uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

This was a great challenge as I was fortunate to be able to spend time videoing at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on Merritt Island, Florida.

Camcorder was the Canon XF300 with a Sennheiser MKE 600 shotgun Microphone and edited with Vages Pro14. I videoed the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour, on April 19th, 2001, with a Canon XL-1. Enjoy and please send me your comments. Bob

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Hey Bob,
What a great film. I loved the beautiful clean audio you captured. What mic is that you're using?
Some lovely shots of all those birds!! As usual you have delivered a great VO to explain what was going on in the film. I also liked the way you tied it together with the space program & the role the wildlife refuge plays in all of that.
How old is the XF300 now? It is certainly still producing some incredible images! There's not a lot i can offer that might help make your film better. Maybe the shot of the (blue?) heron at 2.08 could have been framed with a little more looking room. The only other thing, is you could probably leave out the fade to black at 2.22.
Thanks for this look into the Merritt Island wildlife refuge, i really enjoyed it!
Regards,
Bryce

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Bob, you did a great job taking me to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge
It looks like it is a huge, huge area with lot of wildlife, which I would love to go to one day
I liked the variation in focal length you did in the film, would like some more close up of some of the colorful birds though
VO and ambient sound was very nice. The edit was good to
The launch of the space shuttle must have been amazing to witness. Liked it a lot!

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Hi Bob.
That looks like a great place for birds and you got some good shots. You do have a good voice, easy to understand. I agree with Bryce about the fade to black. Your film seemed to flow nicely and I enjoyed watching. Thanks for a look in the refuge.

Gordon

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Hi Bob,

Like all good films yours has an unexpected twist in the tail, a clever integration of fauna and the human race woven into the theme.

Overall I found it a very well produced film that move along at the right pace my only observation would be that in the middle section you went from one species to another with mainly mid to tele/close ups where a few wide's interspersed would have made the transition from bird to another less abrupt.


I enjoyed watching, thank you

Mick

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Hi Bob,

Not hard to see why you follow the call of the wildlife :)
Nice to see all the different birds.

I disagree with the critics about the fade to black at 2:22. In my opinion it works well because you change subject from the bird to the refugee itself.

Cool twist in the end with the shuttle launch!

Thanks for sharing, and well done!

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Hi Bob,

such a great wildlife place with so much variety loved it. Your VO is so perfect and goes perfectly with the mood of the video.

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Thank you all for your comments. Bryce, I was using the Sennheiser MKE 600 shotgun microphone with a fuzzy. I bought my Canon XF300 back in 2012 and it still amazes me with the footage that it produces. It's color sampling is 4:2:2 at 50 Mbps, not bad for an old camcorder. I actually thought of upgrading to the C200 but them thought why? I used the fade to black to shift location. Maybe I should have moved it to just before the stills of the Kennedy space center, just as the music kicks in. Mick and Per, I agree that I should have changed focal length between species and possible more close-ups. In April 19th, 2001, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the launce of the space shuttle Endeavour, and videoed it with my old Canon XL-1. I really enjoyed this challenge. Thank you all for taking the time to comment on my video. Bob

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Bob there is some great colors in the bird shots - 4:2:2 certainly doesn't go astray there, and the greens really pop. You also picked an interesting subject for the story and sculpted your narrative around that. A couple of shots could probably use a little more stability to bring them inline with the rest, but better having the shot than not.

You have a nice way of taking the viewer on a journey with your videos. I liked both sections of the story, and whilst I can see a parallel being drawn, they did still feel a little disconnected to me. My instinct would be to focus on one. But that's down to subjective viewing experience, and it's a great idea for tying them together. I was going to say they haven't launched a shuttle for quite a while. I'm just a touch older than STS-1 myself. But we're at the end of that era, hopefully onto the next at some stage. Thanks for sharing, I can only imagine seeing a launch would be awesome.

Re: uwol#45-Following the Call of the Wild
 

Here is the new version of my video. I incorporated several of the comments made to me during the comment period. Enjoy! Bob