UWOL 13 - "Washed Away" by Carl Middleton & Conner Kelly
 

As I mentioned on the signup thread, this was a bit of a fun experiment for me in a few ways! Conner is recent graduate of middle school, preparing to start going to a high school for the arts, looking to get into video! So to let him get a taste for the business, or at least a taste of what it takes to produce, I let him produce this project. I filmed and edited, he wrote and made shot lists and storyboards. (He did a great job on the storyboards, by the way!)

I've waited to post this because I wanted to get an HD copy up on Vimeo!
Washed Away on Vimeo

Unfortunately it seems to stutter when I play it, hopefully you guys have better luck with it.

As for some fun techie stuff, here's the workflow I had some fun with -
Z1U 1080i60 -> Cineform 720p24 -> PPro2.0/AspectHD -> Cineform 720p24 to H.264 720p25 via Compressor for Vimeo -> Cineform 720p24 to Sorenson3 for the upload

Let me know what you think! There's a 20% slow motion due to the first conversion from 60i to 24p. I think it helped with the camera shake, due to the ground being what I was filming more often than not, I really couldn't use a tripod. Besides, it's rather fragile dirt in great shapes, I didn't want to treat it any worse than I had to, just walking over it!

Carl, seem to be a tough place to film and I think you did great! Some very interesting shoots with exciting perspective. I think you did a good job in the handheld scenes too!

I would have liked some more wideshots to get a idea of how the area looked like from some distance.

The editing phase and use of music score was good.
Overall a great film to watch! It played well without so much stutter for me.

Hi Carl,

Very nice video you made. I liked the crisp colors.
As already commented, a couple wide shots of the area would be nice.

Keep up your good work, I look forward to see your next one.

Carl,

The stuttering I believe is a compression issue, it stuttered in SD as well.


You have some terrific images and compositions were excellent. the one shot of the stump on the beach ( 38s) would have been slightly better (imho) with the stump to the right and the waves moving the eyes to the stump. I liked it a lot. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE ON THE PLANET!!

I really liked the music for it!!

Look forward to more of you work to be sure!!

Carl,

Beautiful work. Nice shots, great music.

I agree with the others that some long shots would have been nice, but still very pretty video.

Bob

Carl and Conner,
I thought the opening pan was enough of an establishing shot. Keeping the rest tightly framed just added to the mysterious feeling for me. I did have one bad moment. As I was looking at the driftwood I remembered a couple of days ago seeing on a website some very similar looking driftwood for sale by the pound. I got this terrible mental image of everything in frame loaded on the back of a pickup and headed down the highway for sale. Talk about chaos.

Conner- Congratulations on your first production. Well done!

Carl & Conner - well done!

That flowed nicely, I thought, and the framing and colours were good. I'm not normally a fan of zooms, but I think it worked really well in that.

As Dale said, what a beautiful place. I think a little voiceover to explain where it was and what had happened may have helped, but other than that there's nothing wrong there. Superb.

Nice job guys! The music was very soothing and thought it went well with the piece.

I agree that a little narration would have made this even stronger. I really liked the leaf on the beach shot.

Good job guys! Hope to see more from you Conner!!

Visually and aurally it was great, but I was left wanting to know more about that erosion and cycle of creation. Was it coastal or inland water? What caused the erosion? What time scale? So I think a narration, or some basic captions, might help. Not that I should be one to talk . . . .

Hehe I thought about narrating the piece, but I already had to narrate one project that week, and I haaaate my voice. :D Also, I left the mic at work that weekend, and didn't want a trip to the office to borrow it... :)

Here's the info I do know about the area...
It's situated at the end of the Amelia River, in northeast Florida. Amelia Island is the island you see in the distance during the opening title shot. To the right side of the screen is open ocean, at least once you get past the giant sandbar island there. I honestly do not know the time frame involved in the erosion, but I think that it is natural and not hurricane-related. It's a favorite spot of many beach lovers, and the driftwood is a protected feature of the park. The drop off from coastal woodlands to beach is about 6-7 feet. As the erosion continues, it moves that drop off further inland, and turns the soil from that area into the 'clay' that you see the landscape built from. The trees, of course, become driftwood, albeit driftwood that has never actually, erm, drifted!

Hope this helps! :)

What a beautiful place and what dramatic images of drifwood. Well done Connor - a pretty neat first entry. I must say writing and working to a storyboard is not always easy but you guys seem to have done pretty good job of it - although as mentioned, a narration would have been very helpful to the viewer - hopefully you will get the opportunity next time.

Carl some nice shots in there. I still feel you would be better off using a tripod in circumstances like this - although you didn’t do too badly hand holding the camera considering the very good reasons for doing so.