I guess this video has been a few years in the making. Taken from a dozen or so hotel windows, bike rides and car rides around China, this is a compilation of time lapses of cities in China.
Initially I was going to make a new time lapse of a bike ride around Beijing but, when I finished, it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. So, instead of trying to create more video footage, I decided to use what I had available.
I’ve been planning to make a video like this for quite some time and now presented itself as a good a time as any to complete it. Compiled from multiple trips around China, I used a GoPro 6 and GoPro 9 to capture these time lapses. Whether it was in a hotel window or on the streets, I used various capture settings so I can’t give exact details on them. But the overall effect is pretty neat. There was only one or two clips I sped up (notably the complete sunrise to sunset in Urumqi) so I could keep the flow of the overall video. Other than that, various settings from 5s to 30s. For long-duration time lapses, 15-30s is usually best. For shorter durations (such as a bike ride), 2s would probably be better.
I left the colour settings as their default, so what you see in the video is what the GoPro saw.
Soundtrack was made by me on the iPad and is titled “Piano Plink for Timelapse” as that’s what it basically is. I set the piano to “sustain” for the Major Pentatonic scale. From there, I moved from lower notes to higher notes, that’s about it. I think I did something similar (if not altogether the same) for one of the challenges for Jamuary.
The video didn’t take long to create but it did take a while to sift through all of the footage I have stored on my harddrives. Since these were all taken within the last few years, everything was shot at 4K resolution, except the night lapses which were either 2.7K or 1080p. Overall, the image quality is pretty clear.
Overall, six years in the country and this is all I have to show for it! Hope you enjoyed!
Full May You Make Your Movie playlist below: