Film Language Techniques - Time Lapse

While researching other A2 students media projects to compare to ours, Dave came across a short film called 'The Waters Echo' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PS1ET43kF0). There were a few things I really liked about this film but the main thing was a clever camera technique where the film went in to a time lapse of cars on the motorway but the characters stayed in real time (at 6:28). I think this technique looks really professional and gives this short film a surreal feeling. Another reason why this is effective is because it makes the characters seem isolated from the real world, or can be open to other interpretation.

The way this is achieved is by setting the camera up on a tripod and filming for a few hours. Then film the same shot with the characters standing there. When it comes to editing, the first clip is sped up and the right hand side of the shot is cut out and replaced by the real time shot with the characters which is lined up to match the time lapse shot. Giving the effect that time is going by quickly while the characters stay the same.

I couldn't think of another specific film which uses this technique although I have seen it used in films before. However I found another advanced example of this effective technique. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXP4OtMnN8)

I also found some normal time lapses which I really liked because they can be used to show processes that would be subtle to the human eye, that when sped up, become very pronounced. For example, the sun rising/setting, cloudscapes, plants growing or a busy city etc. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXOXns_gx8k) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCGuSqBjhfE)