“The idea for Nuit Blanche came from the notion of having a special moment with a total stranger, which happens to everyone, especially in a large metropolitan city. It lasts for a split second, then things get awkward, so we turn away. I wanted to take that moment of attraction and stretch it in a hyper‐real fantasy where things unfold like slow-moving photographs.”
The making of:
Directed by:
Technical Specifications:
Cameras:
DVCPRO HD camera for the 24 frames-per-second live-action shots; high-speed Photron APX for slow-motion sequences filmed at up to 2,000 frames per second.
Effects:
“For 3-D we used Maya and mental ray, 3ds Max and V-Ray,” Manoukian says. “For compositing, we used After Effects. The matte paintings were done in Photoshop and mapped in 3-D.”
Editing:
Adobe Premiere
Computer:
First-generation dual‐core Athlon running Windows XP.
...
While this is not the first time I've seen this effect. I saw something greatly similar (as well as the car compression effect) in the movie Constantine. See the following clip and run up to about three minutes in and you'll see what I mean. While most of the film was a bit of a turd this culmination of visuals and effects was pretty phenomenal for 2005. Not taking anything away from Nuit Blanche which in my humble opinion is beautiful as a short film and is highly impactful.