Mike,
And everyone:

Never be afraid to speak your mind or bring your ideas, suggestions or criticism, good or bad...
I appreciate everything all of you do to make this a success.
This will be the biggest film production I have been part of, so I am always open for your inputs.
And then we'll try to extract the best parts of it to make it as interesting as we can.

Here is how I see the next couple weeks:
1. Within this week I really want to have the CC up and running with 3 members.
2. Within next 2 weeks (but as soon as possible), I hope the CC, based on both own thoughts and all inputs we have got so far, should have the rough guidelines.
3. After this has been accomplished, the script/ more detailed plan can be developed.

Any comments about this is most welcome.

I'm trying to write a little introduction to UWOL to see if it would be a satisfactory opening to the program. In doing research I have tried to view the movies for UWOL #1. Either by entering the address for the UWOL archive site or going to old UWOL posts on DV Infonet, I get hijacked to a page about an underwater casino. Has the UWOL archive been removed? Anyone know how to look at old UWOL contests?

The film archive is intact. When the uwol webside was taken down, the files were moved to dvinfo.
Chris Hurd posted the details in the "general collaborate" thread.

Steve,
Thank you for the intro writing.

Tronde,

I thought i responded that i would be glad to be on the Cordinating committee. I will be glad to serve in any capacity.


dale

Dale,
Thank you. I just wanted to ask specifically for that task, so there would be no risk of any misunderstandings.
Please check your email inbox, and I will need your email address as well for the "behind the scenes" work we do.

..........
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have the Coordinating Committee set:
Dale Guthormsen,
Paul Wood,
Trond Saetre

Letting my mind wander back to the early days of UWOL Challenge it rested upon a few things I want to see. You can throw the concept out if it's not keeping things simple enough, but I'm going to toss it in from the peanut gallery. This is completely random from maybe one minute of daydreaming, so there are dozens of great moments from all of your films that will come to mind later. Forgive me if I get names wrong or mix up films.

I would like to see:

Behind-the-scenes footage or stills from Per Johan's blind when he filmed the breathtaking footage of the owls flying straight for the camera. And I want him to narrate it.

A montage of David Gemmel's work with BTS of the kangaroos. Also, I believe he already has a production still of the blind he used in a film at a bird sanctuary or lagoon. And I want him narrating.

Mat Thompson's thoughts on how he created the Fisher King.

Those two boys from (I think) the UK who made the floating blind that got battered to bits by a storm. It was hilarious, and I wish they would come back for more.

Gordon Hoffman's twilight scenes of that amazing array of wildlife from one of his early films with BTS of tools or techniques he used "back then."

Stuff like that and lots more. :)

A little update:
Much work is going on behind the scenes now. And as I see it, CC is head of the schedule I indicated earlier.
Hopefully we can present the general theme and rules/tech talk within this week or maybe earlier.

I'll keep you updated.


Lorinda,
Thanks. We have your ideas in our minds. Also thinking thart some of the prvious winners should use some of those winning films.
CC is working on the basic details/ guidelines.

Hey everyone :)

The CC has now completed the basic rules - theme - guidelines for the "Around the world" project.

Please have a look at the attached document.



----------------
Dale,
Please confirm if you have received any of the emails I have sent to you here through dvinfo. (I don't know your email address)

Now we need to confirm the volunteers for the various roles/tasks in this project, to narrow it down a bit.

Script: CC suggest Steve Siegel. Do you accept?
Script will work in cooperation with CC and narrator - details to be determined

Narrator:
This person will have to work closely with the script writer. It can be the same person writing the script, but can be a separate person.
CC request suggestions and volunteers.

Editor: (This will be a big job, so probably 2 (maybe 3?) people could share this, but there must be one "main editor".
CC suggest Mike Sims lead this team. (based on his previous volunteering).
CC request suggestions

Music:
CC kindly ask Geir Inge (based on his mentions), if he wants to produce some of the required music.
I also believe several of us (me included) have some kind of royalty free music/scores we can use.

