Stars go whoosh
April 3, 2008 5:21 PM   Subscribe

Ross Ching is a time-lapse photographer. Ross traveled across the US, Argentina, and Chile to shoot Eclectic 2.0 (480p Quicktime) with a DSLR mounted on a telescope tripod. Here's some production stills. See how it was made here and here. View a flash version at the website of The Ghost Orchid, who provided the music.
posted by Sfving (17 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's Koyaanisqatsi on amphetamines, coooooool.
posted by localroger at 5:41 PM on April 3, 2008 [1 favorite]


cool. thanks.
posted by rooftop secrets at 5:46 PM on April 3, 2008


It is said that sound is more than 50% of the movie. That could not be truer. I scoured the internet (mostly MySpace) to find someone who had the specific feel that I was going for.

Does every time lapse video HAVE to have the do-da-de-deetle-de (repeat 1000 times) music?

I must admit that I really liked the music. It is just the two together...tiresome
posted by paddysat at 5:49 PM on April 3, 2008


As localroger has stated this brings to mind Ron Fricke's Koyaanisqatsi, Chronos and Baraka . Clips - 1, 2, 3, 4. Previously on MeFi -- 1.
posted by ericb at 5:51 PM on April 3, 2008


I think the music made me nauseous... That and the spinning while time-lapsing just made me wanna hurl.

I'll take Koyanisqaatsi and Baraka and Philip Glass anyday over this. Seriously.

The stills, on the other hand, are quite nice, and a wonderful tonic to the overstimulated shite that's the video.
posted by symbioid at 5:58 PM on April 3, 2008


If you're going to build a movie just out of nature time-lapses you need an exquisite sense of pacing, flow and development. This, unfortunately, doesn't have it. I found myself glancing away early on.
posted by argybarg at 6:03 PM on April 3, 2008


I liked it. The use of panning was actually something I'd never seen before .
posted by delmoi at 6:42 PM on April 3, 2008


It felt like he was trying to squeeze in as many different scenes as he could into three minutes. Just overall *too fast*. A lot of the scenes looked like they would have been a lot more enjoyable at a somewhat slower pace, and for a longer duration.
posted by agress at 6:49 PM on April 3, 2008


That was pretty and I love the use of the panning. Saw it first in the BBC Planet Earth series where it is beautifully done in a number of sequences.

I've been experimenting with time lapse (non-panning) recently using my camcorder and stop-animation software. Mostly on clouds moving past my window. Its fun and remarkably easy. The method I use is a lot simpler than his, though it probably means sacrificing some image quality and having the necessity of a laptop connected to the camera while its going. Also, no panning.

Anyways, If anyone is interested: Basically after pointing my camcorder and tripod to the view that I want, I connect the camera to my laptop via a firewire and set the software (I use animatordv simple (freeware) to time and capture frame by frame at whatever rate for however long. When done I can simply export the set of frames as an avi and thats it.

I know its possible to do the same with still digital cameras (or even a webcam) but some sites i read recommended using a camcorder over them. Also, I believe there are only a few software programs out there that let you do it in high definition but the technology is there.

In any case, its an enjoyable process especially if you want to do something 'creative' while simultaneously laying in bed sick, as I was last week.
posted by troubles at 7:46 PM on April 3, 2008


Does every time lapse video HAVE to have the do-da-de-deetle-de (repeat 1000 times) music?

You haven't seen At War with Baraka yet, have you? If you search there's a higher quality torrent of it out there, unfortunately atwarwithbaraka.com is now dead.
posted by Null Pointer and the Exceptions at 7:47 PM on April 3, 2008


United Cutlery is a little less do-da-de-deedle-de.
posted by tighttrousers at 9:19 PM on April 3, 2008


You haven't seen At War with Baraka yet, have you?

As a matter of fact I have seen that (and I have actually been to the spot where that was filmed).

And the Monkey Chant footage in that movie was not originally presented with the do-da-de-deetle-de music that most of the rest of the movie that the footage was pulled from was scored with. AND that isn't time lapse which is the other important point in my previous comment.
posted by paddysat at 10:20 PM on April 3, 2008


I want a tenth as many locations in a clip twice as long.
And I reckon Philip Glass is looking for work.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:19 AM on April 4, 2008


Neat. Now who's gonna buy me an equatorial mount?
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:37 AM on April 4, 2008


I use the Olympus SDK and Pine Tree Camera Controller to shoot time lapses. This way you can shoot high resolutions with exact ASM settings and virtually no limit on the number of frames or shooting time (except for batteries). It's a lot of fun. I live in a fairly bright and populated area and was still able to get some stars rotating and some shooting stars when I used really long exposure times.
posted by autodidact at 10:55 PM on April 4, 2008


I want a tenth as many locations in a clip twice as long.

Seconded. They were over just when they started to get interesting. I kept waiting for them to just pick a spot and let it run for a couple of days... but no.

I had this idea for a series of videos all shot from the hoods of various "dream" cars a-la C'était un Rendezvous. They would all be long, continuous shots stretching along some appropriate highway. I figured you'd match the car to the scene, so, a '67 Shelby Mustang and, say, Route '66, or a Testarosa driving around Miami, maybe a suped-up 30's Ford around Chicago... the key was that they all had to be continuous shots, so no red lights, most likely night-time shots, and all you'd hear would be the roar of the car's engine for background music. You wouldn't even have to speed them up much.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:44 PM on April 5, 2008


Wow, I just realized this guy's work was previously featured on Metafilter without attribution. He's come a long way in a few years - and he's still only in college!
posted by Sfving at 9:05 PM on April 6, 2008


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