The Story Telling Power of Time Lapse

Film Camera by theREALantimaster

A traditional time lapse involves a stationary camera snapping away at some moving objects. It can look cool, but it’s a bit lifeless. A while ago I had an idea for a time lapse of photos that travelled the world. No photo was planned and the camera was never in the same place twice. What it tells though is an incredible story. It’s the perfect depiction of a snippet of my life, and in this guide I hope to inspire you to create your own, as well as show you how to create it. The best thing is, you’ve probably already got every photo you need to do it.

Here’s some Inspiration

About a year ago while I was flicking through some of my photos I had a realisation. We may take thousands of photos on a holiday or journey, yet we leave it up to a select few to tell the story. We sort through them and pick the prime of the bunch to tweak and share. Probably 95% of the photos we take go to waste and this is a real shame. After all, if the moment is interesting enough to photograph, it should be interesting enough to share.

I realised this during my trip to South Africa on The Simunye Project while I was scrolling through photos on my camera. I hold so many memories from that experience – memories of the children, the people, the animals, the country and memories with my friends – and each memory was coming back as I flicked through my photos. For some reason though I was mentally filtering through all 4000 of them and picking the best based on their artistic qualities. These select photos may have told a story, but it was almost impossible to share the whole experience through a select bunch. A picture may say 1000 words, but in some cases, that’s really not enough.

And then I had this idea.

Why not share all of them? The only real way to understand the experience is to see each and every kodak moment together, because every photo from the start to the finish tells the whole story. So, after finding even more inspiration in a song, I put together this time lapse. If you’re a PhotoGuides regular or if you’ve delved deep into the archives, some of you may have seen this before. It’s called Simunye 3096 (that being the number of photos in it) and I’ve found it to be one of the only ways to tell the whole Simunye story.

It’s one of the few films I never get tired of watching, partly because it’s sentimental, but also because every time you watch it you’ll spot something new.

As I later found out, I’m not the only one who’s played with this concept. One particular film that stands out is ’30 days’ by Michael Mistretta. He bought a Nikon D90 and took over 2,700 photos in the first 30 days with the camera. This film is an incredible display of what he did over those 30 days, as well as of the people in his life. The majority of the photos are of the people around him, and even though you have no idea who anyone is, you sort of get to learn about Michael.

Hopefully you now see the story telling capabilities of Time Lapse photography. Michael probably didn’t even plan to create this. I assume he had a similar epiphany to me when he realised that those 2,777 photos held the story of his 30 days.

Here are some Tips

Photograph Everything and Keep Everything.
If you’re taking a photo of a person and it turns out blury or poorly exposed, keep it because it’s these photos that add to the character of the film. The same applies with photos where you have about 10 of the same thing.

In the edit, Duplicate Photos you want to Emphasise.
In my Simunye 3096 film I doubled up my favourite photos or photos of a significant event. They then stay on the screen for just a split second longer, and this means they’ll always be noticed.

Pick a Good Song.
The song tells half of the story, both through its words and through its rhythm. Michael Mistretta’s film speaks of memories, and the fast piano acts as a conductor for the photos. It’s the same for my Simunye film. The song ‘Any Other World’ by Mika is so relevant to the nature of South Africa, and its piano beat is perfect for the film. Pick your song wisely because it’s probably the most important part of the film.

8-12 Frames per Second
It may be a personal choice, but I’ve found this to be the optimal range of speed. It’s quick enough so that the viewer doesn’t focus on individual photos, but it’s also slow enough for them to recognise just what’s going on.

And Here’s how to Make your Time Lapse.

FrameByFrame (Mac): This is a cool piece of free software that lets you compile all your photos into a video and set the frame rate. Just drag in your photos into the editing window, slide the frame rate to between 8-12 and click play.

Final Cut: If you’ve got Final Cut Pro or Express then I highly recommend you use it. The best way to create your time lapse is to open up a new project, go into the ‘User Preferences’ menu (press option+Q), select editing and then change the default still/freeze frame duration to 00:02 or 00:03. This means that your photo will be displayed for either 2 or 3 frames out of 25 or 30 (PAL or NTSC dependent). Once you’ve done this, simply drag in your photos and they’ll automatically be set to 2 or 3 fps.

QuickTime Pro: If you’ve got QuickTime then you’re in luck, because it’s got an excellent feature for creating Time Lapse films. You’ll first need to put all your photos into a single folder containing nothing else. Then you can open up QuickTime and click file, ‘Open Image Sequence’ and select the first image in that folder. It should then ask you the frame rate (choose around 10fps), click ok and then it should create your time lapse for you.

VirtualDub (PC): As a Mac user I’ve not been able to try this program out, so I can’t offer any tips on how to use it. It’s been recommended to me by others, so I presume that means it works.

Windows Movie Maker: As much as I hate to admit it, Windows Movie Maker can make a fairly good time lapse. You can drag in all of your photos and then set a duration for each image. There’s a pretty good tutorial for it over here.

Finally, Share your Time Lapse Story.

If you’ve created a time lapse, then I’d love to see it, so if you’ve uploaded it to youtube or vimeo then feel free to share the link. If I like it, I might even pop it up here for everyone else to see.

Time Lapse photography of this nature is very simple. It involves no planning and can only take a few minutes to put together. The story telling capabilities though are astounding, and this form of time lapse can revive memories and tell stories you may otherwise have forgotten.

Good Luck!