Footage:
Everyone is required to submit footage. See the attached document in my previous post.
We also have several people offering B-roll footage from various locations around the globe.
Lorinda also mentioned some people who have great footage we could use, let's keep that in mind.

In addition to the names mentioned here, we are of course open for all suggestions and I hope to see more names.


If I have forgotten anything, bring on the thoughts and ideas. :)

Yes, I'm proud to accept. This should be a lot of fun. I wrote this little intro. Comments and criticism, please.


In 2005 Chris Hurd's respected chatroom-news site and public blog called the DV Infonet Forum opened a page devoted to video shooters who cared about trees, animals, scenery and everything outdoors. What should it be called?

The name “Under Water Over Land” was coined , temporarily, until someone came up with a catchier one. But it stuck, and soon dozens of videographers were writing to each other on "UWOL".

Photographers have always had sites on the Internet where they posted their photos and have colleagues comment on them. Occasionally a videographer tried to put up a clip for commentary. The photo guys didn't know what to do with it. It was like a badger showing up at a dog show. Interlaced vs non-interlaced. What's that? Audio clipping? Say Wha...? What do you mean you don't have ISO? Are you like stupid or something? For the videographer, such forums were worthless.

With Under Water Over Land, real amateur nature videographers could talk to other real nature videographers. After a while a contest was proposed, and the UWOL Challenge was born.

We all admire and revere Sir David Attenborough. More than one of us would like to be him. Or at least be one of the National Geographic, or BBC guys who go to wonderful places and capture on film or tape or chip new things, rare things, beautiful things, and then get to show them to the world. Lo and behold, shooting for a UWOL contest let ordinary folks do just that. We were real nature videographers with the same feelings, the same problems and the same pride as the pros. It felt good.

Of course contests have rules, and UWOL's were set so that even a little hand-held camcorder could compete with any pros among the group. The files had to be tiny. The views were like postage stamps.
The assigned contest theme was broad enough that anyone could fit his or her favorite subjects into it. The first theme was “The Living Skies”. We saw plenty of clouds, plenty of sunsets, and plenty of birds in that first contest, and everyone had plenty of fun. And there was real criticism. Useful criticism and explanation. With time the quality of the entries kept improving. People experimented with ultraclose-ups, time-lapse, focus-stacking, audio, you name it. Now, after seven years, pros really don't do much better than UWOLers.

From the beginning, it was evident that UWOL had international appeal. Early entries poured in from the US, Canada, Britain, Ireland, and Norway. Since then, word has spread, and now the sun never sets on UWOL.

So sit back and enjoy some nature video. This is not a big budget show about an endangered species, but look and see what ordinary folks with a lot of passion can get out of a camcorder and a pair of hiking boots. Here are the people of UWOL.

Well, you've given me a great intro, Steve! ( David Attenborough lookalike :)

This is exactly how I see us starting - you have captured the spirit of the project in one !

My only doubt, at this stage, is how that script is distributed - I have a theory that a VO narrator provides the intro and link between submissions - here I think, some of the script would be given to Chris Hurd, and maybe then back to narrator for the lead in.

Great stuff, and I'm looking forward to more contributions!

Steve,

I agree with Paul. This is a great intro, thank you!

And I'm glad to see how this project is developing.
This will be fun! :)

A great job from the Coordinating Committee.
Also like the script Steve, it looks nice.
I think this will be a great project, with so many clever people around.
I will be happy to try out and make some music.

Thank you, Geir Inge. I'm glad you want to do the music. :)

Hi everyone.
Hope you all have had time to check out the guidelines/ theme I posted before the weekend.
Within the next couple days, the CC would like to get the different tasks confirmed. And after that, we'll start working on the details.

Steve has already done a great script for the intro.

Further details (like the various questions everyone should answer in their submissions...) will have to be determined. CC will talk with Steve about this.
Feel free to bring thoughts and ideas.

A little update:

Steve is now working on the script, and will finish it in cooperation with CC.

