Hi UWOL 45-ers (and beyond!):

Reviews are going well and I hope to have the judging review thread posted by this Wednesday.

In the mean time I was wondering if you have seriously considered the idea of, collectively as a group as team UWOL, setting your sights on an international wildlife film festival of your choice and working together to submit a film? Perhaps something like this has been bantered around before on the forum. But I think you should reconsider if you have and it lost steam before. I think a team UWOL could be competitive in such an endeavor. Just an idea, but think about it!!

I'll leave it at that for all of you to pile on.

Until Wednesday....

Cat

Several of us attended WildScreen in Bristol, England and it was amazing! Would love to have a film there some day.
A collaborative effort would be a great way to get footage from all over the world.

Agreed, I think it would be a great thing to do. I suggested it a while ago, but it was just a bit of an idea i was throwing out there. I think it would be really great to do, on so many levels.
One of the biggest challenges i faced in making my UWOL long form film was the fact that it was only me working on the film. No other ideas, no one telling me, "what are you thinking putting that in" :) But seriously, collaboration is the thing i missed the most, & i didn't realize it until i was close to the end.
With so many great ideas & incredible talent around here, i'm sure we could make a film collaboratively. An award winning film at that!! :)
Definitely something worth talking about.

A collaborate project was tried out some time (5-7 years?) ago. Didn't work out back then, but that doesn't mean it can't be a great success next time, if we try it again.

Absolutely something we could discuss more and try out.

Collaborative film, yes that was one idea i remember being discussed however it didnt take off back then.

Film festivals are interesting places some of the UWOLers meet at last Wildscreen and it was great place to be, i am currently a finalist with a film at the Japan Wildlife Film festival. If we all put in we should be able to produce a amazing film with a global outlook.
Now to again find a topic that most of us can work on together .

I think it is a great idea, wildlife and nature from all over the world. Question is, who would do the editing? I would volunteer to do the VO. Bob

He he, well here's the films synopsis!

A small group of social misfits (poetic licence to sell the the story) from both sex's from around the world who's only bond is their love of nature and its beauty decide to get together and take on the likes of Nat Geo, Discovery and BBC NHU and produce a nature film that wins the Golden (whatever) at the worlds top nature film awards gathering.

In order to do so they overcome obstacles such as distance, language and zero budget to produce a film so ground breaking (and cheap to make) that industry veterans are left fearing for their future if this new genre of wildlife film making takes off.

We make a film about taking on the big guys and winning!!!!

All the above said in jest (in case my English sense of humour is lost in translation)

Would be great though if we could all pull together and a produce film

Agreed! Maybe the way to move forward with something like this, would be for everyone to write a synopsis & then we could put together something from everyone's ideas?? Of course, we would need to keep in mind that we are all from different corners of the globe, so that would be a major part of how the film is put together.

Here's my lame idea for this. Is there an animal or a bird that is common throughout the world that we could film in its varying habitat?

Question is, who would do the editing?
Editing can be done either by one person, or several in cooperation. (As an example, one could do the basic editing, another could do color correction, music, After Effects if needed,... and so on, or each person do it all for different segments of the film.)

Here's my lame idea for this. Is there an animal or a bird that is common throughout the world that we could film in its varying habitat?
Donald,
Last time we put up this idea the common animal i found was the wolf is nearly in each place we are and under different circumstances ( UK its now in the folklore ) but then thats the extreme it has gone .
Australia wolves have never existed and the closest we have are the Dingos or the one that went extinct Thylacine . This idea didnt take off.
But we may find similar animals/ birds

Hi guys:

I could see why if the potential requirement for a collaborative film was for everyone to come up with wolf footage in the wild may have been daunting. :) I think maybe Kevin is the only person with wolf footage from his trip to Montana (?).

To test the waters, maybe focusing on a film short and choosing a theme where there isn't a restriction of subject matter might help get things started?

Just a thought.

Cat

Agreed! Wolf footage in the wild is definitely not easy to come by.
Perhaps if all those who are interested in making a collaborative effort a reality, were to come up with an idea/theme for the film, we can then put up those ideas & look at what idea is the most popular. If you think about it, what film doesn't start out as an idea in someone's head. They then go & put that idea to those with the ability to make it happen. (Ok, so this is normally the people with the funds, in our case it would be the ones who will be helping to make the film). Of course the beauty of collaboration is the ability to put those minds together and make the original idea even better.
Here's a quick & dirty idea as an example;
The original theme might be "climate change". From that i can start to come up with my idea for the film. Since we are from all over the world, we could look at what effect climate change is having on the region in our individual areas. What effects is climate change having on the flora & or fauna in our area. What if anything are we doing to change, or help species adapt? Ideally this would be focused on one subject & then become a sequence in the film.
How long the film ends up, will depend on how many are involved & how long we try to keep the sequences to.
Everyone would need to be involved in helping each sequence reach its greatest potential & make sure it fits in with the whole film.
Gear might be a little bit of a challenge since we all own different equipment, however i think that almost all of the modern day cameras can produce an excellent image so this shouldn't be too difficult to work around.
Editing, at least rough edits, should be done by each individual with feedback from others. Just like our challenges here, we produce our own little edits. The difference here would be that with the feedback we get from each other, we re-edit things until we have the best possible edit of the sequence. Of course we would also have the opportunity to re-shoot parts to get the exact shots that fit.
I really do believe something like this would help everyone learn a lot about making a great film, and of course, believe that in the end, if we can make it happen, we would end up with a truly great film!

