UWOL #11 "A Walk in the Park" by Mihali Moore

[Catherine Russell]

This was a beautifully filmed and intriguing documentary. The red deer, the exotic parakeets established from a lost pet, and the touching and humorous moment of the young stag sparring with the tree branch... combined for a high quality film.

Forgive me for starting a thread if the wish was not to have one... it's just so worth people's comments!

Thank you Mihali! This is a gift to UWOL as are all the other films!

Cat

[Mihali Moore]

Hi everyone,

At first, I decided to make my film about a specific inhabitant at a local park, as the time of year was right for some behaviour that I thought would be great to get on film. Red Deer rutting. Unfortunately the deadline came and I didn't manage to get adults locking horns in a dramatic fashion, so had to expand story to include other wildlife in the area. There was plenty to film, which was great, but it kind of threw my script and I think have ended up wit a fairly weak story. (Definitely not as creative as some of the entries!)

I found it quite hard to do the voice over too, something definitely to work on and devote more time to in the future. But Hey! You learn something new each time and I had fun making it.

Hope you enjoy watching it.

Cheers,

[Mihali Moore]

Whoops...didn't see this thread before doing one of my own one. Thanks for starting it, and for your comments!

Mihali

[Kevin Railsback]

Mihali,

Wow, what a great film!
The first shot of the red deer was killer! Very primal looking and sounding.

Your title was a bit dark on my monitor, had a hard time seeing it.

Loved the light on the stag at :31.

Is that really a heron at :45? Looks more like a cormorant or a grebe than a heron.

You captured some great shots and some great natural audio.

I've seen films on this park before but never knew there were breeding pairs of parakeets there.

My wife laughed when the fallow deer was practicing with the tree branch on its own. :)

I think your story was just fine. For someone who has never been there, I found it quit interesting and entertaining.

Loved the foggy moody look you had in a lot of the shots.

Good job all the way around!

[Meryem Ersoz]

wow, what an opening! Very dramatic.

This is a really pretty film, nice lighting...worth getting out of bed for it.

Your tracking and panning is very smooth and professional, you do a great job of following the random action of the animals. I love the shot of the little deer playing antler games with the stick.

I also like the diversity of the wildlife that you're showing, the way that you stay focused on your subject matter, with minor diversions into the bird and squirrel world. It really helps the pacing. I would have liked to have seen the camera stay on the spider web for a bit longer, that was the only jarring moment (to me) in an otherwise well drawn film.

An excellent entry.

I merged the two threads into a single thread, so that no one would miss this. Cat, you're keeping me busy this morning!

[Oliver Pahlow]

After watching that I took my camera down to the nook and chucked it into the brook. Super job Mihali.

[Markus Nord]

Nice opening scene… and the sound… WOW!
I think that you could have turn the audio down a bit… it was a bit too loud for me.
Nice shot on the egret, very good exposure.
You are telling a nice story and combined with good photo this is one of my favorites.
Maybe you hade some unnecessary movement in some of the shots and some over exposure in the midday shots…

Well done Mihali… nice one

Markus

[Chris Barcellos]

Your golden hour shots at both ends of the day are fantastic. This film is one of my favorites, this go round. And narration was very good, I thought.

[Trond Saetre]

Hi Mihali,

This was really entertaining to watch! Gotta love the colors of the golden hours.
The opening shot of the deer was my favorite. The crisp images combined with the raw sound... Well done!

The rack focus into the spider web was really cool, but maybe about a second more of the web would have been better?

Not sure if you did it intentionally or not, but at 2:20 I noticed that you focused on the grass, and the deer in the background is out of focus. I would have done the opposite, with focus on the deer instead.

Thank you for sharing!

[Finn-Erik Faale]

Mihali,

This film is really impressing with lots of great shots and an interesting story.
The most is said already.
The only ting I have to object is that your voice competes sometimes with the background sound.

[Jeff Hendricks]

What beautiful imagery and color and excellent narration too. I mean WOW that was really beautiful. The fog in the sceens gave the film increadible depth and the wild life had character which I think is so hard to do...thats why I rarley shoot wild life.

Really high quality piece of work!

Jeff

[Ron Chant]

Hi Mihali,
Richmond Park is a great source to film/photograph much wildlife my wife and I go to Richmond and Bushy parks
many times a year, last time was Wednesday.
I know you’re on a Constant sound battle from the surrounding traffic, aircraft and dog walkers ☺.

You captured the morning emotional tone, with the sun bleeding through the mist very well.

The opening VO was reminiscent of Charlie H James “My Halcyon River” ?
You have a good tone in your voice for this wildlife voice over stuff.
I enjoyed your film very much, well done on your entry.

[Mat Thompson]

Hi Mihali

Lovely visuals in your piece, with some fantastic light and atmouspherics. Richmond park is an amazing place especially when you understand its surroundings.

You need to make sure you're getting your species correct fella. Kevin has already pointed out the Cormorant (Not Heron in the first shot) and the Marsh tit is actually a Stone Chat if I'm not mistaken. Getting things like this correct in a piece like this is quite important and brings down a great piece.

VO needs some levels ajustment in places but your voice and pace is very nice. Overall I think the piece was very nice and was visually very impressive.

Cheers
Mat

[Rob Evans]

Hi Mihali, I was really captivated by your piece, i thought was a great study, presented by some excellent camera work and beautiful use of light and DOF. The pace, narration and story were spot on. I like the atmos audio intergration throughtout too, really took me there.
Quite often see the parakeets at home, in fact 3 were in a tree a the bottom of my garden a few weeks back. Silly things! Apparently the legend goes that a load were accidentally released on the set of some epic african adenture film in shepperton in the 50's and they grew from there.

Like Mat and Kevin have commented, the species mismatch was a bit of an "ooooo" moment (yes Mat, it is a Stonechat) - there's some really great ID guides out on the web, give them a try.

Another great film, man!!!

[Dale Guthormsen]

Mihali,

What a great piece on the red deer, an elk in our north american terms. I loved the footage with the fog, but in general all the images were excellent.

The best part of the video for me is the fantastic audio!! curiously, how far off were you and what kind of mic did you use??

Thank you for taking the time to share such a wonderful place!!!! A real treat for someone who lives in the prairies!!


Awesome job!!