Editor:
Mike Sims has volunteered to be the Lead Editor.
Trond has volunteered to assist with editing.
If we need more than 2 editors, it is preferably that person use Adobe Premiere, to easier exhange sequences between us. (Both Mike and Trond use Premiere)

From CC, Dale will coordinate the music making with Geir Inge.

EDIT:
CC kindly asks Paul Mailath to be the narrator / VO for this project. Email has been sent to you through dvinfo.

...............
My trusted laptop desided to make a sudden retirement the other day, so during the next few weeks, I will basically only have internet through my phone and at work.
Hopefully it won't cause any delays on my work for this project.

I have contacted Steve via the email link here in the forum - Steve, please can you let me know if you have received my mail.

Paul Mailath:
I have sent an email to you through dvinfo, regarding the narration/ VO.

Update:
The different tasks / roles are now set:

Coordinating Committee (CC):Trond Saetre - lead
Dale Guthormsen
Paul Wood

Script writer:
Steve Siegel

Narrator / VO:
Paul Mailath

Music:
Geir Inge
Dale Guthormsen

Editors:
Mike Sims - lead editor
Trond Saetre

.............

Steve is now working on the scrip, and has already done a great job so far. (Paul W is coordinating with Steve on behalf of CC)

Dale will coordinate the music with Geir Inge.

I belive we are on schedule to have it ready for everyone to be able to start filming their parts after the June UWOL Challenge. (To allow everyone time to participate in the challenge.)

Looks like things are shaping up well. I'd offer past footage but never completed many of the competitions. But I am keen to get out and shoot more. Might even have snow on the hills soon - never got to the snow during a UWOL round. My only reservation is the best spots to film are usually national parks, and for personal use that's fine. But after that it gets complicated (in Victoria/Australia at least). I think editorial you don't have to pay for, but commercial productions and anything else - you have to pay for a ranger to be there by the hour, plus a shooting fee per day/half day. Don't know if there's similar restrictions around the globe.

I'm also interested in VO/narration, but if you have that covered then so be it. I could do a bad Steve Irwin impersonation though ;-)

Hello Andrew,

We already have Paul Mailath confirmed for the narration, but thank you very much for your offer.
I will put you on the list of contributors for this project. I have 14 names including yours on that list.
(Steve Irwin was amazing! I used to watch his tv series.)

I think they have the same restrictions (or even worse) in the USA, but I am not aware of any such restrictions for filming in the national parks here in Norway.

.........
For the guidelines, please have a look at the attachment to my post #58 (page 4) in this thread.

Hi Trond
Haven't checked in a while but looks like things are going along really well. I'd be willing to supply some footage if needed.

Gordon

I have you on my list, Gordon. :)

UPDATE:
Steve has more or less completed his script /idea, and CC is discussing this with him and Mike Sims at the moment.
CC will within the next few days publish the final theme /idea for the film, including deadlines and so on.

Stay tuned.

Looks like things are shaping up nicely!

Hi guys,

just uploaded a coupe of VO samples.

example narration is just a quick read of Steve's intro.

I've tried to stick to the original script but changed a few things that didn't roll easily off the tongue or seemed a litle out of place - I'll happily jot down my line by line comments to Steve if he wishes but I thought it's pretty early days so I'm sure they'll be lot of revision yet.

example narration 2 is Steves 'mission statement' which was so good it deserved a read as well - maybe that could be the VO for the trailer.

both are pretty rough takes on how I might approach something like this but once the script is firm I'm sure the director will guide the read. Feel free to comment - I'm way to old and ugly to get offended.

The files are on the dropbox site..

Thanks, Paul

Listening to that makes me want to watch!

Thanks to all for showing interest - we are moving rapidly to have our ideas together.

Watch this space!

just uploaded a coupe of VO samples....

The files are on the dropbox site..
Paul, your VO samples are really great! Thank you.

