hi steve,

our country is beatiful, and if you have enough patience and knowledge, such secenes are inevitable.

during editing, I have some limitations and obligations. in order to fulfill the script, I intentionally lenghten the scenes. One of the supporters "CNNTürk" tv advise me to make film 30 min, in order to be broadcasted in 1 hour interval. My first plan, after the rough cut, was make this film about 25 min. stills like eagle on the fox have a little bit animated but it may be not enoguh, I ll try some other altrnatives...

anyway, thanks a lot for your good comments,
alkim.

hi brendan,

thanks a lot. in a short time I ll send and review the species of that area. your guess " frenzied phalarope" is " Wood Sandpiper / Tringa glareola " in my film. we have three species of phalarope, which are; Grey Phalarope / Phalaropus fulicarius, Wilson's Phalarope / Phalaropus tricolor, Red-necked Phalarope / Phalaropus lobatus.

thanks for your comments,

alkim.

Just beautiful. I haven't put aside the time to watch the whole thing but from what I saw, I'm looking forward to getting to know a piece of the world I didn't know existed. Thank you for your hard work.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

thanks mick

alkim.

Alkim, like the others who have replied, I found your documentary to be very fascinating and I was unable to stop watching until it finished. I am personally involved in wildlife issues and in making videos of nature and I recognized that there was good and substantial content to your production. The descriptions of what is shown are excellent and the writing and presentation of the subject were very professional. I hope that this region maintains its way of life. Its existence gives us hope for other areas of the world. I would like to see more documentaries like this from you and the production values you display, give inspiration to all of us on this forum. Your camera work was very steady and the scenes well-framed.

The video would be improved with more natural sounds that are louder, in some cases. The narrator has a very dignified and pleasing voice and this added a lot to the production. I assume that you have several versions of the soundtrack with different languages for the narration. The narrator on this English version has a good command of the language, but mispronounced some important words and this might be changed, to improve it. The mispronounced words I noticed were: vegetation, species, brook, sparse, scarce, wilderness, height, unique, occurred, locals, numerous, meadow, predators, hosting, scythe, worms, continuity, thousand, pristine and migrate. The word "wolves" was mispronounced several times, but then, it was pronounced correctly a few times. Some other suggestions: When the fox catches rodents, the word "tries" would be better than "tryouts". There is a statement made by the narrator that "The main feature of the Karsardahan Plateau is its plateaus". This might be re-written so the word "plateau" isn't used twice in the same sentence. It would have been good to identify the cranes by species. At the end of the sequence about Marsh Harriers, there was a shot of a large raptor flying overhead. Was this a harrier? It looked much larger, as though it might be an eagle. One addition to the video I would have liked, would be a map of the region, briefly showing the part of Turkey where the plateau is located.

Special note to viewers on Vimeo: I downloaded this video before watching it and was able to see much better picture quality than by viewing it directly on Vimeo. They compress it too much and by downloading the original uploaded version, you get a bit-rate that is about 4 times higher. The download button is in the lower-right corner of the page for each video. You have to go through the free registration on Vimeo, to be able to download the full-quality version. The RealPlayer download offered on the button in the upper part of the screen, is even more compressed and has poor quality. I was able to watch it in full widescreen mode, rather than the small window that is the normal size. I found that Windows Media Player did the best job with both the video and the audio, while RealPlayer and MPC didn't do as well, especially with the audio. Miro played it with even worse audio quality.

May I interrupt to say that Steve has now delivered serious insight into your film Alkim.

It's easy for me to come along after him and say that I agree with every word he wrote. I do. But it was he who found and expressed all those constructive suggestions which I believe would give your video the audio and language clarity it deserves.

A truly captivating video, congratulations on the beautiful images. A lot of hard work has gone into this production.

On a personal note I would enter the video into some overseas festivals and I am sure you will receive the accolades it deserves

Bob

A beautifully shot video, and one to be proud of. Of course, there are a few things that I would have done differently, but that doesn't mean your way wasn't equally right.

The opening scenes - I would fade from one to another - the straight cuts didn't (for me) tie in with the mood of the music.

Some of the scenery with something (eg the train) happening at the bottom of the picture - I thought the action was too near the bottom or perhaps I am being pedantic about the so-called "safe areas" within the frame.

