Can Anyone Figure Out How This Timelapse Was Filmed?

The guys at T-Recs (short for timelapse recordings) created a timelapse video that is unlike anything I have seen before. We have all seen timelapse videos that have camera movement but nothing like this. Some how these guys are making really big moves, almost like they are shooting out of an airplane. Anyone know how this sort of thing is done?



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Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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this is called Motion Control Time Lapse. I've done some research and some people shoot just with an tripod. you can see an other example here: http://vimeo.com/16063824 The author said this: 

"shot frame by frame, the order is: a place from where the shoot should
ideally be flat, preferably with a tile (for it is convenient to measure
at regular intervals between the frames and follow the exact
trajectory) can be removed and hands, but with a monopod is easier)).
further very important to accurately aim in each frame (you must choose a
piece on the subject, which is stable and in motion than does not
override and not get lost) aiming through the live view and 10x
increase. the horizon is also important to follow, I use a bubble level.
vobschem it all fits in a backpack and compared with the rails are much
more mobile)). Night footage mainly shot with parapets and perilok
(used area of the slider with ball head), a couple of times with a
tripod, but it is less mobile. - Automatic translation"

Looks like everyone is having a guess at this... So here's mine.

Manually.

I've done similar things before. The hardest part is getting shots properly aligned in post. A tiny difference can ruin the effect. I've done it using a monopod, tripod, hand held, and putting the camera on a hand rail of a bridge... Keep the camera pointed at the same thing for each shot. If you move closer you have to aim up or down more to stay aimed at it...

Defiantly shot with the iPhone 5 ;)

Found a better perspectiv for the first scene: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=sh70psj4bpn7&lvl=18.11774274143...

Also kite aerial photography with a nice pan tilt head and remote might do the trick in most location.

Kite would be to unstable. That are all ground shoots - like the long office building roof you see in the foreground.

A tripod/monopod does seem likey for a few scenes but there are some where the elevation is too great to be each and there is a  section where they go OVER MOVING TRAFFIC. 

I just a plugin for AE, Warp Stabilizer : http://vimeo.com/23374841

They stated on their Website that they are using this technique: 

https://vimeo.com/18651053

It's done on wires, either existing (like telegraph poles etc) or constructed for the purpose. If you look at power pylon in the UK, many of the top most apex wire has another wire wrapped around it. These are fibre circuits carrying all kinds of stuff like TV signals (a lot of broadcasters feed video between stations on these wires). They were installed long after the pylons were built by a mechical device which crawls a long the wire installing the extra fibre circuit as it goes. I'm guessing these timelapses are created with a similar device which carries the camera & intervolometre and is programmed to move along the wire at a set rate.

Some of the shots could well have been done with very long sliders. Ditogears Portaslider ( http://ditogear.com/featured/introducing-portaslider/ ) is a modular slider system that might handle such lengths. Some of the BTS shots show Kessler Crane controllers, so maybe sliders in combination with the revolution head by Kessler Crane...

I am guessing they did it with some sort of camera with a lens type device on it. that is just a guess

Sorry, is the video dead? I can't view it on this site or the T-Recs site.

some of the shots are from public over pass and walk ways. Other shots I believe are shoot from a jib with some sort of elevating platform or spider, that means in moved in two dimensions   

ha no body on here guessed it but ima say... HOT AIR BALLON... the time lapses were defintily over several hours ruling out an rc helicopter which can fly for maybe 10 or 15 minutes at a time (i have one) and then the wires is just a little ridiculous to do and could get super expensive especially for a couple of the first shots way above the ground... and for the lower shots they still could have done it with hot air ballooons and if the clouds werent fake that would also make perfect sense

Look at the clocks in many of the shots...almost all of them were under half an hour.

The City is called Dresden (in Germany) and the shot with the moscque (it's actually an old tabacco factory) has to be shot from a boat on the Elbe river.

Would setting up a guide wire work for these kind of footage? *Think of the awesome guide-wired camera angle at the F1 Silverstone grand prix*

They use Kessler Cranes and Motion Control Gear : http://www.kesslercrane.com/
You can check their Vimeo to see more making of's and tests : https://vimeo.com/trecsgermany
And if you know some German you might also read on their blog/website how they do it : http://www.t-recs.org/

Simply Amazing. 

The video is amazing...nothing like i have seen before done in time-lapse so its amazing...hmmm...i have been reading about the gigapan..can be seen here http://gigapan.org/ it does pano shots and can do time-lapse too..but maybe i could be wrong...

Obviously BLACK MAGIC!

