UWOL #8: Visual Transformations by Victor Wilcox

[Victor Wilcox]

A bad knee kept me close to home for this one. I had to keep it simple with some scenes of spring time in South East Texas. Our spring transformation occurred in early March so I had to make due with what I had around home. Still some nice subjects, but not what I wanted for the theme.

I was all done with my little Sony HVR-A1U. I can’t seem to get it to grow up into a V1U. I did my editing with Premiere Pro CS3. The credits say the music was “Piano Sonata”, but I changed it to “Heading for Home” and forgot to change the credits title.

[Victor Wilcox]

I've posted the HD WMV at:

http://www.wilcoxvideoproductions.co...formations.wmv

My entry is still listed as: Jeremy Doyle "Visual Transformations"

My file should be "25_UC8_VisualTransformations.mov". I got the 16 from the wrong thread.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Victor,

Or is it Jeremy???


Some really great spring footage!! I am really enjoying all the spring flower footage!!

The shot of the pistilids was really nice!

Keep up the good work, Look forward to seeing more from you in the future!!!

[Trond Saetre]

Hi Victor,

I really enjoyed watching your video.
Nice to see all those flowers, and the bright colors they have. Fantastic!

One tiny detail:
You might want to check the saturation of a few of the red flowers.
The roses at 00:50, and the other red flowers at 01:25 appeared to have too rich red color. So some details were lost.
Maybe it was supposed to be like that?

Thank you for sharing, and keep up the good work!

[Bryce Comer]

Hi Victor,
Wow you had some really beautiful shots there. I loved the transition that went from the heron to the flower, that almost looked like the heron "transformed" into the flower! I also loved your DOF. Are you using a 35mm adaptor?

Bryce

[Victor Wilcox]

Thanks for the comments.

Trond, the A1U is known to have problems with reds. I'll try reducing the saturation too see if it help.

Bryce, some of the flower shots were either shot using the telemacro setting or a Sony 2x teleconverter to reduce DOF. Others were just dumb luck.

[Mike Beckett]

Victor,

What a great result you get from the A1! I often wish my V1 would downsize into an A1, so I seem to have the opposite problem. I love the V1's physical form (suits my big clumsy hands!) but I sometimes wish I had the more discrete option.

The macro shots and the depth of field that is apparent work really well - I find that today's dumb luck turns into tomorrow's skill. By that measure I'm due a LOT of skill some day soon!

The reds a re a bit loud, which is one of the things that did scare me off the A1, but there's probably ways round this.

I wanted to see more of the heron, but then I do have a soft spot for birds like that

Like Bryce, I do like that transition from the heron. Was that done in post, or was it in-camera?

[Victor Wilcox]

Thanks Mike.

That was a Great White Egret. It's really hard to get with my A1U without the whites blowing out. I dream that someday my wife will agree to upgrade to a V1U. I did the transition with the Premiere presets Blur Out to Blur In combined with a 2-second cross dissolve. I tried the in camera blurs, but it was easier to control in post. Shot Transition does a good job, but if the DOF is too high, it doesn't look as good a it does in post.

I tried a demo using nothing but blurs for transitions. It made my audience cross-eyed.

[Meryem Ersoz]

Great film, Jeremy! I mean, Victor...

Very relaxing, I love filming flowers, the macro view is so interesting. Nice extreme close-up in your closing shot. A bit more motion mixed in with some of the earliest stationary shots would have helped things to move along a bit. I like the way that UWOL helps me stop and smell the roses.

Some smell-o-vision would have been a nice addition...

[Bruce Foreman]

A real nice relaxing restful piece. I had hoped to get some bluebonnets in some of my scenes but our part of West Texas didn't get enough rain and a very few wildflowers are just now starting to show.

I echo what others have said. This one was very well done, you may be able to pull the saturated reds from that camera back some in post.

[Markus Nord]

Victor… well done… nice colours. For me I didn’t like the music, it felt a bit 90-ish. I especially liked the last three shots on the Hibiscus (I think it was…) with the macro, maybe you could have concentrated the film in some flowers and showed some different stages. And you could have put in some cut-ways in between the flowers.

[Catherine Russell]

Hi Victor:

Are you recovering? A bum knee didn't keep you from making a lovely film! I personally didn't mind the super-saturation of the reds... if took me off into a kaleidoscopic world of dreams, scents and cloudless afternoons! Thanks for the drifting away...

Cat

[Mat Thompson]

Hey Jeremy....errr sorry Victor ;-) hope your knee's improving!

Well a great display of colour and variety and some intesting details. I think the A1 has a tele macro function does it not.....is this much good? I think your piece was a little short of premise but certainly made up for it in the colur department.

Great stuff.
Mat

[John Dennis Robertson]

Hi Victor
Even though you had to stay close to home for this one,you still produced a good piece...

[Geir Inge]

Hi Victor.

You give us some great colours and flowers, but maybe I liked the heron shot best. The transition from the heron to the flower was clever done :)
I'm not sure about how close to the theme, but still I like your film very much.

Wish you all the best.
Geir Inge