The narrator has a beautiful voice. But, as others have said, some words were mispronounced. I think I would have largely overlooked this, except that the English grammar was not always correct, and some sentences were too long, so the overall effect was spoilt. The trees are Scot's Pines - Scotch is a type of whisky, or the manufacturer of a sticky tape. The plateau is known for its high pastures. If you would like to send me the script privately, I would be happy to amend it for you.

But well done for your efforts, and thank you for sharing it.

hi steve,

your comments are very valuable for me. the main reason for sharing my film was, first during the production stages, I got many technical knowledge from this forum, and second was; as you guys are somehow related to video production, and except being an audiance, watch and behave as an editor of this film. for me, especially the negative comments are valuable.

for the mispronounced and wrong sentences, I ll have a look at them again and try to find a way to narrate it again, may be different person, but in turkey, it is hard to find a good narrator have both good sound color and english speaking. but I try it.

the raptor after the marsh haariers is "Lesser Spotted Eagle - Aquila pomarina".

about the Map of the region is a very good idea, though I tought that before, but now I try to find a map or sattelite image, and put it very begining og the film with a small aniation- a zoom or smtng that highlight the area. by the way do you know, can we use google-earth images without having a copyright problems ?

one another thing is I upload the wrong version of film :) . because in the original one, the last scene man with scythe -at 24.29 min - sound is missing, there should be loud effect of cut. second the credit is turkish :) so with a map, sound, english credit and bigger version, I ll upload it again.

thanks

alkim.

hi bob,

thank you for your good comments. I start to send this film to the festivals. but interestingly, when I start to find, I noticed that huge numbers of festivals are present, and I totally lost among them. also it is incredibly big time consuming process !

alkim.

hi annie,

thanks for your comments.

believe me that, during editing, I spent most of the time to beginning and the end sections. it very hard to start, hence I left it to end, finished the inner sections and then turn back the begining. as you said, I tried many combinations of clips and transitions including fades and dissolves. but I noticed something very interesting:

- at the beginning of the editing, normally started from begining of film, the landscapes esp. the winters' ones - as film would move to throuhg seasons - and the transitions and fades make me happy. then I jumped to the inner parts. after finishing rough cut, these fades damaged the beining, and made the film "an amateur look". if this film tell only winter season, and made from the landscapes, such fades look good; but, the sections and different subjects came after, these fades look "somhow artificial". in either case I watched it again and again, then I decided "the cuts" instead of fades.

also I noticed another point is; effects are very related to total duration of the film. may be such kind of judgment might be true ? "longer the film, less the effects and transitions".

and you are very kind to offer editing the script again, I ll send it to you, be sure :)

and add all of your names in credits, including the dvinfo.net

thanks a lot,

alkim.

Annie is correct about the proper common name of the trees being "Scot's Pine". As a Scot, I'm always a bit bothered by the substitution of the word "Scotch" for "Scot's" in reference to us and our things. However, in the U.S., we have always called this tree "Scotch Pine" and there are millions of them here, from imported stock. I have one growing in my yard that was smuggled in by a relative, along with some Scot's Heather, from my family's home grounds in the Western Isles. It never occurred to me to call it anything other than "Scotch Pine" and in the video's narration, the use of that name caused me no irritation. The native tree was wiped out in England (Breoton) and Wales (Cymru) and has been re-introduced from Scotland (Alba). Here's the Wikipedia page about the tree:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Pine

yes you both are right, I check the script today and the mistake was not belong the narrator, but the translator. she translated it as "scotch" not "scots". hence I ll record the narration again.

so what about the sound color of the narrator. This guy is a famous actor and narrator here in turkey and he also narrated the turkish version as well. waht you guys think ?

alkim.

What's the expression - divided by a common language? ok, I will try not to cringe any time I hear a north American person refer to a Scotch pine.

The narrator's voice is wonderful, even with the slightly quirky pronunciation. I would keep him.

As for those initial transitions, I think it probably is a matter of personal preference. I did not find any problems with transitions in the rest of the film, and probably with different music, I would not have noticed them at the beginning.

I think the narrator has a great voice, don't change him