UWOL#3 "Birds in The Wild" by Gordon Hoffman
 

Well I went from plan a to plan b to finally just putting something together. Hopefully I will get something better for compressing the video soon as it takes a beating with what I have. Shot with a old Canon XL1 and a Sony HC3. Comments appreciated. Thanks.
http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen...sinthewild.mov

Gordon Hoffman

Very nice work. Great, great behaviour in a couple of those sequences and good use of levels of detail in your work, so important but seems to be missed by so many! I would only have used a couple of those wides at the start and maybe not spent quite as long on the water before the pan up to the waterfowl...which was very a nice lead in by the way (Thats going into the memory banks I'm afraid)! Is it some sort of treecreeper in your middle sequence? I thought this was fab, probably the nicest sequence in all the uwol films this time round...

Hi Gordon.
Very nice shots of those birds. I like your video.

Hi Gordon, here I am lying in my bed (i've got some of meryems "stomach-flew") looking at all those great uwol-films.
You've managed to capture some great birds in a great scenary.
That river-scene with a tilt to the ducks where awsome. And that little bird in the tree, struggeling to build a nest I reckon?
And the flappering wings, I must say this is my kind of wildlife film.

Gordon, very nice film. I especially liked the bird struggling to get the branch into it's nest and the wing beating at the end. Looks like it tried to start up some kind of engine :-)

You're on my top five list!

Great job Gordon. I really like that you showed the little guy getting the stick into his "house".

The film had a very nice rhythm to it. And then there was some spectacular footage. I really liked the scene of the bird and its nesting materials, figuring out how to get them into its cavity. And the ruffed grouse was really amazing, that is hard to see, let alone film. You had great nature sound recordings to match the images, and the music complimented the scenes. I really liked it a lot, and was really impressed by all you saw and captured in just a couple weeks!

Ruth

Beautiful footage Gordon. This was crystal clear and sharp. You have a real tallent for catching things on film. It's a winning piece of art.

Cat

Nice job Gordon! There are some really nice shots in there! I really liked the where he is flapping his wings really fast at 2:04, very cool!

I like how you set the music more so as a soft background to support the video... Its a nice change. I like it.

Great stuff..

Keep at it!
~Gabriel

I like the film especially the sound you were able to capture. The grouse (I believe it was a grouse) with its wings flapping was very nice.

I prefer a bit less of the panning with the camera and more straight cuts to the next visual. But the art is for you to create, not me and style is individualized anyway so it is a beautiful piece of art you have captured.

Nice work,

Jeff

Matt - Thanks for the comments. You are right the shot is a liitle long before the pan up to the Harlequin Ducks. I do fair nimber of those kinds of moves but use very few of them for some reason. When your subject is not doing much I'm always looking for something to shoot. The small bird is a Wren.

Trond - Thanks I'm glad you like it!

Geir Inge - Thanks. I'm a sucker for natural history wildlife films. Yes the Wren was preparing its' nest. The male Ruffed Grouse has a favorite log it likes to sit on and do what is called drumming to attract females.

Per Johan - Thanks I appreciate that. I wonder what would happen if the grouse lost his grip on the log while doing that?

Bruce - It was interesting watching it. It had a y shaped one it couldn't get in. Thanks.

Ruth - If I only had more time ... Some grouse are more tolerant than others. Usually if you can hear them drumming and work your way in slowly you can get a look at them. You may need binoculars to pick them out. I bought a portable sound recorder this spring so I'm giving a real work out. Thanks.

Cat - Thanks for your comments. I'm hard on my footage if it doesn't look fairly sharp and steady I don't like to use it. I usually shoot a lot of a subject so I can be picky.

Gabriel - Thanks. I was wanting the natural audio to stand out more on this piece. Yes they can get really wound up.


Jeff - Thanks. I'm trying harder to do audio this year now that I have a sound recorder. That's one thing neat about this competition is watching the different styles.

Thanks again everyone for your comments.

Gordon Hoffman

the good news is that plan b is keeping you in free t-shirt contention! this is some pretty nice "plan b" i would say....some of us would like to have our "plan a" turn out so well....

Meryem - It would be nice to be able to plan something and have it work out thou. For me I find it easier to go out and just shoot footage and then figure out how to put it together. Thanks.

Congrats on a very well executed "plan b" and just for sticking it out when what you originally wanted didn't happen. Those Harlequin ducks are probably my favorite waterfowl species in the world. Great capture on the grouse too. The only way we can get that close around here is to drive up next to them on a road in the mountains. Thanks for the look.

Rick Phillips

Rick
Thanks for the feedback. Harlequins are a neat little bird!

Gordon Hoffman