Online Exclusive– Anthony Vitale Timelapses

Wicked new time-lapse reel from cinematographer Anthony Vitale

by Todd Lawson

Since first picking up a camera in his Miami high school, Anthony Vitale has been busy searching the globe for dramatic scenes and shots that tell the stories of his travels and the action sports subculture he has immersed himself in.

Canadian-born, but raised in the sun and sand of South Florida, Vitale quickly found his calling after returning north of the border to shoot his buddies skateboarding in Toronto. He then went west, moving to Whistler in 1992 as the snowboard progression began to take hold.

By 2004 Anthony was one of the most heavily sought after cinematographers in action sports and was the first choice when cinematographers were needed to shoot the much anticipated Forum team snowboard film. With Anthony’s help ‘True Life’ became the most successful snowboard film to date. Shortly thereafter Whiteout Films approached him to take on the DOP position for their first film about snowboarding. Anthony couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work close to home with some of the good friends and great talent he had met thus far in his career and ended up producing, directing and being DOP for ‘The Big Blind’ in 2005, and then producing and being DOP for ‘Wear it Well’ and ‘Season 4′, the 2006 and 2007 releases from Whiteout Films.

When not on location, Vitale turns his creative eye towards the art of time-lapse photography. Mountain Life tracked him down at his home in the beautiful Paradise Valley to see what he had to say about his ‘other’ passion.

ML: How long have you been shooting time-lapse?
AV: About 3 years now.

ML: What is it about time-lapse that you like?
AV: It’s like processing film. You really don’t  know what kind of results your going to get until you get home and make it into a video clip. It’s also fun because your mixing still photography and video together.

ML:What are some of your favorite subjects/locations to shoot?
Night time lapses are my favorite. Anything that has lots going on is good to shoot.  Time lapses work anywhere. I really don’t have a favorite location.

ML: Is this stuff used in your film segments or do you do it ‘on the side as personal work?
AV:A bit of both.  Sometimes when I’m on location shooting snowboarding, I find interesting things to shoot time lapses of. Then they might get used in an edit.

ML: What were you involved with this winter?
I am the in-house camera operator for DC Shoes snow program.  Lately I’ve been concentrating on shooting and editing web videos.

ML: Any upcoming personal projects involving time lapse?

No personal projects on the go right now, but I’m always shooting time lapses when the opportunity arises.

(Note- I am having trouble embeddign this video. try this link to see anthony’s timelapse reel)

http://blip.tv/file/get/Mountadmin-AnthonyTimelapse623.mov