Hello everyone, here are the important details:

First of all, please notice that you must sign up for the JUNE UWOL CHALLENGE!
The Around the world film will use the June challenge as a basis.

See the attached word document.

Just read the doc. Wish it were true that I have come up with a theme for the June challenge! Not sure I can handle the pressure... ;)

Lorinda, don't worry. It is still many days until June 1st. :)
But a signup thread can be posted soon anyway.

Let me know if you want a helping hand.

Just read the doc. Wish it were true that I have come up with a theme for the June challenge! Not sure I can handle the pressure... ;)

Lorinda, I reckon you should use the the following theme: "Pastoralism"......harhar (*joke).

Quick, Lorinda! Break out the camera. We've got to get behind-the-scenes shots of you agonizing over the next theme. (No joke.)

Haha, Mike that's funny!
Go for it, Lorinda! ;)

Just a reminder:
Remember to sign up for the UWOL challenge.
Signup thread is open, and challenge begins June 1.

You don't have to complete the challenge, but a "behind the scenes" film of you (trying to) make your June entry, must be submitted for the Around the world, by July 31.

Hopefully you all are busy with the UWOL 26 now. Notice UWOL 26 and ATW have different deadlines!
Deadline for submitting your entries for Around the world, is JULY 31.

Remember:
Even if you do not complete the UC26 challenge, please notice that your Behind the scenes for the ATW can also be about your difficulties making your uwol challenge entry.
(How you struggled finding time, the difficulties finding a good idea... and so on.)
Feel free to be creative.


Submitting footage:
CC is open for any suggestions about how to do this.
So far, the plan is to upload your submissions to a specific folder in my Dropbox account.
Unfortunately, this requires everyone to have their own dropbox account, so I can share access to the folder we will use. (You can get your own Dropbox account for free at www.dropbox.com)

Are there better ways to submit footage? If yes, please share your ideas!

Trond,

Do you have any guidelines to offer for the Around The World Footage? For example, how much of it should be nature footage, and how much behind the scenes (just rough, like half of each, or mostly nature, etc.) How many minutes do you want from each person? Should it be a finished package, as for a UWOL challenge entry, or would you prefer just edit-ready clips?

Thank you for the heads up, Steve.
Let me discuss this with the CC, and then I'll post here within a couple days.

Sorry for the delays. I have been without a computer the last month. Just got my new one, so I'll be more productive from now on.

I also have been really out of the loop for the past month and I wasn’t sure until recently whether I would be able to edit or not. It now appears that I probably will. I have a number of things that I have needed to discuss with Trond and will try to get it all done in the next day or so. I believe I have another possible way to deliver videos for editing that we need to talk about as well as the issues that Steve mentioned.

A reminder of the guidelines: (As published a while ago)

Contributions should have roughly this structure, and be around 5 minutes total:

Intro B-roll
Interview 1 (may be VO)
Sequence B-roll (member filming)
Interview 2
Sequence B-roll
Closing PTC (may be link to next section)

This gives enough freedom for people to add what they want, as long as it contains some wildlife/ nature/ outdoors (B Roll) and some BTS - either interview, or VO, or just shots.


Notice:
1. To make the editing process easier, please leave some "head and tale" in the beginning and end of the clips.
2. All contributions should be roughly edited, but editors may further edit to make everything fit.
Editors in cooperation with CC will have the final word about the editing.
3. Everyone should also send a paragraph describing the clips and what they feel is their significance.

4. Submitting the contributions:
We have discovered some issues with Dropbox, and MS and myself are working on a possible alternate way to submit the contributions to the editors.
It appears anyone with a basic / free Dropbox account will overload their storage limit of 2 GB as soon as the total size of all files in the shared folder exceed 2GB.
There is also reportedly some issues with Dropbox degrading image quality, but I have not noticed this during my testing this weekend. Further testing will be done the next few days.

Hi Trond and Mike:

What about using Vimeo for this? Perhaps you could have a UATW channel similar to how you are using Vimeo now to upload the UWOL challenge films. People could upload their clips as private and also enable the setting to allow you both to download the videos from the Vimeo site onto your own computer.

