The photo crew shot a night view of the construction site about once a month. It was a complicated shot to get, but they had it down to a science. It was a double exposure. The first exposure was under exposed, and taken at dusk. Then the camera was left on the tripod until it was completely dark, when a time exposure was shot over the under-exposed, dusk image. Some of the photographs taken with this method were spectacular

Since these still night shots were so successful, the crew set up the Bell and Howell 35mm movie camera to take a night shot using the same technique. The Bell and Howell camera was hand-cranked. To under-expose the dusk exposure, the lens was stopped down slightly, and the camera was cranked normally. Then while they waited for it to get dark enough, the film was back-wound to the start position. The time-exposure was made by opening the lens all the way, and under cranking the camera.

What everyone forgot to take into account was that under-cranking motion picture film speeds up the action when it is projected.

Everyone had a good laugh when the film was first projected. Cars driving through the shot zipped along at a ridiculous speed. They all thought that they had put in a lot of effort to come up with an unusable shot. Frank had a big laugh years later when he was watching a PBS program on Coulee Dam, and they used this shot.