UWOL #4 - "Elemental" by Marco Wagner
 

Well, this was an incredible journey for me, too bad most of it was not in front of my lens. I traveled from Rocky Point, Mexico to Payson, Arizona to get shots, most of which where killed off by development or nature's wrath. I had a blast though and just barely made it home for the deadline. I felt like I didn't have enough footage to submit, but I wanted to complete something!!! I messed my workflow up at some point and have some interlacing issues, but I was only minutes from zero hour after my first encode.

I almost didn't make it out of a flash flood where the water level rose so quickly it nearly took out our camp!

I hope you enjoy the chocolate waterfalls that were crystal clear just hours before. My initial vision was to just catch water in its many forms and motions.

Link here:
http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen..._elemental.mov

I'll post a better and higher res link tonight.

Good afternooon,

I thought you had some great water shots. the Macro was nice, but the pelicans were way to fuzzy. thanksd for sharing!!!

Thanks for the comments. Yeah the pelican footage was giving me issues, I missed a setting on the down convert and had huge interlace problems, nothing seemed to fix it in time I had other than blur.

Marco,

I don't know, I think you had the makings of a great power of nature film going on there.
I think I would have gotten into the whole power of water aspect. The muddy waterfalls were awesome in that respect. Get some erosions and a few other shots and you have a different film all together.

Yeah, the pelican stuff was blurry but the beginning of it with what looked like a special effect with the two sets of wings looking like they belonged to one bird was really cool. It was cool to see them separate into two birds.

I think you accomplished your goal of capturing water in motion but I liked the power of the flood waters the best!

Wow, thanks Kevin, your comments made me feel like the last two weeks of heck are worth a lot more now. It kept raining so much and I don't have a underwater enclosure to protect my camera, I got what shots I could and left it at that. (I'm still trying to get the waterspots off my cam) The pelicans are no special effect, just something I happened to catch, I thought it was pretty neat as well. Thanks again for watching...

very enjoyable marco you showed the awesome power of water with the muddy waterfall.

i'll watch it again for sure.

brian

Thanks a bunch! I feel good about at LEAST completing this time around, to have anyone say nice things is a bonus!




HERE IS THE LARGER HIGHER BITRATE .MOV FILE http://timelake.com/media/UWOL4_LG.mov

Hi Marco.
What fascinates me most in this competition is the many ways of approaching the theme.
Your elemental film is one of those. The music are great, is it to buy?
Keep on your good work.

Geir Inge

Elemental is a beautiful film,

If you had the time/luck it would have been really cool to have a documentation of the flood itself. But with the time frame you had you captured the essence of the flood. That muddy water was obviously very powerful and you were able to capture that.

The music choice was very good. And I liked the ending of the film with the credits cutting to more shots of that powerful muddy flood.

Thank you, nice piece

Jeff

Hi Marco:

Your title captures it all in what you have done here. You have the makings of a powerful film. The music choice was interesting which gave it a very different feel than if you used something "pretty" or "soothing". Even though the pelicans were fuzzy which was a little frustrating... the beginning of this capture was stunning when it looked liked one bird with 4 wings. I almost thought you doubled up the film and offset the pumping of the wings just so that you would get that effect.

Nice film Marco.

Cat Russell

Geir,

Thank you for that comment. The music was composed by my good friend's brother, he's very artistic and I asked for something "natural". I tried to edit to the music, i love doing that.


Jeff,

I would have LOVED to have been able to capture the clear lagoon as the rush of sediment overcame it initially. I plan to go back alone the next time I see a storm rolling in, after I get a good waterproofing set. I hear flash floods in Monument Valley are pretty sick as well.


Catherine,

Thank you so much, I plan on re-editing that pelican scene and posting it on here without all the mistakes. I think it's pretty crazy looking as well.



HERE IS THE LARGER HIGHER BITRATE .MOV FILE http://timelake.com/media/UWOL4_LG.mov

Hi Marco,
I thought you had some great scenes and with better audio, I believe your video would have been very impressive.
I felt for you when you commented on the crystal clear water falls turning to chocolate brown however, I thought it was nice to see what can happen as the weather changes.
I probably would have introduced some slow motion with the water (around the 1.00 mark), as this always looks good. I also would have worked on the colour a bit as it was a bit flat in some areas (maybe tune the Gamma and Saturation a bit) and perhaps used a polarazing filter.
Having said this, I felt you captured some really nice (and dramatic) shots and enjoyed watching your entry.

Thank you David for those comments and suggestions. I am learning a lot and it is greatly due to this forum, these contests, and all the support we get from each other.

Hi Marco,

I loved those waterfalls. You made a very good film.

The bird sequence:
In the beginning I thought you had made the birds a bit out of focus/fuzzy by purpose, and thought it was a cool effect.
In my opinion, since they were so unsharp, I would have preferred to have this sequence a bit shorter. But that's just a detail.

Thanks for the comment, yeah I wish I would have had more time on the editing portion.

Note to all future UWOLers, set aside time, plenty of time for editing!!!