We share some of the key tips and tricks on how a time lapse video can bring your project to life to wow your clients, stakeholders, and potential customers.
Time Lapse Videos are the perfect visual document of your construction projects.
The right time lapse video can bring your project to life in a way that will wow your clients, stakeholders, and potential customers.
WCCTV has been supplying time lapse video filming and production services to construction companies around the globe for over two decades.
During this time, we have learned a thing or two about what makes the perfect video.
What is Construction Time Lapse Video?
The objective of a time lapse video is to condense events that occur over months or years into a video that lasts just a few minutes.
This is achieved by capturing significantly fewer images or 'frames' per second than a standard video.
As a rough rule-of-thumb, a ‘real-time’ video will capture 24 to 30 frames per second. A time lapse, on the other hand, will capture as little as one frame per minute.
When these captured images are played back, they show the progress of a construction or demolition project fascinatingly and quickly.
This increasingly popular technique of compressing several years of construction work into a clip of just a few minutes allows construction companies to showcase their work and provide a wide audience with a unique insight into how a construction project comes together.
How Does Time Lapse Video Benefit Construction Companies?
We have previously detailed the Benefits of Construction Time Lapse Videos and explored Why All Construction Site Should Install Time Lapse Cameras.
Those articles provide a comprehensive insight into why time lapse services are rapidly increasing in popularity.
Below is a short summary of some of the key conclusions:
-
Promotional Benefits: Video marketing is one of the most effective way of promoting your business. Collectively, we watch 100s of minutes of video content online every day. Time lapse videos are quick and eye-catching to help you win more business.
-
Celebrate Your Team: Being able to present regular update videos showing your progress will engender a sense of accomplishment and pride amongst your teams, especially when they're working to tight deadlines.
-
Internal Engagement: Provide video snippet updates of your progress to your clients and stakeholders to avoid them having to attend the site.
-
Engage Your Community: The impact of construction works on the neighbouring community can create a negative reaction with the disruption caused by noise, dust, and increased traffic and footfall. A time lapse video can help demonstrate the transformative effect your work is having and highlight your work's considerate nature.
What Makes the Perfect Time Lapse Video?
Unlike any other video shoot, you only have one chance to get it right with time lapse filming - there are no second takes.
Preparation and knowing what to do (and what not to do) are essential.
Below, we highlight the key elements we believe are most important to ensure you capture the perfect time lapse video:
-
Determine Your Objectives: It's important to know whether your time lapse video will be used for marketing or internal review only. This will affect where you place the cameras.
-
Stability: Ensure your time lapse camera is firmly installed on a secure platform to minimise the effect of high winds and mitigate camera shaking and movements that could spoil your video.
-
Environment: Your construction time lapse cameras are installed outdoors so that they will be subjected to changing weather conditions. Rain, for example, can distort the lens of the camera. Similarly, construction sites are dusty, dirty environments, and wind can kick the dust onto the camera lens, potentially spoiling your video. We advise you to regularly check the footage and clean your camera lens as soon as you see an issue. You can mitigate the impact of rain by selecting a camera with a rain shield.
-
Glare: This can ruin hours' worth of footage, so planning and preparation are essential. Consider ahead where the sun is positioned during the day and be aware that it will move with the seasons. This means your cameras may need to be moved to mitigate glare.
-
Video storage: Construction projects can run over several months, even years, so choosing a system with adequate video storage capacity, connectivity, and consistent powering is essential. WCCTV's time lapse cameras mitigate against this by having limitless cloud storage, internal recording capacity for periods of connectivity loss, and autonomous powering options.
The specific placement of your cameras is also critical in ensuring you get the best possible overview of the project.
Must-Have Features of Construction Time Lapse Cameras
Preparation and positioning can make or break your time lapse project, but your efforts may be for nought if you fail to install the right equipment or work with the wrong provider.
Below, we highlight the must-have features you should demand from your equipment provider.
-
High Resolution: To capture your project’s details, you will need an HD camera highlighting all the key details. Your camera should have a minimum of 5-10 megapixels and at least 1080p resolution. At WCCTV, we provide cameras that offer resolutions up to 4K.
-
Environmentally Tested: Your construction time lapse camera is likely to be installed outside, so it must withstand dust and water ingress.
-
Onboard Storage and Cloud Backup: As mentioned earlier, your time lapse camera will capture many images over a long period, so they must feature adequate storage to last the whole project. loud storage will also ensure that your footage isn't lost in the event of any hardware issues.
-
Continuous Power: Losing even an hour's worth of footage could be the difference between a perfect time lapse video and one that is worthless. Mitigating against power outages is vital, which is why WCCTV backs up its time lapse cameras with off-grid solar options.
-
Remote Access: Being able to remotely access your cameras means you can always check on-site progress, no matter where you are. Secondly, you can check to see if the image has become distorted by sun glare, dust, dirt, or rain.
What's the ideal time lapse video length?
Broadly speaking, marketers have settled on 2-3 minutes as being the ideal length for online video content.
Time lapse videos are somewhat unique, and there are no set rules as construction periods can be vastly different.
Over the years, WCCTV's marketing experts have worked towards a set of guiding principles to ensure every video they produce is the optimal length. Our Head of Communications explains this process below:
The length of each time lapse video we produce directly correlates to how many images we capture.
At the start of each project, we determine a pre-set recording interval and regularly review this to ensure we've got it right.
We determine how frequent recording intervals should be based on several factors, including:
-
Project Length: The length of the construction project will almost always determine how frequently we capture images. For example, we might capture an image every 1 minute on a two-month project, while a two-year project would be more like every 10 minutes.
-
Working Hours: We will communicate with the client ahead of time to determine their working hours to check whether we need to record during the evening and weekends and whether there are any periods of significant activity where we need to increase recording frequency.
-
Type of Project: One of the things we've learned over the years is you have one shot at getting this right. If we're recording a demolition project and we miss the building coming down, we can’t ask the client to put it back up again for 'take-two'. That's why we try to learn as much about the project as possible and continually communicate with the customer.
Time Lapse Video Filming and Production for Construction Sites
WCCTV is a specialist provider of fully-managed Time Lapse Video filming and production services for construction and demolition works, including highways and utilities infrastructure projects.
Our team of installation engineers and video editing professionals will create a time lapse video that brings your projects to life in stunning high-definition up to 4K.
A Time Lapse Video could be for you if you're looking for a proven method of generating publicity, engagement and new business.
We can provide time lapse video cameras that do not require additional onsite infrastructure, installation work, power sources or connectivity - meaning we can capture video where others can't.
Ready to find out how Rapid Deployment CCTV can work for you? Get in touch today at 0800 470 4630 or request a call back
