There’s no denying that last April’s lunar eclipse — also known as Blood Moon — was a sight to behold. This thrilling timelapse video by Andrew Walker is proof that there’s no getting over the Blood Moon just yet.
Set to the score of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, you’ll want to view “Lunar Odyssey” on fullscreen with the volume turned all the way up:
Did you know this was shot with a zoom lens used on IMAX cameras? We got a hold of the filmmaker Andrew Walker to tell us more about how he created this timelapse. Read on and get inspired!
Hi Andrew! How long did it take for you to shoot this?
ANDREW WALKER: I was out at the CARMA array, shooting for a little over 9 hours. I started once the moon began to rise, and ended when the eclipse stopped.
Where did you shoot this, and what influenced your choice of location?
ANDREW: This was shot out at the CARMA array near Big Pine, California. This was the third location I wanted for the eclipse. My first location choice was up the White Mountain Road to get some bristlecone trees in the shots, but the road was closed due to snow. My second choice of location was Joshua Tree. A lot of where I chose to shoot was dependent on the weather. There were reports saying the area near the CARMA array was going to be too cloudy for the eclipse. Then right as I was getting ready to leave L.A., the weather report changed, saying clouds weren’t going to come in until much later.
How did you prepare for this shoot?
ANDREW: I prepared at the very last minute for the shoot. I had just come back from Las Vegas when I found out there was going to be lunar eclipse. During the weekend before the eclipse, I looked at stills that I took of the last lunar eclipse three years ago to prepare. I wanted to figure out what my exposure settings would need to be when the moon was in total eclipse. So that helped me get a lot of the shots to look a certain way where you can see some detail in the moon when it turned red.
You shot this video on two 5D Mark III cameras, and a RED Epic with a Canon Century zoom lens that is also used on IMAX cameras. Sounds awesome. Can you talk about the gear you used, and how they achieved the effect you wanted in your timelapse?
ANDREW: I tried to secure a telephoto lens from a rental house, but that didn’t work out. So my neighbor helped me out by letting me borrow a Canon Century 300-1200mm T11 IMAX lens to shoot with. I brought the RED Epic because I knew I wanted to use the 300-1200mm lens with it to capture real-time footage. At 1200mm, the moon moves pretty fast. I brought the motion-control gear because I wanted to get a shot that had parallax in it, which happens when you dolly to the left and pan to the right. The effect makes it seem like the environment is almost on a turntable. It’s also a good way to show a camera move with large objects.
What influenced your choice of music? The track from 2001: A Space Odyssey really created an eerie mood!
ANDREW: When I saw the shoot of the moon in my LCD almost covered by the earth’s shadow, I thought of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and how ominous its director Stanley Kubrick had made his shots by using that piece of music. I really wanted to give this the same type of feeling. I am a big fan of Kubrick. He was a director that seemed to understand photography so well. Not many directors are like that.
Now let’s talk about you. Is photography and videography a hobby or a full-time job for you?
ANDREW: Photography, videography, and timelapse aren’t full-time jobs for me. I do jobs as they come up and I have personal shoots I do to make videos, which I sell as stock footage. My other job is a projection engineer at Warner Bros Studios. The job there is a daily hire situation, so I don’t know when I’m working from one day to the next. But because of the way it is set up, WB is very understanding of me taking off to shoot timelapse videos.
How did you get into photography, and later on, transition to creating short films? Or did film come first before photography?
ANDREW: I started making stop-motion animation videos when I was ten years old using LEGOs and a camcorder. Later in high school, I made skate videos of my friends, and that was a lot of fun. When I moved down to L.A., I did a couple of short films that were okay. In 2006, a friend showed me a timelapse video that was shot on a DSLR. I realized that I could do the same thing with my Canon Digital Rebel. After that, I started shooting timelapses all over the L.A. area.
Do you have any advice for 500px photographers who would like to shoot timelapses?
ANDREW: Find something that interests you to shoot. Or something that you haven’t seen done before. That is the best way to get yourself noticed, and to get the most enjoyment out of shooting timelapses.
Do you have any upcoming projects in the works?
ANDREW: I’m working on a three-part timelapse short film series. The first one, “Journey Part 1”, is a timelapse piece that I released in December of 2013. Today, it has over 250,000 plays on Vimeo. I’m in the process of shooting right now. I’m hoping that Part 2 will be done around summertime—maybe at the beginning of summer, maybe towards the end.
Below: Watch Andrew Walker’s “Journey Part 1”
Click here to see a still from the timelapse on 500px.
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Check out more of his amazing work on 599 Productions.
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