ABU DHABI: An Abu Dhabi-based filmmaker, Beno Saradzic, recently completed and released a time-lapse film titled Abu Dhabi 2011, drawing wide acclaim from viewers of the four-minute work of art that was distributed and shared profusely on social media networks.

Time-lapse filming is a technique whereby multiple photographs of several scenes are taken, at regular intervals, over a stretched period of time. Once the photographs are captured, each individual photo is meticulously perfected before the film is finally edited. The processed images are then projected in sequences, creating the illusion of exceedingly fleeting time and movements that the human eye isn’t accustomed to seeing.

In this film, Saradzic shot 21,000 photos, from more than a dozen vantage points across Abu Dhabi, mostly from high altitudes, over a period of eight weeks.

Residents said the film portrays their homeland as they have never seen it, adding that they were in awe at the beauty of Abu Dhabi viewed from this new perspective.

Ousama Ghannoum, the marketing and media director for Aldar and a resident of Abu Dhabi for over a decade said the film was breathtaking.

“The sequences at night were fantastic. I have lived here for 15 years, but the first time I saw it I thought, ‘it can’t be here’. I’ve never seen Abu Dhabi like this, from that height. It’s emotional and fantastic.”

“We are hard-wired to see the world in a certain way, but change that point of view slightly, and you will be stunned”, said Beno Saradzic, art director and filmmaker at Timesand Studios. “Viewed from a distance, Abu Dhabi today appears as a living, breathing organism. Its inhabitants scurry about and pump through its streets and alleyways, like blood cells through our veins.”