from aha to hyperlapse

Who can't remember Aha's Take on Me (you millennials you...)? Take on Me was the first song Morten Harket heard from Magne Furuholmen e Paul Waaktaar-Savoy. It was still called "Lesson One" at the time. After several re-recordings it became an international hit in 1985. Sales were surely aided by the videoclip which alludes to the climatic scenes of Ken Russell's Altered Sates. The videoclip used a new technique called rotoscopy which combines animation sketches and video.

Much later, in 2002, the band would release the video for Lifelines. This one is based in an award winning short movie by norwegian director Morten Skallerud (1991) called "A Year Along the Abandonded Road" or Året gjennom Børfjord in the original language. It took 105 days to shoot the short's 12 minutes compressing an entire year in the Børfjord in Hasvik passing by at 50.000 times the normal speed. The short was edited for the videoclip - shortened to 4 minutes and the band's elements introduced in post.

Året gjennom Børfjord used a technique now called Hyperlapse - a timelapse movie in which the camera moves creating a tracking shot. The term itself was coined by American filmmaker, Dan Eckert. The technique though dates to 1986 when Guy Roland experimented with it in Super8 film camera. His Spacer movie shot in 16mm film - an elaborated version of 1991's Pace shot in Super8 in Montreal -  is claimed to be the first hyperlapse movie, even though having been release 4 years after Året gjennom Børfjord.

Canadian design agency teehan+lax have crested in 2013 a UI you can use to make your own hyperlapse movie using google street view images as source material using its full 360º scene capture capabilities.

Now you can use the Hyperlapse from Instagram app to easily create your own movies. It uses Instagram's stabilization technology and the mobile device’s camera app so you can capture handheld while walking, running or jumping. You can select your speed. The app allows you to share your videos directly to facebook and instagram but you don't need to sign up to use it. Here's an example of what you can do with it: