A Time-Lapse of San Francisco That Feels As Epic As a Major Motion Picture

A while back, we were all so over time-lapse videos of cities. Then House of Cards happened, and it brought back the style with its iconic opening credits that show time sweeping through the U.S. capital with authority—carried by a score as powerful as Frank Underwood himself. A new time-lapse film attempts to create the same effect, but this time in San Francisco.

"Gotham City SF" is the creation of photographer Toby Harriman. The idea for the film came to him in 2012 after he became enthralled with a brooding, black-and-white, glossy style of cityscape photography he calls "Gotham." Since then he has collected the footage, edited it, and set it to a dramatic original cinematic score composed by James Everingham, a young U.K. composer (he was only 14 at the time!).