Hello Everyone,


This was the hardest uwol for me to date. Terrible weather, three family crisis' to deal with. In ability to get anyone one to work with me when the time was available. did get a neighbor and a friends son to help a bit. Weather prevented me from getting some shots I had hoped to make happen.



I thought I had all day Monday to put it together. anyway after getting son back from hospital (now has Phnemonia) I hit the computer at 4:00 pm and blazed until 11:40 and had to put it up before the dead line basicly a tad less than intended.

enough excuses

I probably should have just taken the dip in the tank.

I did have fun shooting it even if the the mosquitos at times were rather nasty.

herre is the nicer version of it

http://www.vimeo.com/4849500

Meryem,

Sorry about the spelling!!! I had corrected it- do not know what happened. I can re download the one on our home page if you like.

Hi Dale,
Now I know where all my winter goldfinches went. This was a fun piece, especially the split screen. How did you composite that? The dolly looked good- was that a skate board? Sounds like you’ve had a busy month too. Hope your son is well now.

Dale, Vimeo won't allow access. Says you have private.

Dale,

OK, now I get your video wall questions in the Sony Vegas forum..LOL.

Nice effect, that video wall.

Colors were great, the yellow finches(?) really looked good.

Two things...the 4:3 picture in the 16:9 frame distracted me. But that may only be me.
And I thought the long shot on the bird feeder went too long, but that's a small thing.

Overall, I liked it a lot.

Bob

Chris,

Thanks,
all fixed.

Dale, a pleasure to watch, you always give me a good time when I watch your films!

This time as was impressed by your dolly shots done with the skate board!? I've had an idea of using same stuff myself, so I think it's time to me to try it out, after watching your success with it!
Editing phase becomes better and better. Some of your sequences could have bin cut a bit in length, but overall well done!
Music was amusing and fitted the sequences well!
The ending with the video wall, was nice, showing some behind the scenes stuff!

Now I know what to do with my son's skate board, besides ride it

Great video, and effects.

Dale! I love it!

The skateboard shot I think moves a bit too fast towards the end possibly, lots of motion blur, or perhaps Vimeo had to really compress things by that point. Not sure. The birdfeeder wide shot I really loved, those little guys look BRIGHT on the gray background there. And I like how the bird on the closeup dances with the music.

I definitely liked the 'epiphany'. Makes a lot of sense. And I love the effort you put into the video wall. Thanks for showing us how you did the dolly, I was curious! :D I'm not the biggest fan of the font you used for the titling, but that wasn't stopping me giggling along and enjoying the ride. Good job.

Dale, this was cool to watch!
I especially liked the picture in picture in the end. Very cool!
Skateboard/dolly shot was a bit too quick maybe, but that's a minor detail.

Great shots of the birds, nice to see so many of them there.

Your editing is great!

Thank you for sharing your world with us.

Excellent Dale, entertaining to watch, and you've taken the "behind the scenes" shot to a new level!

Once again I am fascinated by the difference between American and European birds:

European Goldfinch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Goldfinch)
American Goldfinch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Goldfinch)

I think the American Goldfinch wins by having more than half a square inch of gold on his body! On our feeding station, all we get is what the BBC Springwatch programme calls "LBJs" - Little Brown Jobbies.

I've got a half-size skateboard that someone bought me as a joke a couple of years ago - I might just try out a piece of plywood and see what shots I can get from it. Then the huddles of people watching me will think I'm even crazier than usual.

Greetings,

I am pleased that you people enjoyed epiphany. I was in such a frenzy trying to get it in by the deadline!!

The font for the media was really degraded on compression; but, to be honest, when I was doing that at 11:30 I wasn't to much concerned about the font, just getting it done.

I grew up in the san Fernando Valley, encino to be exact, and we lived on skateboards in the late 50's and early 60's. Little did I know that I would ever use one again, but when i saw one for sale at wall mart for 9 dollars, how could I resist. I even walked up a block to a side walk and tried it out, kids thought I was crazy (we only have 4 side walks in the entire town). I knew it was ment to be a dolly when i bought it, but I didn't tell the kids that at the time.

If I were to do those shots over I would not use plywood. I would use something smoother like barker board or compressed particle board. I think the Hd needs to move real slow and compression only makes it worse. Next time i will make tracks for the board to follow too as mine did not want to track straight.

The video wall: I had done that before in premiere with two pictures in the past. I tried that with excaliber and was having some trouble having it in only a small section. I built it seperately as a project, rendered it to cineform avi, then put it on the final project time line. In hindsight I could have just nested it and not taken the time to render it and it took a long time to render.


thanks again for the generous comments.

Dale,
You have made a joyful video. When it seems to reach the end and one third was left on the bottom slide bar, I wandered what is going to happen. I like your surprise.

Dale,

Great take on the theme. You running around getting all these shots sure was chaotic and frenzied. :) The 4 up video wall added to the sense of chaos as well. Nicely done.

I agree with Per that a bit shorter on some of the shots would have made a tighter film.

Good job!!

Dale - I did wonder if we were just going to be watching the chaos of the grass, but the advantage of the length of clip was that it gave me time to wonder how you had made it, so I thought the ending was great as it answered the question. Your wall has reminded me of another idea I had a while ago but haven't had time to try out. So now I've written it down to remind me in the winter (when my survey work is finished, and work on the house is finished.

I hope your son is recovering now?

Hi Dale

Judging by the scenes in this video I can now appreciate why you get excited when you see trees! Still, the prairie does have its own charm as we have seen in so many of your videos.
Your Goldfinches are stunning. I am slowly getting to know the animals and birds of the USA - like chipmunks arn't squirrels :) We have over nine hundred bird species here in Southern Africa and I have more or less limited myself to learning to identify them first before confusing myself with those from foreign countries. I think I have most of them under wraps now so I am using this as a wonderful opportunity to learn more now.

I hope your son is well on the mend now - at least there was a very good reason for having to rush this one together and experience the chaos of having to put everything in order on time. Well done.

Evening,

Update on my son, Back in the hospital and apparently he has a septic cardio/pulmonary embulism, what ever that actually is. There still running tests and may be out next week sometime: on all kinds of stuff and morphine for the pain. We visited today and he seems better and the phnemonia is getting better too. Those that say prayers, we would appreciate them.

thanks everyone.

Dale,

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your son tonight.

You've got a great big international extended family in your corner!!!

Please keep us posted!

Dale
Your son and your family are in my thoughts and prayers also.
All the best.

Gordon

Dale, very sad to hear about your son. My thoughts and prayers to him and your family.

Dale...with good care and an early diagnosis I am hopeful he will be just fine. My thoughts and best wishes you him, and your family too.

Chris

Dale I hope your son is making good progress.

Good afternoon,


Two weeks of tests in the hospital and they do not know what or why as yet on my sons lung problems. Visited him this morning and he seems substantially better but apparently he feels good in the morning and then as the day goes on his left lung swells up causing pain and problems.

Seems a lot of people are sick, this flu pandemic and all!!! Lost my mom in the 68 pandemic, do not need a repeat!!!


thanks for concerns and prayers.