Ladies and gentlemen, same procedure as always:

What goes perfect, what went wrong and anything in between.
Share the stories, and as you go along, pay special attention to the most important Rule 11:
Have fun!!

Not sure how you are finding this theme, but trying to decide how to approach this is proving to be a challenge all on its own. This theme has so many interesting possibilities.

I have narrowed it down to one or two ideas but still have to make up my mind if I am going to tackle a general conflict/challenge between man and wildlife/environment or pick an actual example – plenty in my back yard – like the harvester ants that appear to be building an empire below my paving with perfect little piles of soil dotted all over the place as monuments to their unrelenting dedication! I don’t want their perfect little monuments of soil all over my paving but they have other ideas - obviously their mission is to take over the world.

I guess it all comes down to what will make the most interesting story – with the least amount of work, that is.

Hope you are all making headway – seems pretty quiet around here.

Very interesting challenge this one! Although I may not go with it, I am at this time thinking along the lines of showing the challenges I face as part of the film. So my request is could that segment run at various intervals though out the film instead of at the start or finish as long as as each piece adds up to to your time requirement?

Mick

The initial thoughts were to have the BTS part as one sequence. Having the "around the world project" in mind.

But if it is better for your film and at the same time (if you choose to participate in the ATW project) it is possible later to cut those pieces together for "the "big picture", then I see no issues with doing it your described way to enhance your film and story.

Thanks Trond, not certain which way I going about it at the moment but, I keep coming back to plan A that I described to you. Watch this space as they say!

It's quiet in here. Hope that is a good sign of you ladies and gentlemen being out and about, making some amazing films.

Haven't shot a second yet. But I have a rough plan in my mind.

Right ,packing and nearly ready for action! Lets see what I can come up with! Ops sorry about the size of the pic

Go for it! :)

Life seemed less complicated years ago. Grab the camera, a flimsy tripod, extra tape and a battery and off I'd go. Mind you the batteries where as big as the camera bodies I use now.

Gordon

last round i was hurting for ideas and time... then got thrown out to the sharks with a broken pc.... now I have a working pc and plenty of ideas... oh but where is the time! :)

Ralph, a working pc and lots of ideas should be a great starting point.
Hope you succeed this time.

last round i was hurting for ideas and time... then got thrown out to the sharks with a broken pc.... now I have a working pc and plenty of ideas... oh but where is the time! :)

Welcome to the joys of the UWOL Challenge Ralph - that’s the challenge of the UWOL challenge – having to work within a short space of time!

I have been preparing my story and music during the evenings because I will have exactly one day in which to put my final video together after I have filmed – just the way things have worked out.

During this past week I have spent hours listening to music trying to get the right feel for this. While it is not exactly what I was looking for I have settled on a piece that works okay. Today I finished my draft script so I finally have a shot list.

All I can hope for now is that our wildlife friends appear on stage when and where they are needed!

Hope things are going well with all of you.

Seems like you are making good progress, Marj.
It's a bit quiet in here. Hopefully that means you are all out and about, making great films.

Now when the airshow I have spent countless hours coordinating is completed, it is finally time to start thinking about uwol again.
Plenty time until deadline, just need to come up with an idea...

Planned to shoot the entire project during the last weekend as we had monday off in Norway.

Packed the car completely full on saturday, with 2 camerarigs both for filming over and under water, divinggear, wife, baby, babygear, quadcopter, cat, babytrolley++. Never had this kind of logistics for a a weekendtrip before.

First thing happened on the first pit stop on our way to Fredrikstad, where we dropped of our cat that stays with my mom during the weekend.
Car backed into my car, smashing the front of it, so we got stuck filling out papers for an hour. Got in the car again, drove the rest of the way. Rigged everything out of the car.

Sunday morning, rigged diving-gear, underwater-cameragear into the car again. Drove down to the Pier in Fredrikstad, going out with an old fishingboat with Fredrikstad diving-club to shoot the underwater shots for the project on Sister-islands in the Oslofjord. Had a nice 82 minutes dive with my divebuddy, and he is the main person in the project. Bad visibility for the shallow bit of the dive (under 1 meters visibility) but it was really good down at 35-40 meters depth. (about 12 meters visibility)
Huge thermocline from 12-20 meters and alot of freshwater from the 50 years flooding in the local rivers made it difficult to get any good underwatershots, but we got some!

