June 2010

Capturing the momentum at the Louvre in Dubai

A visual chronicle of events

How do you capture a special moment? Easy... you take a photo. If it’s more of a special occasion than a moment, you can film it (or better still, have it filmed by a professional crew ;-). But what if you need to capture the momentum of something beyond a moment or an event, let’s say the construction of a new office building? Then a time lapse camera is just the thing to seize the day, week, month,... and make sure you can show off all that hard work to posterity.

Perhaps the term ‘time lapse camera’ doesn’t ring a bell, but you’ve probably seen the technique in nature documentaries in the guise of “fast-forwarded” sunsets or growing plants. Well..., the sunset might still have been filmed by a camera man as a stress-relieving exercise - by lack of a tree to hug - but surely filming growing grass would be overdoing it, and is more likely turn the cameraman into a plant than anything else... Oh, and let’s not forget the amount of tape or digital memory it would take.

Self-contained

So that’s when a time lapse camera is just the thing: to capture the evolution of a subject from a fixed point of view. That could be from up on a crane or a building, for example, anywhere you can get a good angle on your subject. The camera is installed in a weather-proof box and is fully self-contained with a photovoltaic panel providing the energy. Instead of filming, the camera automatically takes shots - or photos if you like - at set intervals (seconds, minutes, hours,...).

As soon as the memory card has been taken out, the video editor can go to work. He or she transforms the shots into a video sequence of your growing office building, adds effects, music, etc. The image doesn’t have to be static all the time, because it’s possible to focus on specific areas thanks to the high resolution of the photos.

Rays of light

A lovely example of the use of a time lapse camera is in a short video the B·U·T office in Dubai made about the “light lab” for the construction of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi. The museum’s design by the renowned French architect Jean Nouvel, features a seemingly floating dome with a web-like pattern that allows the sun to filter through.

To simulate the effect these rays of sunlight will have in the museum, a test set-up was made in the light lab. The time lapse camera gives a perfect impression of how the rays of sunshine light up various areas of the interior as the day progresses.

Time on your side

The time lapse camera creates a very artistic impression here, but that’s not the main reason why we fell for it. Time lapse sequences can add a sense of dynamics to any corporate video, a welcome change to more traditional shots or talking heads, and it can be the perfect visual chronicle of any activity: a way to have time on your side.