The last tram over the river
Twenty minutes of blue hour from a car park roof, and a tram every eight minutes.
In the last light of the day, a tram crosses the long bridge over the river, the city skyline behind it turning blue and gold. Theo filmed fifteen seconds from a rooftop on the other bank.
Chapters
- 0:00 The river at dusk
- 0:06 The tram on the bridge
- 0:11 Lights coming on
The rooftop
The view comes from the roof of a car park on the east bank. We found it by looking at a map for the highest public place facing the bridge, then walking there at sunset to check. Car park roofs are often the best free viewpoints in a city, and usually empty in the evening.
Blue hour
The film was made about fifteen minutes after sunset, in what photographers call the blue hour. The sky is still bright enough to show the shapes of buildings, but dark enough for the city's lights to glow. It lasts about twenty minutes. Before it, the lights do not show; after it, the sky is black.
Every city looks its best for twenty minutes a day. You have to know which twenty.
Theo Brandt
The tram timetable
The tram crosses the bridge every eight minutes. We checked the timetable and started recording thirty seconds before each crossing. Of the three crossings in the blue hour, the second was the best: the lights on the bridge had just come on, and the sky was still blue.
Wide, then still
We used a wide lens and did not move the camera. In a city, so much is moving already: water, cars, the tram, the clouds. A still camera lets all of it move without making the viewer seasick.
The edit
The final film is a single shot of fifteen seconds, cut from a recording of four minutes. Theo chose the section where the tram enters the frame from the left, crosses the bridge and leaves on the right, with the lights of the city coming on behind it. The only change in the edit was a very slight lift in the shadows, so the river kept some detail. The tram is moving at its real speed. We tried speeding it up, and the film lost the calm feeling of the end of a day.
Sound
The sound is a mix of two recordings from the same evening: the distant rumble of the tram on the bridge, and the river below. Lina added nothing else. Cities have their own music if you listen.