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My flight out of Chicago was delayed so I mounted the webcam and did an ambient lapse of O'Hare's Terminal 3.

I think some of the most interesting visual features are the consonant and dissonant movement of the crowds, the columns and lines across the ground, the flags, and various reflective surfaces.

Around 1:13 I ran into a cute girl with big headphones and followed her from a distance until 1:38 where I lost her. Somewhere near the end I found her again, she was leaving from gate K2 to who knows where, and my plane was about to leave.

I didn't have a microphone, so I chose a more ambient track that sounded something like the movement looked ("Ahuvati" by Kaki King). In retrospect, I'm most interested in the unintended connections that emerged between the audio and visuals. 1:38 is the only point I synced on purpose, but there a lot of other moments implied.

I'd like to write something that can analyze video for rhythm and harmony the same way we analyze audio. It would be a great tool for transcoding audio to video in the manner of Michel Gondry's "Star Guitar" video or Norman McLaren's "Begone Dull Care". Or, perhaps better, transcoding video into audio?

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  • clickykbd 3 years ago
    Nice. I agree about the unintended syncs being interesting.

    You totally should have ridden one of those carts around too. Or found some people mover belts if that airport has any. I find myself wanting to see other forms of locomotion presented this way, beyond the "walking" form that has been of all clips so far.

    Am I mistaken in feeling that this video used a different frame capture algorithm than the other two? It felt slightly "less ambient"... less frames averaged... or less time between the sampled frames? It could just be the difference in the structure of the space that made it feel this way.

    Ended on a self portrait?
  • Kyle McDonald 3 years ago
    Yeah, I really wanted to get on one of the carts! But all the drivers were really focused. I'd like to see what smooth movement looks like too, and if is as ambient as all the up/down from walking. Unfortunately Chicago has no moving sidewalks in Terminal 3.

    The "exposure length" is 32 frames instead of 128, and the time between captures is about 3/4 of a second instead of every 1 second -- good eye.

    Yes, the camera happened to be pointing at me when I put my backpack down and pulled out my laptop.

    I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling soon, I'm hoping to get some trains and whole plane flights. Imagine seeing the whole USA from the air in 5 minutes :)
  • clickykbd 3 years ago
    It would also be fun to find contrasting motion situations. Where half of the subject of the frame is relatively still, and the other half moving quite alot. A couple trivial examples:

    1) The silhouettes of the backs of heads against a performance of some kind.

    2) the camera mounted in a vehicle facing forward with passengers and dash visible, but everything outside the windows time smeared.

    I just realized both of those involve relatively stationary cameras. Which I guess is something I haven't seen you upload yet.
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  • cohnjoyne 3 years ago
    I am planning to shoot (time lapse but not ambient) my train ride home from work tomorrow... if it works I'll post and let you know.
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  • Remyyy plus 3 years ago
    I love that blurry movement and the fact it's not stable. It fits really well with the "not stable" guitar track.
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  • smpl 3 years ago
    Very nice! I have two clips that kinda remind me of this, but mine are nowhere near as good. What camera and software or editing technique did you use?

    vimeo.com/clip:195113
    vimeo.com/clip:161058
  • Kyle McDonald 3 years ago
    I use a Creative Optia webcam, there's more information on the technique here: rpi.edu/~mcdonk/AmbientLapse
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  • Steve Holt 2 years ago
    I really like that look. Very nice and well put together.
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  • nshack 2 years ago
    I think its really interesting. I looked at your site and saw some more. Cool stuff!
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  • andii 10 months ago
    hcan i use this for my video ?
    then i will show you soon :)
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