Video 'slider' shows power of Little Cottonwood Creek at height of flood season

While Utah’s flood threat has largely subsided for this year, many residents can still hear the echoes of the raging waters in the state’s streams, creeks and rivers.

For Matt Sheridan, those echoes live on in video “sliders” he created during the height of the flood period.

Sheridan, who shoots video for Salt Lake company Team Thirteen, said he got the idea to create the video sliders when he saw picture sliders that were made from satellite images of recent natural disasters, like the tsunami in Japan.

“Unlike a tsunami or a tornado though, floods can be predicted weeks in advance,” Sheridan said in an email. “So it gives the unique opportunity to plan and shoot 'before' shots on the ground (instead of using satellite photos), and then it's just a matter of time until the 'after' shot is ready. I picked Little Cottonwood Creek because of how dramatically it flooded last year, and I live close to it and know it well. I picked six different spots on the creek and wrote down in great detail where I set up the tripod, time of day and many different camera settings.”

Sheridan picked the three best shots out of the six and matched them in a couple of different editing programs. Then he gave them to a friend and programmer, Corey Hankey of interactive ad firm welikesmall, who programmed everything in Flash, developed a way to fade the audio and made it possible to “slide” the before and after footage back and forth.

“I think the interactive pieces really get across the feeling of how powerful a creek can become during a flood season,” Sheridan said. “I see potential for video sliders to visually teach people about nature and history. For example, reading 735cfs in an article doesn't really explain enough in an article compared to seeing it, hearing it and interacting with it in a video slider.”

For all three video sliders of Little Cottonwood Creek, see videosliders.com.