Time-lapse photography : Evco mechanical – crane construction
Four cameras capturing different angles as this 500 ton crane was erected overnight. There were a few challenges here that night – this crane was massive. Really tall, and I had to show that in a horizontal format. This meant that cameras had to kept being moved to photograph the construction as the crane was laid out in the parking lot. Yet there had to be at least one camera photographing the overall construction site. Working from 9pm to around 5am, another challenge was to stay warm on this cold night.
Editing this video was relatively straight-forward in that there were consecutive video segments from each of the cameras, which totaled up to the same final video length for each camera. This allowed me to cut between the various cameras, and still retain a fairly linear timeline to show the progression of how the crane was constructed. The final video is a good representation of the hard work and the precision with which this company constructed the crane through the night – all compressed into a 2 minute timelapse video.
The photo below shows two of the cameras, each on a rock-solid tripod. That’s one of the key elements in the success of this kind of timelapse video – the cameras should ideally remain absolutely still while recording each sequence of the entire process.
