Disneyland time-lapppppse

January 5, 2015 7:31 AM

An entire day in Disneyland, compressed to 90 seconds using composites of over 20,000 images taken in time-lapse. Kind of amazing day to night transitions, immense crowds, and nice slow pans across the landscapes show a familiar place in a whole new light.
posted by mathowie (21 comments total)

I think this video is amazing, but I'm wondering how they got to shoot it, since I suspect the park doesn't really let people do this for the heck of it, especially pro photographers. Did they do it on the sly? How did they not get yelled at if they were using big timelapse rigs to slide and spin the camera slowly on tripods?
posted by mathowie at 7:33 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

koy-aaaaa-nis-qat-siiiii
...
koy-aaaaa-nis-qat-siiiii
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 7:34 AM on January 5, 2015 [8 favorites]

Looks more like a promo / advert for Disneyland - so I suspect they were paid to shoot it rather than had to do it surreptitiously.
posted by mary8nne at 7:35 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, looking at the photographer's personal site, they list "Disney" as a client, so I guess this was paid work. Still, I'm surprised it's sitting on some guy's Vimeo account instead of being only released through whatever official Disney channels they would use for it.
posted by mathowie at 7:43 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

man with gopros you can take pretty stunning photos, in mass quantity.
posted by nevercalm at 7:46 AM on January 5, 2015

These weren't GoPros though, it looks like they used bigger Canon digital SLRs with nice lenses.
posted by mathowie at 7:47 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

no, those were done with a nice camera, for sure, and on timed rails for those awesome slow pans.
posted by nevercalm at 7:53 AM on January 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I needed this today. I especially like and admire that slow curving pan around the Donald Duck statue.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:07 AM on January 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

You can not have this kind of post without mentioning Escape From Tomorrow - previously and on FanFare
posted by lalochezia at 8:47 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Parts of this were really stunning, and (as I'm fighting some kind of post-flu dizziness) parts of it made me feel totally motion-sick. So just like being there basically.
posted by billiebee at 8:53 AM on January 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I suspect the park doesn't really let people do this for the heck of it, especially pro photographers.

I did three days of run-n-gun shooting in the parks to make an app promo, and I went into it expecting them to clamp down on us hard when they noticed what we were doing. Of course we were just two people, one with a DSLR not even a tripod let alone a motion control rig, so wasn't the same as this, but the only time we were approached by security was when I was pretending to be lost and struggling with a map, and a passing security guard stopped to ask if I needed help. Just made the shot even better than we had planned.
posted by frijole at 8:55 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

As long as you are not obstructing park functions or hassling people, I don't see why any amusement park would prohibit photography.
posted by Renoroc at 9:08 AM on January 5, 2015

Bingo, Renoroc. Plus, who could know if we were shooting for a family trip film, or commercially? I think they would rather turn a blind eye to low-impact commercial shooting than to risk coming down on a family thing.
posted by frijole at 9:12 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'd guess they may have taken all the pictures for this as part of building a bank of images to draw from for other Disney projects, but weren't specifically commissioned to produce this in particular. Someone realized they could put this together and then they did. We'll see if Disney takes notice and wants to do something with it.
posted by Four Ds at 9:14 AM on January 5, 2015

I think they would rather turn a blind eye to low-impact commercial shooting than to risk coming down on a family thing.

And if your little commercial project took off...they would just sue you for breach of the terms of admission and get in their cut anyway.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:46 AM on January 5, 2015

Yeah, this is basically what Disneyland feels like.
posted by malocchio at 1:32 PM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

And if your little commercial project took off...they would just sue you for breach of the terms of admission and get in their cut anyway.

Yup, just like they did to the aforementioned Escape from Tomorrow. Oh wait... "At the time of its premiere, Disney said only that it was "aware" of the film; since then the online supplement to Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia has included an entry for the film. Rather than suppressing the film, Disney chose to generally ignore it."

The most tiring part of working on and trying to sell my park guide app was every. single. person. that I told about it immediately responded not by asking me about the app, but with some variation on "Aren't you worried they're going to sue you?" No, I am not. And neither is anyone else who is actually familiar with the factors at play.
posted by frijole at 6:13 PM on January 5, 2015

What was the app, frijole? I've used a bunch of Disney park apps and am always looking for more.
posted by mathowie at 6:54 PM on January 5, 2015

Oh jeez now I feel bad about being such a whiner, and I'm really flattered, thanks mathowie. It was called Magic Map, but it was getting stale and needed updates for iOS 7 (let alone 8) so I pulled it from the store.
posted by frijole at 9:11 PM on January 5, 2015

How to empty your pockets in 90 seconds.

Get a ticket to Disneyland.
posted by stormpooper at 10:30 AM on January 6, 2015

Only vaguely related:
Measles Makes An Unwelcome Visit To Disneyland
-NPR.org
posted by blueberry at 12:09 PM on January 10, 2015