I recently began a new project to gather timelapse films of the city’s many off-road cycle routes for the Edinburgh Innertube Map project. So far I’ve mainly been shooting shots of rush-hour traffic at dusk on the Union Canal, which is close to where I live. I’m been making a lot of mistakes, but also learning fast in how to get the best shots. Here are some of my early test shots, experimenting with moving timelapse techniques which I picked up from Walid Salhab (see below)
But the idea behind the project is not only to shoot films myself, but also to invite other people in the city to collaborate on the project, and today I’ll be meeting some of the people who have volunteered to help for the first time. We’ll be meeting at a place called Fiveways Junction, where five of the cities former railway lines now converge. From there we’ll branch out to different spots on the lines in time for the volume of bike and pedestrian traffic to pick up between 4:00 and 6:00pm.
I was also lucky enough to meet Walid Salhab from Queen Margaret University, who is a filmmaker, lecturer and something of a timelapse expert. He has got millions of hits for his timelapses of Edinburgh, and he is currently making a timelapse short film called Avaritia about an Edinburgh Banker – check out the astonishing trailer here. I’ll be making a radio piece about that for BBC Radio Scotland later in the year.
