UWOL #16 "Norwegian fjords and mountains" by Trond Saetre
 

This time I wanted to take you through some of the Norwegian landscape.
Norway is one of few countries in the world with fjords surrounded by more or less tall mountains, so this had to be included.

Filming this required me to try something totally new. Filming while driving, and being a one man show.
Of course Rule #11 was strictly followed at all times.
The landscape you see here, took about 2 hours to drive through. Choosing what to exclude from the film was very hard. Never had so much raw footage for an uwol challenge before. (It's a first for everything, right)

Enjoy.

Norwegian fjords and mountains

YouTube - The Norwegian fjords and mountains

Wow Trond - talk about a quick spin around the block! My head is reeling.

You have some absolutely stunning shots of what must be the most scenic country in the world, it just whizzed by so fast I'm not sure I took it all in. I hope you don't always drive that fast! :)

Trond- Your experiment was a grand success! What a great way to show your spectacular landscape. On the second time through I found myself pausing frequently to look at things and to catch my breath. Some of those turns made me feel like a Grand Prix racer! It reminds me a great deal of that classic timelapse movie of the train trip across England. How did you mount the camera in the car?

This is a very interesting way to show us the countryside. One that actually puts us on the same roads we would be traveling if we were there. I have seen a few of these compressed travel logs, and I think they are an interesting means of showing what an area is all about. I really got a feel for Norway from this trek, and I appreciate the introduction.

Next lets stop at some of the interesting buildings along the route... :)

Thank you for the comments!

Marj,
I'll drive slower next time. :)
If I do a stunt like this again, I'll do it even slower. Think 3-5x speed as it is now was way too fast since the road has so many turns.

Mike,
The tripod was secured between the dashboard and the front passenger seat.
Worked surprisingly well. But I think I got too much road, and too little of the scenery. Could have tilted the camera a bit more up.

Chris,
Point taken about stopping at some of the buildings.
I might do a new/improved version later, based on the feedback I get here from all of you.

Trond,

Wow, do you guys really drive at that speed in Norway!? Heh...

I can't fault this visually, it was very nice. What a lovely country. Reminded me a bit of some of the
Scottish highlands, only on a bigger scale and it looks a bit colder! An interesting and modern take on a scenic video.

The only technical fault I can find was the voiceover was a bit echo-ey. You could maybe try the patented Beckett Voiceover Booth (er, five sheets of foam rubber stuck together to form a box with an open front, with a mic inside) or hide in the closet with a torch and a microphone.

Also (and this isn't a fault), when I am learning about places from far off exotic lands like Norway it is sometimes nice to have captions showing the place names, so I can look them up online - for example, on Google Earth.

I did my "driving" shots with a Joby Gorillapod wrapped round the back seat headrest, or propped on the dashboard, but it was a bit wobbly. Your method seemed to work so much better.

Overall, this was very good. Drive safely!

Mike,
Yes from what I have seen on tv and pictures, the landscape of Scotland and western Norway are very similar.
You are spot on about the VO sound quality. I believe it is partly (or mostly, this time) since I was very close to a noisy refridgerator, which I forgot to turn off while I did the VO. Never had any such problems before with that microphone. (Shure SM-58) But it was in a new location. Have to do some tests later.
Tried to enhance the quality in Adobe Audition, but I ran out of time. (Not sure if I could have fixed it better or not, if I had more time)

The small towns/communities we passed through in the film, were (listed in the same secquence as they appear in the film)
1. Odda - approximate coordinates from Google earth: 60,04N 006,32,45E
Then following the east side of the fjord northbound as we pass by
2. Lofthus
3. Ullensvang (where we have a very nice and popular hotel on our left hand side)
4. Kinsarvik
Following the fjord further east, to pass by
5. Eidfjord, at roughly 60,28N 007,04E
Then following the road further east/south east, climbing up the narrow, steep "Måbødalen" to arrive at the mountain plateu Hardangervidden.

Thank you for the feedback.

Trond, great idea for the car ride. It seemed as though the roads were very smooth. I must try this technique myself now. I like the effect, and I think having a little bit of the front hood and wipers showing as a stationary reference point helped smooth out the effect. Great job!

Trond... you certainly compressed a lot into a 3 minute piece. The time lapse/compress worked well in the piece to my eye and I enjoyed it.

A great way to share a lot in a short time interval. I agree that the effect was very smooth.

Thanks for taking me on this "journey".

Chris S.

Tronde,

Great job. I know how hard it is to shoot out of a moving vehicle!!!!! You must have the smoothest roads in the world. How did you do that???

While I really enjoyed the trip, I was wanting to look out the sides and upward farely often. Now if you were driving and doing this then I know why you were pretty road focused. You did give plenty to visually enjoy, guess I am just a tad greedy about wanting to see morre.

While I am slightly hearing impaired (30 years as a shop teacher) and my wife feels I am linguisticly impaired too (she may be right) I did have trouble with the voice over, felt like it was a bit to heavy (bass wise). I know I shouldn't complain because audio is my personal nemisis, and perhaps it is just me.

the more I watch yours, geirs, pers videos the more I want to visit my grandfathers homeland.

thanks!!!

Bill,
The Norwegian roads have some of the Europe's worst quality! Bumps, holes, deep wheel tracks... you name it, we got it. Luckily that didn't show up on the film, as it would have been a very bumpy 3 minutes.
The image stabilizer in the camera did a tremendous job.

Chris,
Thank you for the comments. Glad you enjoyed.

Dale,
I'll check the VO. Thank you for mentioning it. Audio editing is not my strongest side.
And nope, like I mentioned to Bill here, the roads in Norway are far from good. The smooth ride is thanks to the image stabilizer in the XM2.
I had the tripod mounted between the dashboard and the front passenger seat. (as low as possible)

You've provided a good bit of inspiration there for including bits of a journey in a film, but a three minute stretch of continual motion was more than enough for me - I wanted time to stop for a real look at the sights you were talking about. It looks like you did the whole take on one run with the camera in one position. Perhaps doing a second run with the camera looking more sideways out of the car window would have given a little more variety of shots, as well as a better look at some of those sights.

As Dale says, the VO was disappointing - I'm sure I've heard you do better - but then, I've been known to forget to turn the fridge off too!

All in all, an excellent way of showing off Norway's wonderful landscape.

Annie,
Thank you for the feedback.
The VO is noted, and I'm already testing to figure out what went wrong. Seems like it was a combination of mostly the fridge I forgot to turn off, and partly from being too close to the laptop. And as a result of that, a bit too much noise reduction in post making it all sound bad.
Lesson learned.

Hei Trond, as the only one from the Viking-team you did very well for this round!

Your way of filming inside the car was very well done. I´m surprised that you got so steady footage from the drive. I know that our roads are not at all so smooth. I tried once to do what you did here, but to no success as the footage was way to unstable. Have to try again, I maybe get some advise from you!

As other have said before, you could have made some stops, showing some of the stunning nature and buildings could have been fine. I have been driving this part of Norway some time ago and it was nice to view it from your perspective!

I think you are progressing very well in your way of making films, Trond. Keep them coming, and I know that you strictly follow rule #11 :-)

Hi Trond

Creative thinking on this one and a nice defined idea. I liked your piece a lot and get to see/know ever more about Norway :-). It could really have used tighter audio control, the VO sounded very muffled and low frequency. I would have also liked to have seen some more cut aways and maybe some wilder location. The lighting was also quite flat.

Nice film making.

Mat