We live in amazing times. And there is nothing more amazing to me than a technical breakthrough like Hyperlapse, the time lapse iPhone app from the Instagram folks. The app does two things – it provides sophisticated image stabilization even when hand held and it allows you to choose the speed to the time lapse – and it does them incredibly well.

I saw this article  8 Do’s and Don’ts for Brands Exploring Instagram’s Hyperlapse (h/t to @Simpartners) and I wondered exactly how hard it would be create some local content using the app and iMovie.

The answer? Not hard. I am blessed by living in beautiful country and today was more beautiful than most. I decided to hyperlapse the bike ride that I take to work ever day.

This 3 minute video took about 20 minutes to film and another 20 to assemble into a final product. I hand held it while riding my bike (and I am sure that Matt McGee will chastise me for that).

My conclusion? Hyperlapse, when combined with some music and iMovie, is a great way to create some very sharable local content.

The end of the local marathon, the local fair, perhaps a day at the car races or the highlights of the highschool game. There are a lot of local topics that would lend themselves to this treatment. If you use it for that, please let me know.

Some production suggestions:

1-The app does a great job of auto exposure in both low and highlight situations but it doesn’t auto adjust if you change lighting. So either keep your lighting consistent or remember to touch the area of the screen that you want properly exposed. Obviously while riding a bike I was unable to do that.

2-Since you are speeding things up, you need to hold scene endings and transition shots longer than you normally would.

3-The app doesn’t do audio so you need  plan to create something interesting to go along with

PS the soundtrack is by Enchanted Mountain Green, a blue grass band that my brother played in in the 70’s and 80s.