WATCH: Psychedelic time-lapse shows beauty in Toronto ice storm aftermath

Above: Gavin Heffernan talks about the making of Icelight Toronto on The Morning Show.

TORONTO – A Canadian filmmaker’s trippy time-lapse video finds the beauty in the aftermath of a crippling ice storm that knocked out power to more than 300,000 Toronto residents last month.

Los Angeles-based Gavin Heffernan was in Toronto to visit family for the holidays and saw the destruction in his neighbourhood as a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

He pulled out his camera gear and went to work.

ICELIGHT TORONTO from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

“I was planning on being on vacation and not do any filming,” Heffernan said in an interview on Global’s The Morning Show.  “But, when I arrived a day after the worst of it and after looking around a bit, I just had to do it.”

The results are incredible. Using a variety of time-lapse techniques, combined with chilling music and various vantage points, Icelight Toronto reveals an ominous frozen city.

“It sort of had this War of the Worlds kind of feeling with just this eerie, quiet and then as you’re shooting you would hear branches cracking overhead,” Heffernan said. “It’s kind of indescribable but, that’s really what it felt like being out there.”

Many of Hefferman’s time-lapse videos have gone viral and have been featured in publications like National Geographic.

Watch: Death Valley Dreamlapse

DEATH VALLEY DREAMLAPSE from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

“That was a big one for me,” Heffernan said in a phone interview. “When I think of National Geographic, I think of it as real artists. To see my time-lapses there is strange and surreal.”

What is next for the Toronto native?

“A couple of places we are looking at,” he said. “Yosemite National Park is pretty high on the list.”