Headed home to the cabin to change from divinggear to the other cameragear. Planned shooting the interview on surface near water with a larger camera for better quality, but when we finally got rigged on the new location, the rain started pooring down so we cancelled the interview and ran back to our cars.
Monday was perfect filmingweather, but the interview couldnt be done this day , so i planned doing some other cool shots. I rigged up my homebuilt quadcopter with a gopro+gimbal to do some surface-shots of the ocean, but never got it flying, as an engine failed during takeoff.

Packed everything down, headed home without the main interview in place. Hoping to do the interview this week or the next.

Currently doing a rough cut of the underwatershots in Adobe Premiere, and hoping to get the interview done as soon as possible to have some time to do a edit on the project in time for the deadline. Prepared some home-made film-music for the project as well.

Really crossing my fingers for getting the interview in place soon, as its the main story for the project. Without it, everthing falls down in the shark tank...

Did another dive in Fagerstrand down to 35 meter on Wednesday and down to 32m yesterday in Drøbak to supplement some more underwater shots of life in the fjord. Got a few nice shots of some "muddersjøbunnroser" but there really isnt that much life in Norway, compared to nearer the equator. Hoping to get the main interview done after work today!

Interesting project you have, Vegard. I look forward to your underwater film. Haven't been much of that lately.

A side note:
In Drøbak right outside a small beach downtown, there is a wreck which is popular to dive to.
My brother dived there some years ago.

It certainly is encouraging to hear that some of us are making progress (although there are a number that we haven’t heard from yet!). I’m really struggling this round. I have run into problems before but never like this. I’m not giving up yet, but it doesn’t look good for me. I wish you all well.

Still plenty time until deadline, Mike. You can do it!
(Says the one who hasn't even had time to think more than a rough idea myself.)

Welcome to the joys of the UWOL Challenge Ralph - that’s the challenge of the UWOL challenge – having to work within a short space of time!

I have been preparing my story and music during the evenings because I will have exactly one day in which to put my final video together after I have filmed – just the way things have worked out.

During this past week I have spent hours listening to music trying to get the right feel for this. While it is not exactly what I was looking for I have settled on a piece that works okay. Today I finished my draft script so I finally have a shot list.

All I can hope for now is that our wildlife friends appear on stage when and where they are needed!

Hope things are going well with all of you.

Yes, thanks Marj! I'm under no delusion about being the only one with time constraints :) I'm working on plans to get out and get my shots this Sunday... fingers crossed that the weather will co-operate.

Got the interview done today, so i am a bit more calm now. Currently editing it.
Does the vimeo account support 4K video?

Trond, yes the wrecks you are mentioning must be the truck wrecks down at skiphelle.

Attached a framegrab from the interview.

Sorry, no 4K. You can, however, host a 4K version yourself and provide a link to it in your feedback thread. Here are the Vimeo requirements:

Compression Guidelines on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/help/compression)

Guess i will stick to the HD proxyfiles for the competition then, and do a roundtrip to Davinci Resolve with the 4K raw after competition ends and publish it somewhere later.

Damn, i wish this was a 20 minute challenge and not a 3.5min.. So much cool stuff edited away allready :(

Oh, no! I went away for too long and missed the signup deadline.
Can I try to meet the challenge anyway and make an unofficial submission?

I am looking forward to seeing the results again.

If it was up to me, signup would never close until deadline. All participants should be accepted. I really wish for an email service that reminds all users of upcoming signups so we dont have to miss the way to small signup time! That would allow alot more participants and raise entusiasm even more!

I would say, make a movie anyway and publish it and you would definitely get a vote from me:)

Oh, no! I went away for too long and missed the signup deadline.
Can I try to meet the challenge anyway and make an unofficial submission?
Finn, go ahead and make your film.
It will be unofficial and not part of judging since you are late, but the more films the better.

Vegard,
I have been thinking about your suggestions already, and with effect from the next challenge we might drop the deadline for sign up.
I am willing to try any suggestions that makes it more attractive to participate. The more players the more fun it is.

I'm with Mike on this round - a host of small domestic issues to deal with, and a distinct lack of do able ideas so far! But there is still time.....