I guess if we want to choose a topic it may not be a great idea to be closed to ideas or discount them from start .
No hard feelings guys

I like the idea of a collaborative film. My personal feeling is that as we are a very diverse group from different parts of the world it would be better to try something, as Cat just mentioned, of a more unrestricted nature related subject for our first attempt.
I had thought about the the climate change also as Bryce suggested but I think it might be better to see how we can work together on a simpler idea first. I feel it would give the opportunity for a lot of us to go out and get the footage to work with. There will be a lot of kinks to work out one being all the different cameras being used, the different shooting styles, etc. I don't think we have to be targeting to do a film for a film festival yet but more to see if we can pull off an idea. But hey if it works out all the better.

Gordon

Stunning Vishal! I stand corrected. Kevin isn't the only contributor to UWOL with wolf footage in the wild. I'm thankful you have no hard feelings. I wish I could have a poster of this image in my home, wow.

Sincerely,
Cat

Bryce, I think your idea on climate change is a good one. It's a challenging topic to take on, to show how climate change is affecting wildlife around the globe.

Vishal, the idea of regional birds is good too.

Just a thought maybe we start off with a simple 1-2 min bio edit, we do not have to be seen in it but would be nice to see each of us even if just a still, from our locations around the world outlining what we can each contribute to the film and then build the film from there. For example Kevin could produce something along the lines of his night filming then the narration would go on to say something like meanwhile Vishal in India is about to embark on a 10 day trip to film wolves then show the wolves and the making off. Bob maybe on another of his trips, so on and so forth finally bringing it altogether with words and film showing that although we are from all over the world our love of nature and the environment has brought us altogether as one!

"I don't think we have to be targeting to do a film for a film festival yet but more to see if we can pull off an idea. But hey if it works out all the better.

Gordon"

Good point. Perhaps the first thing to do is to work out the logistical hurdles first, like in the UWOL "off season" before the next challenge you figure out how to share your video clips, how to edit different film formats together (for the editors of the group), and produce a final product with VO, etc. Even if it's a few minutes of material for the group to analyze and learn from.

Cat

I could be interested joining a collaborative film too
Could be interesting to see if it is possible to make something together as a group. As other have already said maybe try something small first just to try out this idea?

There could be many themes to try out, global climate change will be something we all will be affected of. Maybe how climate change can affect our local wildlife and make a film based on this?

UNITED UWOL FILM (this is not a film title).

I have previously signaled that I welcome a UWOL movie.
There is one thing to keep in mind, wildlife movie is a narrow field and there are many to compete with.
I mean there are some questions each individual has to ask himself.

here is my questions, which I think are important:

1) What makes us special?
My answer:
It's the way we work together. We are international and meet only on the web, (except once in Bristol) and it makes us very special. This is not only about wildlife, but also about us.

2) How can we show this in a unique way?
My answer:
My idea is that anyone who wants to join in, make one sequence/story each.
We have to decide what length of time we are going to put on.
Regular program time in Scandinavia is 20, 25, 40 or 45 minutes. If we are ten people, it will be about 4 minutes each, for a 40 minute program.

3) What are we going to film?
My answer:
We present our own wishes, which must be realistic within a given deadline. And we should listen to good advice from our friends in UWOL. Perhaps there are many who can use existing material?

4) How should we tie all the pieces together?
My answer:
Maybe this is the most interesting thing (?). It will be tied together by an eminent and unique voice (read; a person named Bob). Scripts must be written and everyone can help. And again; the unique about us - is us together :)

5) What about final editing?
My answer:
We choose one or two of us to finalize the movie. We must also agree on the format, etc.

Well, this is my idea for a UWOL wildlife movie and I do not think it has been done this way before.
There has been collaboration of many kinds in charge by large companies like the BBC etc, but not of such a format as we speak of professional "amateurs" like us. As I saif earlier, the wildlife is important, but the special is the way we work together. We can all have different kind of topics, it's how we tie it all together that counts in the end.
Anyway, this is my idea :)

Geir Inge,
I think you have put it together nicely.

Guess we may have a way.
First we see who all is participating, based on that we have regions that are represented , once we have that we may be able to find a topic,
For Example we have a bird which breeds in a area where we have some of our participants and migrates to some other area where we have some other players who can film and might be there is a also a scope for filming passage migration at some area, this is just a hypothetical example but may define a structure.

We have a great voice for our film - Bob so we have one thing fixed right at the start :)

yes participants can contribute in multiple ways like putting together a story, editing, writing voiceover script, choosing music, we have so many talented folks here and yes you know it may be one reason when people who are no longer active can get active here.

Just a thought.

Probably the most successful collaborative films I’ve seen are a day in the life series.
Everyone went out on a single day and submitted footage from that 24 hour period.

I think we as filmmakers have the ability to bring awareness and possibly change with what we do.

I’m game for anything.

Another idea is to film animals that are iconic to our specific regions. For instance, here in Colorado as the Wild West, nothing depicts that more than a vast herd of Bison roaming the open plains and valleys. Collaboratively, we would profile diversity and how vastly different our natural worlds are.

Cat

I like the idea. I think keeping the first project simple would greatly help. And obviously there's a lot to figure out with people using different formats, resolutions?, transferring large files, etc... although I will say since getting NBN (Aus version of VDSL, Fibre to the node) uploads are waaay faster for me. So moving the files isn't so much an issue as maybe needing an FTP server setup by someone (whoever is editing) to upload the footage to.
But certainly delegating tasks would make it achievable. Someone could work on the intro and titles, someone else handle credits for instance.