I think it could be from a small vehicle like a golf cart, with someone just panning a tripod head to keep the photos similar. then using photoshop to automatically align the photos

Still not sure why so many people don't think at least some portions of this were shot via wire, zipline, etc..  seems somewhat obvious to me and actually also would reveal why the very small jitters and jumps and sags as the wire would clearly do this.

You know, the same cable system the NFL uses on their big Sunday and Monday night games....

I didnt see anything that didnt look like it was a full ariel shot.
*
Definitely lots of shots across bridges. Most likely done from a dolly like
mentioned below, or a flatbed truck (for the height). Would suspect the dolly,
as it wouldnt impeded traffic in the process not to mention it looked like
similar shots from several venues where vehicles wouldnt be permitted, however
since I havent traveled to these places... I dunno first hand.
* Definitely a
dolly (not a dolly rail system), but a movable platform on wheels for the shots going
across the courtyards, down the grass, down walkways, etc. Like
something on a PT boom arm (ie: Cambo V15 dolly system)
* On the uphill walk
throught the vineyard if not the dolly, then a painstaking process to level the
legs of a tripod.
* On the ending shot, simply a dolly roll along a higher
vineyard level looking across and back to the left. You can see the vineyard
come into the bottom of the frame at the end.

Take all the Timelapse, and
render the video.
Then feed the video thorugh a post-process effect like New
Blue FX - Stablizer, to level out all the video frames and make it look like
a smooth, contiguous video.

yep... definitely using some sort of dolly on a bridge. 
Here's a similar timelapse of Vancouver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xMz2SnSWS4

skip to 1:45 to see the effect

I live in Vancouver so I can confirm there's definitely a bridge there

If you look them up on YouTube the have a video where they BTS themselves playing with a kessler dolly rig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMSIFojSf3g . They could have easily set this up, let it run, pick it up and move it, rinse and repeat. Set it up on top of some 8' step ladders maybe? Easy peasy.

Use a dolly, then move the dolly forward when the camera has finished the length .

I think I know! Its a motorized skycam, its the only explanation. Based on this video, whatever device they are using, is very portable, can reach great height, travel long distance, and is completely motorized = SkyCam :)

Some of the lower angled shots are probably a long slider, but the high stuff that seems to defy physics, SkyCam.

I agree. It definitely looks like a skycam job.

I'm pretty sure it's all on the ground, and the 'high stuff' is actually from overpasses, possibly with a bazooka on a solid, motorized dolly.

Ummm... the rogue seagull from the GoPro video

RC helicopter / apparatis ?

They have a cable system setup you can see at their youtube channel 

GPS integrated Gyro Octocopter and cropping of the images for stabilization. Some crazy sick things being done by people in Europe with them...like mounting a 5dmkII on it, programming it to fly a certain path and altitude and all while beaming the image the oktokopter sees back to the r/c pilot's goggles (FPV: first person view). 
https://www.vimeo.com/search/videos/search:oktokopter/st/5592f962

I'd say Kessler Oracle/Revolution mounted on a scissor lift.

My guess is a couple of goats with a 12ft robotic slider attached in between them.  Sometimes you just have to think "outside" the box.  I used a llama last week on a shoot as my assistant and it was magical.

It's vary old composing technique a sequence of center filmed images composed together in the middle point using morphing or composing software. No slider, dolly or specific equipment is needed.     
https://vimeo.com/16063824

Anyone else see some HDR in there?  That would just add to the complexity of the shoot unless they did it with adjustments in post....which would just up the pain-in-the-ass factor.  Pretty impressive either way!

Robot works?

Why don't we just ask them? lol.

Hey, thats my hometown (Dresden, Germany) in that video!

I've checked out their website and it seems like they usually work with a Kessler Slider and a small handheld gimbal stabilizer, about the size of a GlideCam 2000.

So my guess would be: handheld stabilizer out of a car (or skateboard, or whatever), added post stabilization, voilá...

The first part I think it's easier than how it looks. This are 3 or more "ordinary" cloud's timelapse overlayed and moved in and out the frame with a video editing software. Anyone agree?

anybody know what song they used for this?

My bet would be something like a crane with the camera mounted to the end of it, panning with something like a fluid head and a gyro stabilized system. Electronic gyro stabilization would account for steady shots. Cropping would still cause the images them selves, like buildings, to be jittery.

Looks like they used some trolley sort of thing to achieve the stability !!

i would say your run of the mill cherry picker - not expensive to rent either  - as you can see a bit of movement in the timelapse 

my jaw was helplessly dropping from scene to scene...

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