Cannes Festival begins today ! We took this opportunity to talk about time-lapses and cinema. Timelapse is little used in movies and often restricted to documentary films (e.g. Baraka, the Qatsi trilogy). However, we’ve found lots of timelapses dealing with the making of some movies. That’s why we are offering here three timelapses took from the backstages !

 

These three videos take us behind the scenes, showing us their construction. They are dealing with real construction site, a tedious work we acknowledge thanks to the timelapses. Indeed, it’s sometime pretty complicated to realize all the work done on a movie.

1 – The unforgettable party of the Great Gatsby

This timelapse of the Great Gatsby shows us the construction of one of the movie’s houses. It’s linked to one of the most famous scenes of the movie : the great party Gatsby hosts in which the narrator is introduced to him ! But this video isn’t only about the construction of a fake house. It’s dealing with the transition between the construction of the props and the shooting of scenes in it !

2 – The mammoth task of Kubo and the Two Strings

This timelapse  tracing the work made on the animated movie Kubo is fascinating. More than a timelapse, it’s a mise en abyme where pictures of people filming in stop motion are taken ! We discover how some scenes were filmed and how the props were made. Whether you’ve seen Kubo or not, it’s a great timelapse video for who want to know more about how animated movies are made !

 

3 – The witty ending of Boxtrolls

Finally, here’s a kind of eye blink made at the end of the animated movie Boxtrolls ! As a tribute to the movie team, two characters talk about their lives, thinking about the eventuality of some giants commanding their behaviours. Then, a timelapse of someone working on them is appears overprinted. We couldn’t not share this to you since how this scene is wisely made !

 

Isn’t all of this really impressive ? One more time, this proves how timelapse can reveal the invisible. All these videos are a few minutes long but dealing with lots of months of hard work !

Some articles around the uses of time-lapse