You’ve probably seen footage that creates an impossible blend of fast-flowing traffic or streaming clouds combined with someone walking slow motion and there’s some funky editing that goes into making it happen. Time-lapse photographer and filmmaker Matthew Vandeputte has put together a short tutorial on how you can create the same effect.
Vandeputte is a bit of a guru when it comes to shooting run-and-gun time-lapse footage and if there’s a shortcut to creating a specific effect, he’s probably found it. As Vandeputte notes, there are various ways to achieve this seemingly impossible fluidity of time, but this technique is a quick and dirty method that uses some handy features found in Adobe After Effects.
If you’re not sure how to create a time-lapse of a setting sun, it’s worth checking out Vandedputte’s other tutorials as there’s a real art to the craft; not only do you have to adjust your camera settings when shooting the raw files, you also need to know how to edit them to create footage that is consistent and flicker-free. Fundamental to the process is a piece of software called LRTimelapse that will smooth out the footage.
Once you have your time-lapse and your silhouette, the method for blending the two together is alarmingly simple, albeit with some fiddling of a few variables to get the best results.
If you'd prefer to read through the process step-by-step, head over to Vandeputte's blog.