My new time-lapse life-hack

I have issues with procrastination.

Five years into the pandemic and two years into retirement, I still have many items on my multiple to-do lists. But I am slowly ticking things off. (For example, Getting rid of old cables and GIFs from my Pixel 5)

This week, I finally developed the capacity to take time lapse images. I've been wanting to do this for decades. It would have been fantastic when they demolished the house across the street, or when they built the new house there. 

The only construction-type thing visible from the Scrimchateau right now is the housing construction happening over on Booth Street. I missed a lot of it, but there are two giant cranes. Here's 11 minutes of their movement collapsed into 22 seconds.

I've tried a couple of other things. First, I did some of Manon's plants on a windowsill. I'll have to play with lighting and timing before I get anything worth looking at. Second, I did the Stick Library. It was kind of cool seeing how many people went by and getting quick glimpses of people stopping with their dogs. But I don't imagine any of these people would be happy about having their images appear on the internet when they didn't know they were being filmed even if they were on a public sidewalk.

My lifehack brain wave

Then I had my lifehack brain wave. I was sitting here at my desk thinking about how I've let it get really messy and I should tidy it when I realized that it would make for something to time lapse. Maybe not the most compelling time lapse video ever, but if it motivated me to do something I ought to do anyway, it would be a bonus.

So here it is, Dave Tidies up his Desk (a little bit):

How I did it

I took my old smart phone, a Galaxy S5 Neo, that no longer has a SIM card, but still has WiFi and:

1. 
   improved the phone's memory capacity by stripping out all the apps that I don't need any more, and deleting all the music files, ebooks, and videos; and
2. used the App Store to install FrameLapse 2.

I mounted the phone with a clip-on flexible holder thingy that I cannot remember acquiring that has been around for years. To be honest, it's probably not the best thing for doing this, but it works.

To take my time lapse videos, I turn on FrameLapse 2, aim the phone where I want it, and tap the big round button to start shooting and tap it again to stop. 

So far, I've only used the default settings for timing and everything else, but I did zoom in on a couple to get more of the frame that I wanted.

I edited the video with Microsoft Clipchamp to add a title, trim the video to only the part I wanted and remove sections of the video I didn't want.

What's next

I've got some more tidying to do (I promise though that I will not create any messes just so that I can manufacture content) and I hope to do something with plant growth and our first snowfall this winter. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Acknowledgement

Rest assured that I am aware that the effort involved in creating the time lapse videos, editing them, and creating this blog post took far more time than it would have taken me to just clear up the junk on my desk.