to load. Better to open it from I:/AWT4/Time Lapse/Bloom1.ppt and watch it from there!

This shows the most detail, and allowed me to centre & resize images, but the transition effects don’t show on the web

Bloom – exported WMV – shows transitions, BUT the images jump around since you can’t resize & centre images in Movie Maker. I should have taken each image exactly the same size & position, or cropped each one the same in PhotoShop.

Lo res (slower connection)

Hi res (fast connection only)

Your Tasks

1. Exercise: Shrink some existing jpegs and make a quick PowerPoint and MovieMaker Movie.

2. Time Lapse Movie Project.

3. [Optional]: You can also choose to do a different time lapse as one of your summative activities near the end of the semester.

1. Exercise (do this individually, although you can collaborate for help)

a. Choose one of the sets of images in folders under Student:/AWT4/Time Lapse/Samples

b. Use the Batch instructions for PhotoShop Elements to shrink to a smaller size (between 600 and 650 pixels wide – choose a unique value). Make the destination folder for these pics G:/AWT4/Time Lapse/Shrunk

c. Create a quick movie with the shrunken images both in PowerPoint and in Movie Maker. Save the resulting files in as Timex.ppt, Timex.mswmm and Timex.wmv. Make an appropriate sound track in Audition and insert it into both versions. The sound track should include a background of either music or an effect such as wind, plus at least one sound effect or vocal recorded through the mic, processed, and “mix pasted” in.

2. Time Lapse Movie Project (you may work alone or with a maximum of one partner. A group of two will be expected to produce more).

a. The objective is to create an interesting, enjoyable time lapse movie using still photography as a basis.

b. Use PowerPoint, Movie Maker, Flash or any other software that you have access to and know how to use.

c. The topic is up to you. Some suggestions are:

i. A long-term process, such as a shot of a garden taken once a day for a month in spring, or house construction

ii. A shorter-term process, where you might shoot once or several times per minute, such as a crowd gathering, or darkness falling on a city, with clouds blowing by and lights popping on

iii. A staged event, such as the melting of a creamsicle

iv. A “claymation” type of drama

d. Unique, clever movies are worth more than more ordinary ones. So are movies where a lot of effort and planning is evident, rather than ones that took less effort. Try to come up with an original idea, and do it well!

e. All movies must have sound. This should include ambient background “atmospheric sounds” to set a mood, sound effects and possibly music. Original sounds created by you are worth more than stuff you find on the Internet.

f. Start with a title including your name(s). try to end both the video and audio smoothly.

g. Save all images you use in G:/AWT4/Time Lapse/Images. You MUST shrink them to no bigger than 640x480. You will lose marks for leaving excess or unshrunk jpegs around, as well as extra copies of your movies.

h. Once your movie is made, DO NOT move the source files, especially if you work in Movie Maker – otherwise your movie will be messed up if you want to edit again. Exception: if you need to take the project home and back, you can do this on a memory stick. Just make sure you take your whole Time lapse folder.

i. Save the all movie files (.ppt, .mswmm, .wmv) in the folder G:/AWT4/Time Lapse/Movie Project , using the filename Time lapse Your name(s)

j. Because your process may take a long time, you should be working on this a little bit every day for the next month. We will be doing other projects in class, so plan how and when you’ll do your shooting, editing, sound recording and assembly.

k. Do not start shooting without doing some preliminary tests. Your results will be way better if you test your techniques, and it’ll be much easier!

l. Pay attention to hints in this web page, and things I’ll show you and mention in class. A couple of important ones:

i. Keep the camera absolutely still. A tripod works best

ii. Use manual settings which never change for both exposure and focus. Autofocus jumps in and out. You can gradually pan or zoom out if necessary.

m. Due Dates:

i. Plan: a written or printed quick description of what your plan to do (and who’s in your group) by April 10. This must include a sketch of where your camera and subject will be, and notes on

ii. Finished products will be shown in a class festival on May 12. This is what will be evaluated

iii. Along with your finished movie, print and hand in a brief description of the visual and audio techniques used e.g. what are we looking at; where was the camera; how often did you shoot; how was the camera held/moved; what sounds did we hear; what processing did you do; what else makes it good?

More challenging and better executed projects are worth more! Some factors:

• Time period – it’s more challenging to shoot something where you have to come back and set up the camera exactly the same every day for a coup[e of weeks than to set up once for a quick process
• Interesting, unique subject? There are lots of fascinating natural and human processes to try to capture
• Beauty
• Uniformity – of framing, lighting, etc.
• Planned camera movement – how can you do a smooth pan (lateral movement of the camera), zoom in/out, or go from blurred focus to sharp focus (an effect you see at the start of scenes in movies)?
• Sound effects

What Kinds of Time Lapse are Best?

For our purposes, I’d like you to produce an “art” movie rather than an animated story, like you might have done in ComTech.

What does “art movie” mean? Good question, and a little hard to pin down. But here are some thoughts:

• This example -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW-AnC_eHX4&feature=dir – is bigger in scope than yours needs to be, but it’s a good model, because it’s:
• Haunting
• Has images that draw you in – you wonder what’s going on
• not a literal story but has a bit of a storyline
• has a process (the ice melting) that’s beautiful, hard to figure out at first, and reveals a hidden character
• has processes (melting, fire, river flow) combined with some action (the animated character)
• an abstract, manipulated soundtrack which fits the scenes
• It should be a little mysterious or abstract. Maybe shoot from very close shot so you can’t see the context of your subject.
• The subject might include an artwork being created e.g. a sculpted object that builds in front of your eyes, and then maybe melts, or burns.
• Your soundtrack should be full of unusual but fitting sounds. Make good use of sound effects, and especially try pitch and time shifts, reversals. You can have several sound layers going on at once in Audition.