Well, it's compressed and uploading as I write this.

What a challenge this one was! It's not my best film but I hope it's not my worst! :)

I hope it makes sense to everyone. Nothing really spectacular but I have to put it to bed so I can start cleaning gear and getting it ready to ship out tomorrow for my trip to Yellowstone.

I have to say,this challenge really wore me out as I went out almost daily and came up empty handed, day after day.

Finally in a filming frenzy, I filmed pretty much all the footage this morning.
With partly cloudy skies I had anything from harsh shadows to flat light.

Normally once the sun has been up for a couple hours, I call it a day until the sun starts getting low on the horizon once again.

But since I was up against the wall, I filmed well past my normal shooting times. I just went deeper into the woods to try and get a better light.

So, hopefully some of you will enjoy it. I haven't really had a chance to sit back and look at it because as soon as I finished, I compressed it and now it's uploading.

At least I stayed out of the tank again! :)

And where did I get 90% of the shots today? Fromt the same trail I hiked for my UWOL2 film, "Geocaching." See if you recognize any of the same areas with all the greenery all grown up.

Hi Everyone!

Glad to be back in the loop with all of you! No tales of woe on this one, I simply once again had a splendid time. Now I had two wonderful things happen:

!) I am shooting all of these films with both a digital still and video camera that are probably 10 years old and infinitely out of date. It's all I have. But miracles can still happen. The video of the bee in my uwol 3 - "go wild" clip was a wonderful surprise and a great testimony to how good 10 year old cameras were in their day!

2) THANKS TO KEN DWIERT! He has taken me under his wing in a sense and gave me great advice on a compression software package called: SORENSON SQUEEZE 4.5. Everyone now hear this! If you are having problems compressing your files and having them still look good and don't have this software, You MUST get this package. It's downloadable and costs $500.00 US dollars. It's a must investment. Ken advised I invest in this before investing in new camera equipment and all the software/hardware to support it. After I finished with uwol3 I started the compression with the utilities I have in After Effects and FCP. I was way over file-size limit (80-90 megs) and IT LOOKED HORRIBLE! I remembered what Ken wrote about Sorenson Squeeze and in a desperate state downloaded it to try it. It is simple to use, very self-explanatory and user friendly. Friends, I easily compressed my uwol3 movie with full audio and video to a measly 38 megs, and (forgive my bias) it LOOKS GREAT!

So! These are my two tales of Wonder and Joy!

All the best to everyone this challenge and looking forward to all the creative and beautiful things you all have done.

Sincerely,

Cat Russell
Spike Productions

Hi Kevin and Mat:

Wow! Blasting through some of these posts, I am humbled by your fortitude and hard work! I know these efforts will come out in your films. I can't wait to view them.

Would you guys ever throw tomatoes at me for confessing that my filming was done on walks right out my front door and if I did drive (once), it was within a couple of miles from where I live? Just checking!

Three cheers for all your hard work to put up something beautiful for the rest of us to enjoy!

Sincerely,

Cato

No sweat Catherine, if you was able to film "The Wild" at your front door, I'm impressed! No tomatoes, eggs or whatsoever from me ;-)
And as you can see, someone took a real knock, in the eager to find "The Wild"!
Second that!

Hi Per:

What can I say, the Norwegian contingent in this contest certainly adds spice to the group. I'm becoming fast friends with you, Geir and Trond not only because of your professional and artistic abilities that add such a challenge to this contest, but your great sense of humor as well!

Cat

yah, norwegians rock! and they make groovy videos, too....

Sounds like you are having a good time, Cat. Good to hear it!

Nope, never. Everything I do is within walking distance almost.. :) I've only once (well, I went there twice, but it was the same exact place) drove to a location, and those shots will be in the entry, but they did not turn out well..

I very much second that! :D

Time for me to get that music to match and upload...
~Gabriel

Love you guys, big hug from me :) and I think we all rock.
After all, we're international in uwol and together we're making some great wildlife films. As Meryem says, "this is history", and we're making it.
James Brown said: "I feel good"....

hi everyone!

just finished uploading my first entry to an uwol challenge and thought i could write a first post as well.
i had great fun shooting and editing my film about the monkeys of gibraltar . the wild seems to have produced some films that sound very promising - and i can't wait to see them (especially the gibbon entry that uploaded at the same time as mine).
i am already enjoying this community a lot. there is so much to learn just by reading the feedbacks to all the films. glad that i found uwol.

tom

Welcome Tom:

UWOL is one thing you will never regret! All the best and have fun. Wow, monkeys? This challenge is going to be great. Can't wait to see your film.

Hi Geir, did you ever get the bird shit off your head? Talk about everyone going the extra mile!

Hi Gabriel, nice to hear from you again. We are looking forward to what you have cooked up this time!

Cat

Yeah, I got the Squeeze for UWOL3, and it sure made a noticable difference in picture quality vs file size.
(compared to encode quicktime directly from Premiere Pro 2.0)

oh, and Catherine, it's not the equipment that makes the movie! It's YOU, the person behind the camera! A skilled person can make great movies from old equipment too. So don't worry!

I agree with you on that one Geir.
And it is so nice to get to know people with the same interests from around the world.

So a big thank you to Meryem and her team for all the work they do for the UWOL Challenge!

I got my gibbons uploaded today. Nice and painless, so thanks for that.

I won't say much about mine except that it is not what I went out to shoot. I wrote what I was going to use as a voiceover and decided to just let the images tell one story with the backstory be for those who want to read it.

I tried something different this time to get my Sorenson 3 export, and it seemed to look OK.

Hi Trond:

Nice to hear from you again! Thanks for the encouragement and past good advice. You also have given me lots of your time and experienced information on equipment and such, which is sincerely appreciated!

Excited to see what you and everyone else have come up with for this challenge!

All the best,

Cat

my tale of wonder is that, with the exception of mat's gnarly blister, this UWOL Challenge is proceeding so smoothly that i hardly know what to make of it. we have 23 uploads and counting! and i'm barely breathin'!

you guys are awesome! can't wait to see the entries! and to have one of my own up is icing on the cake....