With as many years of producing business video as we have, you’d think we’d lose enthusiasm for the tricks of the trade.

But technology is a temptress. New capabilities lead to new enthusiasms, and explorations into how to use those new capabilities to our customers’ best advantage (okay, it helps that we like new toys.)

Time lapse photography and video provides a rare once in a lifetime look at the progress that only telescoped time can provide. Flowers grow, buildings go up, and down, landscapes and skylines change. It is, of course, all “little by little”. But when we use our tools to compress time, we understand so much more. Like:

• What is the vision that is putting these wheels in motion?
• How much work is really involved?
• What impact does what we are documenting have on the culture, psychology and spirit of a city, and it’s people?

Timelapse can be a gimmick, yes. But done properly, it can tell  story. It can represent your unique view of your company, and can be a tribute to your customers, employees, and those who provided the design and labor that fulfilled your vision.

Our vision of timelapse media is this: there’s more than one angle, more than one story, and more than one speed to the event. Whether a day or a year, one camera alone tells only a simple brick and mortar story. In our vision of timelapse, we tell one overarching story, but many min-stories as well. For instance, in the “40 Wall Street” video documenting Duane Reade’s flagship drugstore in the historic Trump Building in New York’s financial district, an inspection of the raw space before construction began made one thing perfectly clear to us: There were at least 5 active areas in the facility, and each would represent a breakthrough in what separate merchandising operations that defined Duane Reade’s new design. Once camera– heck, even three fixed cameras, weren’t going to do the job.

This story had to be told not just from staggering heights, but in extreme closeup as well.

Take a look, and let us know what you think.

Next time, we’ll break down the basic production techniques that helped tell the story.