There are plenty of uninspired time-lapse videos making the rounds these days, including this rotten one: Tomato time-lapse. Filmmakers Ben Canales, John Waller, Steve Engman, and Blake Johnson of Uncage the Soul Productions, however, skip the low-hanging fruit and tackle a 1,600 mile road trip across Oregon—delivering the Columbia River Gorge, Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, the Southwestern Coast, the Alvord Desert, Leslie Gulch, Blue Mountains, Crater Lake, Eagle Cap Wilderness, Deschutes River in stunning slow speed.
“The greatest challenge with this project was being in the right place at the right time. Night timelapse sequences particularly have an unexpected number of requirements to get the bright, stunning payoff. First, the moon should be around the New Moon phase (no moon) so as not to compete with outshining the stars, so that means we get about 5 days a month window. Next, weather must be cooperative with a dependable expectancy of cloudless skies. Here in Oregon, only the Summer months have good chance of clear skies, so only 1/4 of the year offers good chance of clear skies. So that means, we have three months in the year, with a 5 day window each month to plan with fingers crossed for epic star shooting conditions. That’s only 15 days in a year. Then, you hope that something doesn’t come up in regular life to pull you away to other obligations on those few days. It is a maddening challenge getting all the factors to line up to be in the right place at the right time….”
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.