Fourteen months of time-lapse on the Balata bus rapid transit works
In Matoury, between the Balata junction and the PROGT roundabout, national road 2 is being rebuilt for the bus rapid transit line. The project provides two traffic lanes and one bus lane in each direction, together with paths for pedestrians and cyclists. Ribal TP is carrying out the works for the DGTM, over a planned three years, and wanted a regular record of them for its communication.
Two units and five filming days
The set-up was defined in March 2024: autonomous time-lapse units installed on site, plus days of aerial and ground filming at key stages. The first unit was installed on 8 November 2024, the second on 16 December. We handled their programming as the works progressed, their maintenance and the retrieval of the images; between visits, the units take pictures on their own at regular intervals. The site lies within the control zone of Cayenne airport: each drone filming day requires a declaration to the prefecture and a request to air traffic control, filed at least five working days in advance.
The filming days took place on 16 July and 18 October 2024, then on 9 January, 27 March and 19 June 2025. Each one produced aerial views and ground footage, which feed the edits.
Deliveries as the works progressed
- June 2025: first edit, in 4K, covering the early months of the works, and one time-lapse per camera up to 6 June.
- 29 October 2025: second edit, about a minute and a half long, tracing the works up to the 19 June shoot.
- 4 November 2025: time-lapses from July to September 2025.
- 9 January 2026: time-lapses from October to December 2025 and the cumulative version, from 8 November 2024 to 31 December 2025.
The edits combine aerial views, ground footage and time-lapses, with captions of the operations supplied by the contractor. The time-lapses are downloaded in high definition; low-resolution exports of the first two filming days were also provided for quick use.
What time-lapse adds to the drone
The drone provides, a few days a year, overall views and angles that cannot be had from the ground. Time-lapse fills the gaps in between: it records the site every day, in all weathers, and shows several months of works in a few seconds. In the edit, the two complement each other.
The contract ended with the year 2025, as agreed with the contractor, and the units were then removed. We use the same set-up on other sites in French Guiana, from the Petit-Saut sawmill to the waste storage facility in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, where two cameras recorded the activity from November 2025 to March 2026.
