Time-lapse project: Harry Potter store, NYC
I was involved with a 10-week long timelapse project earlier this year, on behalf of Warner Brothers, as they built out the new Harry Potter store on 5th Ave in Manhattan.
This specific part of the project shown here, was a time-lapse of the mural being painted on an adjacent building to announce and advertise the Harry Potter store.
The mural took 4 days to paint. The camera was in a waterproof housing, powered via a solar panel, which you can see in a photo below.
The weather also changed rapidly, and you can also see the spatter of raindrops on the glass window of the weather-proof dome.
The team finished the mural on a dreary rainy day, but I thought that would be too down-beat a way to end this video, so I let the camera run an extra day into sunshine.
This turned out to be a perfect triumphant way to end this video, with the sun revealing the bright colors of the mural.
Here’s a photo of the camera setup. Since there was no place to mount the waterproof dome containing the camera & battery & timer, I had to mount it on a heavy tripod. I then added studio weights to the legs of the tripod … and wrapped everything in layers of plastic.
To the side you can see where I mounted the solar panel that fed the battery during the 2 weeks this was up on the roof. In the end though, the mural took only 4 days to paint.
This next photo shows the dome open, and the tablet with which I use to program the controller — how many photos I take, and over what interval. There are a number of factors influence the choice of settings, all with the idea of creating as smooth a time-lapse video as possible.
- For more info about Time-Lapse Photography in New York (and New Jersey)