What Are the Possibilities? - Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Traditional Animation Techniques - page 10

Time-lapse photography is a form of stop motion shot in a controlled and
consistent manner. The effect of the time lapse is that it speeds up time and
events so the viewer can study an event from a different point of view. This
perspective and different temporal perception can give us a more expanded
understanding of our world and ourselves. One of the most common uses of
this technique is the blossoming of a flower sped up to ten or more times the
actual event. Anyone can see an hour of real time go by in just 1 second. So
much more can be achieved with this approach to stop-frame photography. Not
only can events be recorded at an accelerated rate but animators can use this
technique to pixilate objects and people. It is critical that the time-lapse camera
have an intervalometer, or timer, associated with the camera so the shutter can
expose the film or digital image sensor at an even rate. The even exposure rate or
shooting interval of the camera reveals the natural rate or evolution of an event
in nature sped up and compressed into a short viewing time.
Once again, George Melies was a pioneer in this area. His continued
experimentation with film found him exploring time-lapse photography as
is seen in the 1897 Film Carrefour De L'Opera ( Film Crossroads of the Opera ).
Other early uses of time-lapse photography were associated with science.
Biology and various phenomenon of nature became the prime focus for this
technique. The technique has the benefit of speeding up slow action and
motions, giving the viewers a better understanding of how nature works. The
Russian-American Roman Vishniac used it in the early twentieth century, and
his interest in nature included microscopic photography and the movement of
living creatures. The work of John Ott in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s became
a technique landmark. Ott, an American banker by trade, was fascinated with
the growth of flowers and how nature and light affected them. He cobbled
together enough photography equipment controlled by an intervalometer and
put his lens on various plants in his own greenhouse. His expanded knowledge
of how plants grow and are affected by the environment led him deeper into
this technique of stop-frame photography. He created an early motion-control
machine that moved the camera increment by increment, frame by frame
as the camera captured a plant's progress over a long period of time. This
movement of the camera from position A to B added a poetic element to the
more scientific locked camera positions.
This inspired many filmmakers for years to come, including the rich and
refined time-lapse photography of the British filmmaker David Attenborough,
as illustrated in his 1995 film, The Private Life of Plants . Many sequences in this
film focus on plant flytraps. The time-lapse photography of the growth and
feeding habits of these plants rival any science fiction film ever made. Yet,
nature provides these creatures and time-lapse photography allows us to
view them with an expanded point of view.
The British Oxford Scientific Film Institute, in the 1950s and 1960s, went a long
way to refining the scientific use of time-lapse photography and inspired many
filmmakers and scientists like Attenborough and Ron Fricke. In the early 1980s,
American filmmakers Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke created a feature film based