By Sana Panjwani
Often described as the city of superlatives, Dubai is one of the most futuristic, visually striking cities in the world, filling its citizens with pride and attracting tourists from around the world.
Now, a stunning time-lapse video takes viewers on an incredible three minute journey through seemingly impossible nooks and crannies of Dubai whilst depicting the grandeur, spectacle and immense diversity of this incredible metropolis.
The culmination of 3 months worth of footage, British filmmaker Rob Whitworth’s “Dubai Flow Motion” video, in his own words, “lifts the constraints of time and space to capture the vibrancy of destinations on a grand scale.”
Masterfully showcasing the spectacular beauty that Dubai has to offer, Whitworth highlights unique energy of Dubai and focuses on how the heart of the city lies in the spirit of its people.
The time-lapse starts off in Emirate’s first class cabin and moves on to the cockpit to display a bird’s eye view of Dubai in all its glory. Whitworth also had access to the flight deck and cargo area in order to provide the viewer’s with behind-the-scene footage. From there, the footage passes through the metro and then beelines straight to the top of Burj Khalifa. Viewers then take a plunge, spiralling through rooms upon rooms within the world’s tallest building before diving into Dubai Mall’s Aquarium.
After a waltz through Dubai Mall and its Gold Souk, viewers find themselves witnessing a graceful solo figure skater before being pulled into the giant screen hanging above, and out onto the desert, where dune buggies race over the sand till dawn. We then find ourselves at the Creek, taking a peaceful boat ride on an abra (ferry) which then transforms into SkyDive Dubai’s speedboat leading us to their runway. After a spectacular skydive (enhanced through the fisheye lens shots), we are back at Burj Khalifa, witnessing the clouds wade over until night falls and we end with the world-famous Burj Khalifa fireworks and Dubai Mall’s always-anticipated fountain show.
Going beyond the materialistic aspects of Dubai, this time lapse video certainly stands apart from the rest, in terms of both technical compilation and its storyline. It shows Dubai in a way that cannot be expressed in words – by touching on the heart of the city, its citizens, who give the city its unique identity.
“My first impressions of Dubai were consumed with the spectacle of super tall buildings jutting out of the desert sands, however the lasting impression was the wonder of the desert, and its importance to the Emirati people,” said Whitworth.
The use of time-lapse seamlessly connected different elements of Dubai, resulting in “an action-packed vacation itinerary … that’s truly mesmerising and demonstrates what’s possible with timelapse videos”.
According to Whitworth, this was “one of the most complicated shoots I’ve worked on and everything had to be spot on the first time.”
However, this wasn’t the first time that Whitworth had undertaken such a project. He uploaded a similar time-lapse video of Barcelona in May 2014. Some of his recent projects include shoots for the upcoming ‘One Planet’ series, a Facebook video for Nike set in San Francisco, and a promotional film documenting McDonalds entry into the Vietnamese market. His works have gained widespread critical acclaim, and received over 10 million online views.
His Dubai time-lapse video, in fact, has already been labelled “one of the best viral videos of Dubai,” and the takeaway that Whitworth was ultimately aiming for, now resonates within his viewers – that in Dubai “people really are the heart of the city”.
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