The Timelapse Theatre - Planning n' Build Log - Page 5

They're never complete!

True to my word I spent a bunch of time screwing around in SketchUp last night and this morning. I think I've managed to get 80% of my vision rendered into pixels.

In these renders I've added soffits that are 14x6", a whole buttload of 3" can lights, an approximation of GroovyCeiling, and acoustic panels.

I know that you might be thinking that I ripped off the black and white photo acoustic panels from the beautiful render made by Pinstripes but I assure you that this has been in my head for some time! The photos used on the renders are scraped off of the web but I intend to use my own photography on these panels. My wife and I were thinking that a woodland forest scene would be really pleasant and we both thought that the black and white would just disappear when the lights dimmed down.

So anyway, here are the latest renders (they're also on the first post now).

Huzzah! Thanks to W00lly and Tony123 I have a nice new soffit profile. I copied W00lly's construction technique and took Tony's advice about proportions and concocted this. This version is 14" from the wall and 6" from the ceiling. I fiddled with some 3" cans at the hardware store yesterday and determined that I'd have sufficient room with 6" of space. I'm still not sure what to cover these with... drywall, maybe?







And now, it being Saturday, I'm off on my first requisite trip to The Home Depot for wood and screws. (huh-huh... wood and screws...)

Yeah, I've been toying around with the idea of putting wedges of OC703 in there for bass trappage. I'm going to run wire and install some can lights in there first though. I thought that I would leave the soffits exposed for a while so that I can add stuff that I've forgotten. That and it's going to be another month before I'm ready to bite the bullet and buy a bunch of can lights.

Do you guys think that it will be easier to install recessed lights in the soffits before I put on the facing (I'm thinking drywall on the bottom and maybe fabric on the sides so that they can work as bass traps) or after?

Good idea; I will add some conduit. My wife and I were talking about plans for the soffits and how to make one side covered in fabric so that the bass absorbers will work properly. I've been thinking about making the sides fabric-covered, open-framed (like for a screen wall), and hinged so that you can open them up and get access to wires, etc.

I bought a 4" new-work can housing and it seems like it will fit fine but I'm unsure about the quality and shape of the light. I think that I would rather have recessed linear wall washers like I see in commercial buildings but I'm having trouble locating them (especially at a price that doesn't make me gasp for air).

Better late than never, thanks for chiming in, #5!

I considered building out that false wall and adding a door but ultimately decided not to do it. The door that exists now is a really excellent pathway out to the lower part of our deck where the hot tub is. My wife and I thought that moving the screen into the center of the room made the room more formal than we wanted. The way the room is shaping up there will be a nice path out to the other recreation areas which makes the whole downstairs a really fun and relaxing place to be. Does that make sense?

Ohhhh! Now I see! Yeah, that would be a spectacularly terrible design!

If you're interested in the camera that I use for the timelapse videos then I just found out that the price of the camera has dropped to a paltry $149! I'm actually thinking about buying another one now! Hehe! http://gopro.com/products/

This post is dedicated to the awesomeness of Toggler SnapToggles.



If you need a toggle bolt to support something that is thick (e.g. a piece of wood) to a wall or ceiling then this little puppy is the answer. I have a few dozen extras if anybody wants! I used these to support my soffits on the parts of the ceiling that ran parallel to the ceiling joists. They work great!

Essentially the gizmo is a toggle bolt that is attached to a couple of zip ties. You drill a 1/2" hole, insert the toggle, align the zip ties and push a little plastic retainer dooflatchie into the hole. Then you snap off the zip tie pieces and screw in the bolt like any other toggle bolt.

Oh, I wasn't saying that your idea was spectacularly terrible I was saying that my design would have been terrible if it was, indeed, as you described and I had to walk around the place to get inside. I hope I didn't offend you. I probably just misunderstood.

Hey, that's great to know, thanks! Did you make a DIY screen? I'm wavering on that decision. I'm thinking that I'm within a few months of screen and projector so it's starting to weigh on my mind.

Here's the latest update in our little adventure! Enjoy! This has been a helluva lot of work to get these things built and installed.


