City based star to sunrise timelapse

I cheated in my latest video and discovered a way to fudge these fantastic looking night sky to sunrise timelapses.

I wasn't up early enough to shoot this properly with a long exposure timelapse so I created it in post. Also my grad ND fogged up half way through the timelapse and I didn't want to waste it so here is what I did. I simply put a night sky star jpeg behind a video layer (sunrise timelapse) and added a soft edge crop to the video layer in Avid FX. [I am sure you could do this in most editing software]. Reduce the crop over the segment to animate the stars fading with the sunrise.

There you have a post editing trick to create the look of 'The Mountain' or 'Learning to Fly'. I know it's a cheat but it works. You could vary this and increase the star magnification to really pop them or make them look like they're brought in close with a long lens.

Here's my latest video where I used it for the opening.

http://www.vimeo.com/2​3237308

Shot on the Canon 5D for the main video - Canon 7D for the timelapse and telephoto work.

Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM
Canon EF 24-105mm F4 L
Sigma EX DG 17 - 35mm F2.8
HiTech GRAD ND SET on the Cokin Z-Pro holder
Genus Fader ND
Hoya HD Polariser
Seinhesser MKE-400 - into Magic Lantern on the 5D

Avid MC 5.5 - Magic Bullet Looks - Boris Continuum Complete for some FX.

you have some very pretty shots in there. i liked the long-shutter water stuff. thanks for sharing.

Liked the video and the shots on the bottom are great.

Thanks very much mizer and DC. Very kind of you both.