BTS stories of The City of Boston

On the first post of this blog, i was talking about a timelapse project of mine "The City of Boston". I released the timelapse in early September, and it went viral.  I was lucky enough that Boston.com featured my timelapse on their website here. I am really thankful that alot of my friends and everyone that shared it on their blogs and facebooks. You can check out the timelapse video blow.       

In this post i will tell some of the BTS stories. Before i start let me tell you more about my workflow. I used a canon 7d with 10-22mm, 24-70mm and 100mm to film this timelapse. The camera almost always stay on my tripod, or gorilla tripod (i personally don't recommend you use a gorilla tripod to shoot a timelapse because i ended up spending a lot time fixing those shaky shots). I also used a motorized dolly for those moving shots.  I used a intervalometer to trigger my camera. For most of the shots i used 3-7 seconds interval (between each shots). Afer i finish shooting i used lightroom and LRtimelapse to edit and smooth out my timelapse. By the way LRtimelapse is free you can download it here. 

Let's start with a shot of the ICA (The Institute of Contemporary Art)

This shot was the last footage i took for my timelapse.  I actually didn't plan to go to the ICA to shoot. I planned to shoot a church with a sunset behind it around Fenway area, but the clouds were so thick on the west.  I turned my head to the east and saw there was a clear sky with some nice blue and purple color, so i decided to drive to east of boston, and i knew that it would be nice footage of ICA with a twilight. After a few mintues of scouting i found this shot above. In the timelapse you will see people passing by the scene, and some of those people were my friend (which i met him on my way to shoot a church scene and he wanted to come along) and i. We were walking back and forth to make the scene a bit more busy.

This is the shot of Storrow Drive

 

This shot was the most scary scene of my entire project.  The shot wasn't scary at all but what happened behind the camera was scary. I took this shot from a walking bridge somewhere near the Charles/MGH Station. It was near Mass. General Hospital. The date i went there was something going on there. I could hear police cars everywhere and i saw news reporters from a few news stations. For some reasons it didn't stop me. So i arrived at this walking bridge and started setting up my camera. After about 5 minutes i started to shoot, there was a homeless man walk up to me and started to talk to me.  I was getting kinda scary and i was thinking to stay or leave.  I stayed and prayed that he won't touch my camera or me. I felt like i needed to talk to him so i started to tell him some of the beautiful scenery i saw in New Hampshire. He actually told me that he is from New Hampshire. He also told me that he escaped from Mass General Hospital.  The scary part was when he was about to leave and he told me that he was gonna hit me and run.  Surprisingly he didn't touch me or my camera and i got good footage for my project. I was so lucky!

 

The thrid shot is The First Church of Christ

 

This shot was taken at The First Church of Christ at night.  If you had bring your tripod and your camera to this location you might know that the security guard would come to you and tell you to stop shooting. This time i was lucky.  I was there for half of an hour, and right after i finished and i was about to pack a security guard came up to question me. The lucky part was he didn't ask me to detele my pictures, and he believed what i told him which i told him that i was taking pictures of clouds.

 

 

I hope you enjoy these stories. "The City of Boston" is my first timelapse video, and i am planning to do more timelapse video. If you have any question on how to make a timelapse video or you have questions you can comment on this post. 

 

Update:

LRtimelapse 2 is no longer for free, but you can still download the free evaluation version. The free evaluation version can only render a maximum of 400 images, everything over 400 you have to buy it. here is a link  for more info.

Thx David Howland for the reminder