Filmed at locations in and around
Jyväskylä, a city in Central Finland. The idea was to show city life in a way that no-one normally experiences it - in time-lapse, often shot from roofs and masts.
Equipment used:
- Sony DSC-R1
- self-made analog interval triggers (a basic 555 timer circuit with a potentiometer and a relay wired to RM-VD1 remote)
- filters (ND, gradient ND, polarizer)
Software used:
- After Effects (+ GBDeflicker plugin)
- VirtualDub (+ Deshaker filter)
- Premiere
- FL Studio and several VST plugins
The process
1. Filming
- time between shots varied from under 1 second for fast-moving subjects to up to 20 seconds for landscapes
- most of the takes were about 300 shots per take (translating to 12 seconds at 25 fps)
- most of the material was shot at the resolution of 1296x864 pixels for easy cropping to 720p
- a total of 95000 still images were shot (over an hour of video) from which the best takes were selected
- longest take lasted about 10 hours
2. Processing
- color correction
- deshaking (some shooting locations, like radio masts, were unstable)
- deflicking (automatic settings were used in some cases to compensate for changes in light amount, which resulted in flickering that had to be removed)
3. Editing video and composing the music
In preliminary editing stages rhythm clips of different time signatures were used to decide the duration of shots and sequences. Music was then composed according to themes in the video - ambient synths for landscapes, fast synths for people, intense beats for cars etc.
The entire project took about 5 months to complete.