Williams Scotsman | Timelapse Promotional Video

Project Details

Williams Scotsman designs, manufactures and installs modular space solutions for offices, sporting events, retail outlets, and all kinds of other applications.

They recently took on a project in Greeley, Colorado, assembling over 30 mobile units to construct a 5-year home for many of Greeley’s municipal and judicial services, including a courthouse, registrar, county clerk, and district attorneys offices.

They tasked me with capturing the project from beginning, to near completion.

Over the course of six days, I ended up shooting 22,662 images, using two Canon 5D Mark III’s, and a drawer full of memory cards.

I employed two Kessler Crane motion-control rigs, along with various tripods and mounts to attach the cameras to forklifts, vehicles, and modules in transit.

I also utilized a technique known as “hyperlapsing” which involved hand-holding the camera, snapping a photo, taking a step, snapping a photo, taking a step… and so on and so on, until I had produced enough frames to create a couple seconds of footage. Those clips were then stablized in After Effects, to smooth out some of the bumps.

Lastly, I shot a few aerial sequences, in order to provide the most dramatic possible reveal of the finished structure.

In addition to timelapse photography, I also provided the client with editing, color-grading, music selection, and motion-graphics design and animation.

This project was a HUGE amount of fun to work on, but it did require a pretty significant amount of patience, as all 22,662 images needed to be organized, cataloged, converted from raw to JPEG, and assembled into video clips.

I’m extremely happy with the way it turned out, and I would work with this client again in a HEARTBEAT.

Not only were their creative and marketing staff phenomenal to partner with, the on-site crew was a BLAST to spend a week with. Those guys are INCREDIBLY skilled professionals, and absolutely tireless workers. They worked so quickly and efficiently, I was often in awe of how much they were able to get accomplished in such a relatively short time. It was definitely inspiring, and motivated me to bring my A-game as well.

My enormous thanks and appreciation goes out to everyone involved for making this such a thoroughly enjoyable project!