You read that correctly. Danielle, a five-minute video from filmmaker Anthony Cerniello, is nothing short of amazing. Cerniello wanted to emulate the aging process by creating a person, Danielle.
Clearly, this is no ordinary time-lapse video. Far more extreme than a “selfie a day”, Danielle shows the aging process of a young girl to an elderly woman.
Danielle was not shot over the course of a girl’s lifetime. Instead, Cerniello combined the faces of multi-generational family members. According to Colossal:
Last Thanksgiving, Cerniello traveled to his friend Danielle’s family reunion and with still photographer Keith Sirchio shot portraits of her youngest cousins through to her oldest relatives with a Hasselblad medium format camera. Then began the process of scanning each photo with a drum scanner at the U.N. in New York, at which point he carefully edited the photos to select the family members that had the most similar bone structure. Next he brought on animators Nathan Meier and Edmund Earle who worked in After Effects and 3D Studio Max to morph and animate the still photos to make them lifelike as possible. Finally, Nuke (a kind of 3D visual effects software) artist George Cuddy was brought on to smooth out some small details like the eyes and hair.
The final product is visually stunning. Make sure you don’t blink for even a second – you’ll miss out on years of aging.