Anyone interested should definitely make an “unofficial” entry. We will all benefit from the feedback. We have had unofficial entries a number of times in the past and there is even precedent for one being upgraded when the number of finished films is quite small.

I think an e-mail notification system is a good idea. We just need to set it up so that it is minimal additional work for Trond. Before we have agreed to only discuss rules changes in between Challenges and not while one is ongoing. The problem with that is that many don’t check in here regularly in the interims (hence the need for a notification system) and those discussions usually don’t have many participants, so…

We have had one round with open sign-up and I don’t recall there having been any problems, but before we consider doing away with the sign-up period entirely I think it might be useful to reflect on where we have come from and why we have a sign-up period to begin with. When Meryem started this thing 48 hour film contests were still all the rage. I believe she based our original rules largely on them. It was rightly felt that if there were open sign-up that we might be exposing ourselves to “ringers”. Some might see the theme and think “I made a film about that a while back and all I need to do is re-title and slightly re-edit it” or “The spectacular footage I took on that vacation to XXX will be great for this theme”. Things like this put people using footage shot only in the contest period and only relatively in their own backyards at a distinct disadvantage. Closing the sign-up before the theme is announced is largely a filter for this. To be fair, even with this filter the rule requiring all footage be shot only within the contest period has turned out to be the rule most often cheated upon. We can all probably recall seeing films (and some very very good ones too) showing vegetation out of season, vegetation spanning several seasons, infant animals many months out of breeding season, footage first seen on someone’s website a year earlier etc. As a result this rule has been relaxed a good deal. We can now use up to 10% older footage if it was previously shot for UWOL. If we do away with closed sign-up we may need to once again modify this rule and possibly others. I’m not suggesting that this a bad thing- only that we may need to move a little slowly and think about all consequences of any changes first. [We also have the problem that the timing of our Challenges can sometimes put players in the southern hemisphere at disadvantage. All of our wranglers have put much thought into choosing themes to minimize this- but this is another discussion.]

I personally would like to see something like a closed sign-up that includes the entire period between Challenges with an e-mail heads-up to everyone signed up about 48 hours before we close sign-up, announce the theme and get started. We would be allowed to use any footage we shot in the past 12 months for any reason, but only up to 50% of the final film and no use of previously edited sequences. I also would like to see an occasional longer round- something like six months to do up to ten minutes. I am not proposing any of this for anything other than discussion. Discussion is our strong point as a community. I know you all have good ideas and we need to hear and talk about them and, in the end, trust that we are fortunate to have a level-headed and fair final arbiter in Trond.

One thing that I have been concerned about is that while we have become a close-knit group we have also decreased in size. I have begun inviting people to play. When I find someone on the internet that is doing good work and seems to have similar interest and focus I will send them an e-mail telling them about the Challenge and suggesting they might like to participate. I have even invited a couple of film-makers working in Antarctica! So far, I don’t think anyone has taken up the challenge but I am still hopeful. Several have expressed interest. I hope you will all consider inviting others as well.

Paul- My latest problem is that the central air conditioning system has failed. (I don’t know why- it was only thirty years old!) Right now it is 110° F and 96% relative humidity in my editing suite. I’m not turning on any electronics for fear of localized hot spots (pun not intended- my website is called Hotspot! ) will exceed operating maximums. The new unit will be installed on Wednesday at the same cost as a C100. Ouch…

Discussion of the rules and how to attract more players, is always welcome.
I am always open for suggestions of improvement, so don't be afraid to speak your minds.

Thanks for the support everyone. No "sour grapes" here: I am pleased to abide by the rules as they currently stand or however they may change in the future.

I'm making a new thread called "UWOL - Discussion of rules and improvements".
Please continue the rule conversation there, and let's keep this thread for the intended tales of wonders and woes for the June challenge. Thanks for understanding.

Also, wranglers will be requested to move all the current posts here about the rule suggestions to the new thread, to have everything in one place.

Got some more of the film edited during the weekend. Things are starting to look like an entry for UWOL!
Stacked together a small story based on the interview in the editing suite. Its so hard to cut down to 3.5 minutes when you have so much good stuff to work with :)

Still need to get all the underwater shots from this week edited and placed into the sequence and i need to grade the shots as the lighting on the outdoor interview was diffficult due to alot of clouds coming and going. Shot the interview a tiny bit underexposed to be able to push exposure in editing.

