UWOL #6 "Dancing Lights" by Steven Gotz

[Steven Gotz]

http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen...cinglights.mov

Well. it isn't nature, that's for sure. Except that it is human nature that caused a man to put up 3.5 million Christmas lights on his house in Arkansas because his daughter wanted lights. That's paternal love for you. They grew to over 5 million lights and were eventually moved to the Disney MGM Studios at Disney World in Florida.

It does stick to the "Night" theme though.

The official name is "The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights" and is sponsored by Sylvania, a company that makes light bulbs!

The first night my wife and I went to Disney after we moved to Florida was to see these lights. We go every year. The lights dance to music, which I could not use due to copyright issues, but I am rather pleased with the music I found under the Creative Commons license.

I didn't use a single transition. All straight cuts. And I used 100% of the audible portion of the music file. No cuts or changes of any kind.

If anyone is interested, I will post the M2T file (1440X1080 1.33PAR) on http://www.yousendit.com - just give me a little time to get back home to a decent bandwidth connection. I am in an airport on my way home as I type this. It is rather pretty and might be fun to show at a Christmas party.

I hope you enjoy the early look at Christmas lights. If you are like me, feel free to wait until Thursday evening to view the video. (I prefer to wait until Thanksgiving is over before I deal with Christmas, but the contest precluded that this year.)

I tried to shoot the snowfall, but it kept getting on my lens to I gave up. Fortunately, Disney turns off the snow when the lights start to dance, and turns it on again during the breaks. "Turns on the snow?" our Oslo group asks? Yes, it has been well over 70F most days in Florida, but Disney makes snow anyway. It evaporates as soon as it hits the ground.

I hope you enjoy the lights almost as much as I did shooting them.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Steven, this was a lightning film ;-)
I think you managed to show us the spectacular show this is, albeit it's too early for me to think about Christmas!
Your angle of view was a bit static, I could also want nice close-ups of this, maybe where you turned the focusring from out of focus to focus, I think you know what I mean.

[Steven Gotz]

One shot that I tried four or five times to get was a reflection of the Mickey and Santa handshake in a window. But people kept walking past the window and I finally gave up. Actually, the crowds were pretty severe. I had to be very careful with my camera, and moving meant getting jostled.

One of the problems I have with challenges like this, is I get wrapped up in the pretty pictures, and I suffer with the 3 minute format. I try to include too much. That eliminates much of the "artistic" shooting that I try to accomplish. Not only that, but I don't seem to be a very good shooter. I am getting better though.

I keep promising myself that I will try something aritistic on of these challenges. One of these days, I will succeed, I hope.

[Brian McKay]

Steven never been there at Christmas....thanks for the preview. More power being consumed in this video than my whole town would use in a full year. All fun aside nice work a bit static but enjoyable.

That reminds me did my wife happen to tell you guys what she wants for Christmas??

Brian

[Catherine Russell]

Hey Steve!

My oh my! Your clip made me feel like sitting down with some hot chocolate and singing a few carols! You had some nice seamless blends with good editing. I just had a thought though... it would have been interesting to contrast that with lights in nature, like the moon, twilight behind ridges... that sort of thing. Thanks for giving us front row seats to quite a spectacular show of lights!

Cat

[Ruth Happel]

I really liked the effects you got shooting the lights. There was at times an amazing three dimensional feel to the footage.

It was fun to watch, getting ready for the holidays. Given what I could see of the crowds in the background at times, and hearing stories about how crowded it gets there, it was a great job avoiding the crowds enough to get really spectacular footage.

The music was an enjoyable enhancement to the video- it worked really well.


Ruth

[Meryem Ersoz]

now that you're done with UWOL, you can push this entry over to the DVC christmas challenge. a two-fer!

man, you are so spoiled with all these lights. no gain artifacts, no #$%^#$& swearing at your camera, no having to curse me and my forebears for picking this #^$*$&* theme! (and believe me, i did a bit of that myself!) too easy! what can we do to make you suffer more, steven?

[Steven Gotz]

Originally Posted by Meryem Ersoz

what can we do to make you suffer more, steven?

LOL. I suffer every time I look at the other entries and see the talent behind them. I need the easy ones just to be able to get an entry submitted. It's tough trying to be creative with little to no talent. I learn each time I enter. Maybe, eventually, mine will stand up with some of the classics we have seen around here. Like the bears, birds, and what were those, sea lions?

My real goal is to eventually have a real story to tell, instead of playing at showing pretty pictures.

[David Gemmell]

Hi Steven,

Wow, what a light show! I have NEVER seen anything like that in my life. You've started something now Steven, as my kids are tugging at my shirt asking where "that place is". I explained that the man used special effects, phew!

Anyway, back to your entry - which I really enjoyed. Christmas is a wonderful time and to capture part of the feeling of Christmas in this way brought back the wonderful feeling, as well as the spectacle of Christmas. I think you did this very nicely. I would have loved to have seen the excitement and joy amongst the people who were there - but this can be a bit difficult.

The sheer volume of lights and the colours, designs, etc were absolutely amazing and I really am glad you captured and shared this with us.

[Geir Inge]

Hi Steven.
Some great light show over at Disney :)
You've put it all together in a nice way and it gave me a sense of Christemas feeling. It cant be easy filming in such a place with people almost hanging over your shoulders, eh? Maybe I missed some scenes/cutaways with no blinking lights? Just a personal feeling though. Nice music too.

All the best.
Geir Inge

[Dale Guthormsen]

Steve,

Thank you for sharing such a wonderful light show. I have never seen anything like it to be sure. In fact when I showed my wife and she tossed out the idea it was cg material. Pretty amazing.
I think there is so much there I would not even know where to start trying to be creative.
I think you did a fine job catching the lights!!!

[Bryce Comer]

Steve,
Wow what a light show! I was just mesmerised by them all. I thought your camera work was good. You were obviously using your manual focus to have all those flashig lights not playing tricks on your focus, well done! The music you chose went very well with your film. Keep up the great work.

Bryce

[Trond Saetre]

Steven, thank you for taking me to the Disney World.
After watching your light show video, I have "been there without actually been there". Very nice!
Great choice of music too.
(by the way, the ski resorts have to produce tons and tons of snow here in Norway too. Can't always trust mother nature to deliver the snow itself. But here, 70F would be concidered a nice warm summer day.)

WELL DONE!!!

[Bob Safay]

Steven, WOW. You earned extra points for a magnificent job of editing and camera work. It just made me feel happy, like being a kid again and "going to see the lights". What a great, fun, whimsical video. Bob

[Greg Boston]

I visited the Osbourne's house while they still had the lights on their property. I guess you can undertand why the neighbors complained.

-gb-