I cobbled these soffits together and though they look a little ugly on the ceiling like this I think that they'll turn out pretty nice when they're done. At this point I'm planning to install recessed can lights in them every 40 inches or so and use them as a chaseway for wiring.

I'm planning to use these puppies as bass traps too (at least on two sides) but I'll have to see how much OC703 I can cram in there since I need to leave space around the light fixtures. I think that I will drywall the bottoms and install fabric panels on the sides so that they can function as bass traps.

I got a new toy! I have been wanting a motion control system for videos/timelapses for a while and now I've got a really sweet one. A motion control system lets me make shots that move along a linear track like this one (the first shot I made with the new system).

In other news, there's barely any other news. I have the soffits up and I have installed seven 4" can lights but I'm starting to think that it's too many. Work and other commitments are keeping me out of the theatre. Maybe I'll get some quality time in there tomorrow.

I haven't ruled out sconces but I also have not been thinking about them. This room will see a fair bit of entertaining even though it's a dedicated space so I think that I want to err on the side of more light. I'm interested in your thoughts.

I'm glad you like it! Thanks! There are more videos posted on the first page of the thread if you like that one. I think that the soffit build video is the best I've made so far but it only tells a small part of the story.



Wow, thanks! I'm feeling a "We're not Worthy! We're not Worthy!" in my head after seeing you post in here. I'm honored!

I'm trying to make progress but it's slow-going some times. I'm only now working on the light installation after a 2-week hiatus. Life keeps happening, yaknow?!

I'd be happy to talk about the process. I've been an avid photographer for a long time and started dabbling in video when I got my Canon 7D dSLR.

I'm primarily shooting with an inexpensive rugged camera called the GoPro HD Hero 960. This is a rough and tumble waterproof camera that is used for shooting video and stills for all kinds of applications. I see them used on everything from Dirty Jobs episodes to snowboarding documentaries.

The GoPro can shoot straight-up HD video but it can also shoot still frames at a specified interval. I slap a 32GB card in mine and take a 5 megapixel frame every second. These frames are 2592x1944 pixels.

There are 1440 frames per minute of these videos which means that a minute represents about 24 minutes of real-time work. A 2.5 minute video like the soffit video is composed of ~3600 5 megapixel still frames!

My workflow is basically like this:
1. Set up camera at angle #1 and shoot for a while
2. Move camera around while I work (no less than 20 minutes per angle if I can help it)
3. Yaknow, do the theatre build (the easy part!) (real time)
4. Slurp all of the frames into Adobe Lightroom (~25 minutes over USB2... ugh)
5. Adjust all frames for lens distortion correction (a unique feature of Lightroom 3) to remove the fisheye look (~ 10 minutes)
6. Adjust all frames in bulk for color, exposure, brightness, saturation, and ISO noise (~ 20 minutes)
7. Export all frames as max-quality JPEG (the GoPro shoots JPEGs natively) (~ 60 minutes)
8. Import each sequence (each angle) into QuickTime Pro 7 and export to Apple ProRes 444 video clips (~ 10 minutes per angle)
9. Import Apple ProRes 422 video clips into Final Cut Pro X and pre-analyze for color balance (~ 2 minutes per clip)
10. Sequence clips together on the timeline (~ 15 minutes)
11. Pan and Scan each angle to fit in 16x9 frame (this is how I get the panning effects and is also the reason why I'm mastering at such a ridiculously high resolution) (~ 5 minutes per angle)
12. Color grade all clips (~ 5 minutes per angle)
13. Add titles, transitions, effects (~45 minutes)
14. Hunt for music (must be royalty-free or Creative Commons) (~ 15 minutes to 2 hours [seriously... finding music for this is annoying])
15. Render, compress, and export to 1080p h.264 (~ 10-25 minutes [depends on length and complexity of video])
16. Upload to YouTube (~ 15-30 minutes depending on file size)

I'm doing all of this on a Mac Pro with eight 2.8GHz cores and 18GB of RAM on an SSD drive hooked up to a 30" monitor. I can't imagine how long this would take on a more average dual-core computer.

But NOW I'm starting to complicate the process by shooting with my Canon dSLR on a motion-control rig. This rig will propel my 7D along a 6-foot track taking 18 megapixel still frames every second then moving a fraction of an inch and taking another. Way cool!