Uploaded by timeaftertimelapse on Feb 25, 2012



This is my first fully themed timelapse project. After a
recent visit to New York and some timelapse work there, I decided on a recent
return visit to make a New York timelapse that I felt truly (for me, anyway)
represented the pulsating, electric vibe of NYC - 'ELECTRIC NEW YORK' was
born.

On a day job trip to New York, I made sure I got a hotel with a
view of Times Square: 'Park Central', New York. With the help of a Lenskirt
(lenskirt.com) which I had delivered direct to the hotel (thanks again Aaron!) I
was able to get the shots at 1:28,
1:38, 1:49
and 2:54 through my hotel window. Impossible without the Lenskirt - I
know from bitter experience because I've had to drop shots in the past because
of reflections.

All images were photographed using the technicolor
'cinestyle' picture profile (see the ungraded Flickr pictures below for the
untreated images if you're interested in the before look of this picture
profile). The technicolor profile shoots a very flat image, and technicolor's
LUT can be applied in post. Since I edited this entire timelapse project in the
64-bit Avid Media Composer 6, this was not possible (since MC cannot import the
LUT, unlike Avid DS), so I simply applied an 'S' curve in the master curves and
made use of spot colour correction on many of the images to super saturate them
in a way I personally feel represents what I had in mind when I conceived of
this project.

On visting NYC, I felt the cars/taxis/busses/bikes were
like electricity pulsating through the streets at the speed of light. So, in
pre-planning I decided to use slightly longer shutter drags than in previous
timelapses, as I knew this would give me the streaking, 'electricity' of light
being painted in each frame by the car head and tail lights.

I had only 3
short nights to complete this project, 14th, 15th and 16th February 2012. It
rained all evening on the last night, which has given me some nice shots, but
meant trying to set up the camera in one hand and hold an umbrella over the lens
with the other in the wind and rain. Without anyone to assist, this was severely
taxing. Hats off to all 'lone timelapsers out there'!

The music used in
the piece is by a German band called '7oop3d'. You can check out their other
awesome work on their website here: 7oop3d.com/unmute/ Thanks guys!

The
end credits also thank 'ERH' and 'guitarguy1985' for their police and animal
sound effects which I've used in the audio mix. You can find their work on
freesound.org.

I lived off coffee and grab and go hotdogs and sandwiches
during the evenings making this, and as anyone who has timelapsed on either the
Brooklyn or Manhattan Bridges will tell you - those things MOVE when traffic
passes, so get ready to do stabilisation in post!

The grading and editing
was all done in the evenings of 22nd and 23rd of February in my hotel room in
Milan, and the final edit lock down was completed on a flight from Milan to
London Heathrow on 24th February 2012.

This is, of course a low
resolution 'web HD' H.264 but was produced in Avid DNxHD 185X


(avid.com/static/resources/US/documents/dnxhd.pdf)

It can also be
made available in ProRes 444 and other flavours if required.

If you'd
like to license any of this footage, then drop me a line at
richardbentley2@gmail.com

Thanks so much for watching and, of course
sharing!
Richard.