Just a thought.

Also, will their need to be a standard formatting for these clips? Like the requirements being NTSC, 960 x 540, Mp4... whatever, so you are dealing with similar clips?

Just thinking out loud, you guys know what you are doing for sure!

Cat

P.S. Trond, that was a nice offer to Gordon on the Tales thread :)

Good questions.
I think we should aim for the best possible image quality, which means HD. If anyone still shoots SD, I'm sure we will find a way to incorporate this into a HD film.

Regarding PAL/NTSC:
One will have to be converted into the other. Luckily with HD, that only means change the speed a little bit. Shouldn't be any trouble. (Or am I overlooking something?)

I'll discuss this with the CC, and get back to you soon.


Submitting via Vimeo:
That is something we definitely should check out.

Another question. Has anyone considered whether the format is going to be 1st person, where each participant talks about him/herself on screen, or will it be 3rd person where the narrator talks about them, or a combination? It will make a difference in how each of us put our segments together.

Steve, let me get back to you on this one. I'll discuss it real quick in CC.
Initially the thought was to have the contributors talk about themselves and the process about making their uwol26 entry.

Heads up, guys and gals:

Due to the very few submitted entries to the uwol 26, CC has desided to make some changes for the UWOL Around the world (ATW):

1.
Deadline for submitting to uwol around the world: Extended to August 31.

2.
Everyone who SIGNED UP FOR uwol 26 may submit.

3.
Those who did not submit for uwol 26, will be permitted to submit for the ATW, with the same theme IMPACT as a basis... and also based on already published requirements for the ATW. (the interview, b-rolls... and so on)


Hopefully these changes will make it possible for more uwolers to participate!

-----------
The extended deadline will also buy us some time to work out the best way to deliver your contributions to the editors.
We will provide detailed info as soon as we can.

Information about preferred file types will also be provided soon.
(An "editing friendly filetype" is required.)
-----------

Update:
The editors have now done some testing, and desided that preferred file format for submitting your contributions, will be Avid's DNxHD.

This is a codec that works well both on windows and mac.
(Requires quicktime installed on your computer)

Codec can be downloaded for free here:
Avid Codecs 2.3.7 Download (http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/en423319)

If someone for any reason is unable to convert to DNxHD, editors might be able to help.

Interesting choice of codecs. I have no idea how to convert to an Avid codec. I use a program called "Wondershare" which will allow me to convert among a dozen different codecs, but Avid isn't one of them. The export function on my Adobe Premiere 5.0 doesn't list Avid as a choice, even with Quicktime.
I read the information on the Avid codec download page. It implied that any other codec converted to Avid would be at 720 x 480, which sounds a lot like standard definition. Does downloading the codec install a conversion function?

If this can be done, some exact instructions should be provided.

Reread the Avid download page. I was mistaken about the SD. Sorry. Still need instructions.

I'm pretty new to that codec myself, so maybe Mike Sims could chime in with his expertise.

But here is how I chose the DNxHD codec when exporting from Premiere CS6:

1. Select format = Quicktime
2. Under video settings, select codec Avid DNxHD
3. Select "Codec settings", and choose the settings (resolution, frame rate and bitrate that matches your video)
4. Export

DNxHD won’t show up in the list in Premier until after you install the codec. I export out of PP5 with no problem. Most editing programs can export it just fine once installed. Avid used to let you download and install just DNxHD. Now you download an installer for all their codecs and choose which to install.

Dad is coming home today and I still have a few ducks to line up in a row. Tomorrow I will try to put together a guide to installing and using DNx. If it turns out to be a problem for anyone, we will work with you. You can also always uninstall DNxHD later if you don’t want it on your machine.

As for the 1st or 3rd person question, the interview questions will be 1st person. Everything else it doesn’t matter because we can overdub in 3rd person by narrator if needed (unless you are looking right into the lens!).