Having previously worked on several video commissions for PP O’Connor, they again chose Vivid to produce another demolition time-lapse video. On this occasion it was to document the demolition of the Desoto Road Bridge in Widnes. The Destoto Road Bridge demolition is part of the Mersey Gateway Project.

Image from Gateway Project – https://tinyurl.com/y7mmbqup

The Mersey Gateway Project

The Mersey Gateway Project’s objective is to build a second bridge to provide much needed traffic relief to the Silver Jubilee bridge near Widnes. Once completed, it will provide an important transport link between Merseyside and the whole of the North West region.

The time-lapse Commission

PP O’Connor start the demolition

As part of the over-arching project, one of the many stages was to remove the Desoto Bridge. The demolition work involved the removal of a 72-metre long section of a six lane road bridge. Due to road structure and railway placement restrictions, PP O’Connor only had a week for this undertaking.

Vivid were asked to film the complete demolition of the bridge from start to finish. To capture this commission, Vivid used two of our custom built DSLR camera housings. Working closely with the PP O’Conner team and their objectives, one camera was placed under the adjacent bridge. The other camera system was located on a cherry picker. With a picture taken every minute, over the seven day project, we captured over 200 GB of stills. This was supplemented with some extra video footage.

The Edit

We then had the difficult task of reducing six (24 hour) days of demolition into a 2 minute time-lapse video. Due to the image size captured when using DSLR, the large resolution allows the editing team to move within the picture to get the best view of the action.

Removing the girders

Rather than just providing the time-lapse as just a video, Vivid and PP O’Connor agreed to add some graphical elements to provide extra information about what the job entailed. This information provided the viewer with an increased understanding of the whole demolition. To obtain the perfect finishing shot of the demolition, Vivid returned to the site to capture a panning shot of the completed demolition.

Benefits of Time-lapse Videos

• Can show a long and complete process quickly
• Showcases client’s capabilities
• Eye catching and interesting video
• Works well on social media
• Powerful promotional piece that can work over numerous channels.

Final thoughts

Having completed so many different time-lapse commissions, it was a pleasure to again work with the PP O’Connor team as they completed an important section of the Gateway project. If you would like to find out more of our time-lapse videos, please visit our time-lapse service page. To find out more about our other time-lapse video commission, please click on our time-lapse blog. If there is any project you would like to discuss, please contact a member of the Vivid team on 0161 477 2404.