This year’s Key West Holiday Parade featured 101 floats. Yes, 101. That was a long parade and a huge time commitment for the crowds that lined Truman Avenue and Duval Street the evening of Dec. 7. Did you make it through the whole thing, or did you leave before Santa showed up on the fire truck as the grand finale?
If so, no worries. Not only did resident Chris Sloan film the whole parade, but he also worked his time-lapse video magic to speed things up and show the whole thing in a blessedly short 10 minutes.
The video is free for all to view and share on YouTube at Time Flies Travel Videos, where Sloan has also posted a series of holiday highlight films as well as a comprehensive Key West video time capsule series called Key West Time Flies, which he spent nearly four years capturing and condensing.
The Key West Time Flies series documents the entire island using time-lapse footage, drone photography, fast-paced editing and catchy music meant to capture the city as it appeared from 2020-23 so it can be preserved as a video record for the future.
“Even in our three years of shooting, things have changed,” Sloan said, calling the project a labor of love. “These are my gifts to Key West from TimeFlies Travel Videos, which are available on YouTube.”
The entire Time Flies collection is a treasure worth watching more than once. Click through a series of time-lapse videos showing specific areas of Key West, including the Casa Marina neighborhood, Duval Street, the Historic Seaport, New Town, the Meadows and more. Sloan loves watching people watch his videos, as they recognize their own house, a familiar neighbor or recall a since-shuttered restaurant.
Sloan, an Emmy-winning television producer, has captured the best of Key West and condensed it into convenient highlights that won’t sound any alarms on your phone’s “screen time” monitor.
Prior to launching his own production company, 2C Media, Sloan held a number of executive creative, programming and production posts, including creative director for NBC Entertainment, vice president of reality programming for USA Networks, head of marketing for USA Broadcasting’s local TV stations, vice president of production for TLC Network and editor at Limelight Video.
The video series is dedicated to the memory of Cheryl and Crystal Cates, Sloan said.
Cheryl and Crystal Cates, the late wife and daughter, respectively, of County Commissioner Craig Cates, died during the COVID pandemic in 2020.To view the videos for free, visit youtube.com/@TimeFliesTravelVideos or hover your phone’s camera over the QR code on this page.
