Capturing Life: A time lapse on the birth of a frog

A screen grab of the time-lapse of cell division (source: Franchisee Films)

When technology takes our eyes to birth of life

The leaderboards of Youtube is occupied by two, time lapse videos that will blow your minds away, for it captures the creation of life or in simple words the birth of an organism. Shot by an independent film-maker Francis Chee who is famous for his wildlife documentaries on YouTube. The video shows the birth of a frog right from its single-celled beginning.

Time-lapse photography, the technique of shooting a bunch of pictures at a fixed time interval and merging them together into a video, is not a new trend. It was used in film-making as early as 1890's by surreal filmmakers like Georges Méliès'. However most of the videos concentrated either on flowers, landscapes or celestial occurrences, most recently the time lapse from the International Space Station offered a different perspective.




part one (Source: Franchiseefilms)

Francis Chee captured the birth of a common frog in two parts, it begins with an egg that produces cleavage rapidly by producing more and more cells. In the second part, the object becomes more recognizable as a tadpole.

 The stages of development known commonly as embryology are evident from this video. Right after the fertilisation stage to the cleavage or initial division of a fertilised egg through other developments and development of the internal organs of the organism and finally to the organism itself.



part two (Source: Franchiseefilms)

Francis captured this 23-second video in a 33-hour span using a custom designed horizontal microscope and a custom set-up of lighting. The video has gone viral across the world but some critics are calling it out as a computer generated one. The creator, however, refused to comment on this.