Is This The Most Perfect City Timelapse Ever Made?

For our money, it surely is among the best city nightscape timelapses we’ve ever seen. Titled “Nightvision”, this sub-4 minute HDR timelapse video was made by Luke Shepard, an American student videographer studying at American University of Paris.

This short film is set after dark and explores some of the greatest buildings, monuments, and landmarks across Europe, over 36 cities in 21 countries on the continent. Shephard raised money for the project through a Kickstarter campaign last year, and was successful in raising about $20K for it.

Mesmerizing, hypnotic and novel in the pacing and sequencing, mixed with the perfect soundtrack to create what would stand against any big production, professionally produced videos anywhere in travel.

The buildings, in order of appearance in this video:

Name- Architect – Location

• Brandenburg Gate – Carl Gotthard Langhans – Berlin, Germany
• Arc de Triomphe – Jean Chalgrin – Paris, France
• Philharmonie Luxembourg – Christian de Portzamparc – Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
• Atomium – André Waterkeyn – Brussels, Belgium
• Palace of Westminster – Charles Berry – London, England
• Copenhagen Opera House – Henning Larsen – Copenhagen, Denmark
• Trevi Fountain – Nicola Salvi – Rome, Italy
• Belém Tower – Francisco de Arruda – Lisbon, Portugal
• L’Hemisferic –  Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela – Valencia, Spain
• Berliner Dom – Julius Raschdorff – Berlin, Germany
• Guggenheim Museum Bilbao – Frank Gehry – Bilbao, Spain
• Cologne Cathedral – Willy Weyres – Cologne, Germany
• Hungarian Parliament Building – Imre Steindl – Budapest, Hungary
• Oslo Opera House – Tarald Lundevall – Oslo, Norway
• The Shard – Renzo Piano – London, England
• Fernsehturm Berlin – Hermann Henselmann and Jörg Streitparth – Berlin, Germany
• Bode-Museum – Ernst von Ihne – Berlin, Germany
• Sultan Ahmed Mosque – Sedefkar Mehmed Agha – Istanbul, Turkey
• Alexander Nevsky Cathedral – Alexander Pomerantsev – Sofia, Bulgaria
• Tower Bridge – Horace Jones and George D Stephenson – London, England
• Prague Astronomical Clock – Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šindel – Prague, Czech Republic
• Fraumünster – Staffelbach Meier and Marc Chagall – Zurich, Switzerland
• Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía – Santiago Calatrava – Valencia, Spain
• Rathaus Vienna – Friedrich von Schmidt – Vienna, Austria
• National Theatre – Maria Siklós – Budapest, Hungary
• Sagrada Família – Antoni Gaudí  – Barcelona, Spain
• Roman Colosseum – Vespasian and Titus – Rome, Italy
• Under Krystallen – Schmidt Hammer Lassen – Copenhagen, Denmark

A lot more details on the novel technique Shephard used for this timelapse on his website.

The music on the video is “Outro”, by M83.

Bonus: The “practice” video of Paris nightscape created by Shepard, which sparked his Kickstarter campaign that led to this latest video,

» Related Video You Should Watch: The Quiet City: Winter in Paris