Berkeley-based filmmaker Peter Chang likes breaking boundaries in his work, be it in space or time. His latest oeuvre, Deus Ex Homine, is a beautiful stereoscopic 3D motion-controlled time-lapse short film. In it, the camera sweeps around the Bay Area: taking in server farms in Silicon Valley, indoor gardens, Berkeley’s Gather Restaurant, and Oakland artist Jeremy Mayer at work building astonishingly lifelike robots out of old typewriter parts.

Chang, who majored in English at UC Berkeley and worked for many years as a photo-journalist, established his production company Cinefugue in San Francisco in 2006. He said it focuses on innovative uses of cutting-edge technology with themes related to humanity’s future and the young generation. A previous project, Lightscapes, a TV show for Discovery HD Theater, was the first television program to feature mostly time-lapse photography.

Chang says he likes to think of time-lapse photography as a ”god’s eye” technique that compresses time. “It’s a way to get people thinking about the future, by making it seem as if time passes quickly. … Continue reading »