And its definitely hard to shoot an interview 1 meter from the waters surface with waves poring in on the shore, boats passing by and seagulls screaming all the time. Alot of noise! important to angle the microphone away from the water, and directly to the voice of the person.

So far, my project is just "Man." My "vs." won't show up!
He's been badgering me for almost a month, and now he's suddenly UWOL AWOL.

You and me both, Finn.
Thought I had a great idea. That idea got lost in space.
Still plenty time (I hope).

Well I have a great idea, but am also limited by the time available from my ´man´and the rather outlandish ideas I have for producing the film!

Mike, sorry to hear about your A/C! - luxury - we don't have it fitted at home, and its only 86º F in the shade this week, but the humidity levels in Madrid are great - low, low, low - especially compared to my last efforts in subtropical Brazil! - Good luck with the repairs!

Had two solid ideas but came up with another idea I like better and is more my style about an hour ago so I think I'm going to run with that.
Don't have time to sketch out an outline to see if it has a beginning, middle and end but am going to run out to the nature center quick and see what's popping up over there.

Finally an idea dropped by today.
Probably an idea for a full length feature film... but uwol is a challenge, so I'm gonna be challenged for sure.
It all depends of tomorrow's weather and boating conditions if I will be able to reach my location... and be able to film from a moving surface. Fingers crossed. Oh, and my star happens to be almost 200 meters below the surface, resting on the sea floor since 1945. If this idea can transfer into a film, then anything can, haha.

Hope you all have FUN!


...........
1 film submitted already.

Yes, i submitted my film yesterday! Good luck everybody! Had to deliver early due to a trip to London today.

Anybody knows how you can embed pictures directly into the post without attatching them to the forum?

Congrats on finishing Vegard!

I have three shots in the can for my film. Hopefully will get the rest after work this weekend

I see dark clouds in the horizon for me this round.
Was out filming, or trying to film, for a couple hours yesterday. Unfortunately the sea did not cooperate very well, and my location greeted me with 3ft seas. Add that to the challenge of filming from a boat, and it gets tough.
Will try editing this weekend in between work to see how much footage is usable without making the audience sea sick.

I have faith Trond!

You haven't seen the footage yet, Kevin. I had a serious talk with the weather gods yesterday, and what happend... Mirror flat ocean today! And guess who's stuck at work, haha.

Everyone on the signup list should now have received an email with the upload info for Vimeo.
If I have missed anyone, let me know.

Well, this is my last day off. Tomorrow I'm back to work and I'm not finished the editing process.
So I guess I wont be able to deliver a video this round.
If I had to thursday I can do it. Sorry folks.

I'm out too.

Didn't get the variety of shots I needed to back up the story.
I was supposed to film everything from my boat, but the big waves I experienced on location, gave too shaky footage.

I will complete this film later, but unfortunately not as part of UWOL.

----------------

Last day, ladies and gentlemen. Hope you all do well.

I'm still going to try and put something together but my ex-wife called and said that her basement flooded last night. So I'm headed over to help her move everything upstairs and rip up carpet.
I have about three shots so I just might end up making like a 30 second PSA instead of going into the tank.
Hopefully I can get something done before midnight tonight.
Over five inches of rain in an hour so things are pretty soaked here right now. :(

Seems like most folk around here are battling to get this one done.

Despite having prepared my story well in advance and having everything lined up, I was unable to pull my video together in just one day.

We had planned to be back from our break two days earlier but very good friends of ours persuaded us to spend the weekend with them on our way home. This was really lovely but put tremendous pressure on me to complete this in one day which I thought I could do.

I did manage to get most of my shots and even some bonus shots that I never expected but I am still trying to get them all into the timeline even though I have worked on this most of today.

I will submit it in a couple of day’s time for comment, if anyone would be happy to give it, as I have put too much effort into this to not complete it. My apologies to all.

I will submit it in a couple of day’s time for comment, if anyone would be happy to give it, as I have put too much effort into this to not complete it. My apologies to all.
I'd be happy to give you feedback, Marj! And that goes for anyone else too, of course.

Wow, same here.... plenty of ideas for this round and time is what eluded me this whole month, working 60 to 70 hour workweeks and then losing a whole weekend to illness. I'll be enjoying the muggy Florida weather this week swimming with the sharks in the shark tank.