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The hysteria surrounding this month's Carmegeddon in Los Angeles has left everyone scrambling to spin off memes, marketing ploys and now movies. Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo tipped us off to a really pretty video from director Ross Ching--inspired by the excellent "Empty L.A." photo series from Matt Logue--and we got to thinking. The City of Angels looks brilliant without cars. (It's what Coney Island's beaches must look like without trash!) But really, you could probably give the same time-lapse-plus-pretty-music treatment to any city and make a stunning video. Extra points if you use a tilt shift lens to make things look tiny or a dramatic filter to make the sky look like a Guillermo del Toro movie. We looked around and realized that just about every aspiring filmmaker has profiled a city like this and pulled together some of the better ones.
Los Angeles
Running on Empty (Revisited) from Ross Ching on Vimeo.
New York
The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.
Paris
Paris Vol. 4 from The Seventh Movement on Vimeo.
London
London Timelapse HD - Lumix GH1 from properniceinnit on Vimeo.
Shanghai
Miniature City Shanghai - Tilt Shift Time Lapse from Joe Nafis on Vimeo.
Tokyo
Get up and go from Stefan Werc on Vimeo.
European Countryside (not a city but still pretty)
Europe Time Lapse from Roger Laxon on Vimeo.
If you can't get enough, Vimeo actually has a group devoted to time lapse video. Good luck getting anything else done at work.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
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