I just bought a new tripod, hope it will be better than the last one.
Now I can start shooting.
When did you say is the deadline?
Oh boy, tomorrow morning I have the kids and my parents are coming this Saturday for 2 weeks.
Guess I have to shoot everything tomorrow afternoon.

Doing some final changes to the editing, and then I'm done with mine.
But if I know myself correct, I'm sure I'll find more (minor) changes to make as the deadline approaches.

Jeremy, too bad you missed that snowfall. It would have been a great video.
Hope you had a plan B too.

Good evening,

Great to see everyone wrapping their videos up, particularly Brian!!

We are to have up to 12 inches of snow hit from saturday to tuesday, UGGggggg!!

Here is a shot of me getting the closing shot for my video. the second shot may not make it in, running out of time!!! 3 minutes isn't long!!

Struggling getting one shot on my shot list, most years could get it in the field beside my house, this year its been to cool and windy for the to emerge!!!
Hope to have a wrap on this tomarrow!!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE THE REMAINING DAYS!!!

Dale,

At least you have a camera big enough to show up in a picture with you, seems mine have been shrinking and shrinking. My new Canon is so small I'm almost ashamed to put it on a tripod.

(Ever had your tripod snicker at you?)

Well, folks. I almost wound up in the tank this time. 2 short notice defensive handgun classes to teach, a class I had to attend, and family stuff all at once. And every idea I came up with called for at least one actor and I couldn't get anyone interested so...Until yesterday, NOTHING!

Then the other day the Canon HF100 I ordered came in and yesterday I decided to go out and shoot something, ANYTHING (as long as it didn't go bang!) and over two days I got footage that kind of works.

I still have to smooth it a bit and add titles so I should be uploading sometime tomorrow.

The HF100 is TINY! I went from a Sony Digital8 that was about as big as a small brick, to a Panasonic PV GS500 that felt smallish and then the HV20 which I though was really small. And now this.

You don't put accessories on it, you put IT on a hood, or filter, or whatever. But the footage looks really good. It works.

I hope you get your shots Dale - what you have there looks really intriguing - can't wait to see your video.

My video was finished and ready to upload on Wednesday but yesterday there was a sudden rush of activity - all sorts of surprising things happened - things that I had been hoping for, but that just hadn't materialised. My day was completely re-arranged - once again.

Today I will be adding a couple of clips to round off my story. What an amazing experience this has been.

Well marj I have to say I'm looking forward to your secretive goings on. I can't wait to see what your up to.....!

Me....well its looking like I'm shark food for the second time :-(

Sad to hear about the tank, Mat.
I'm always looking forward to your films.
And to you Bruce and your HF100.
Remember; It's not the size that matters :)
Baught myself a Canon HV30 and I love it. Much because of the size as I'm hiking a lot and it's easy to carry along.

Hope to get my last shot this weekend, if not, I'll just upload what I've got, but I'm struggling a bit with this one. I've been walking a lot to make this uwol film, so yesterday I had to buy myself a new pair of hiking shoes.

Cant wait to see everyones film.

Geir Inge

You still have a couple of days left, Mat!
Hope you can find anything to get on tape. The sharks got too much company last round... :)

Good luck to everyone!

I'm hoping to beat the deadline. I don't fancy a dip with the sharks on my first attempt! Editing to be complete today, including narration, then I have all day Sunday to fiddle with it. The day job hasn't been kind to me lately, and finding spare time to work on the project has been difficult.

At least I have a mouse that works now. It wasn't much fun trying to drive Premiere Elements using the keyboard!

Lessons learnt so far? Well, apart from trying to climb into the wardrobe to do narration, it was the death knell for my Libec 950DV tripod. I thought I was being clever because it was lightweight, but it almost collapsed a few times, and some shots were wobblier than I'd have liked. The Pro-6 (aka 503HDV) was more useful, and I mounted it on a set of Libec LS37 legs with a mid spreader for off-road shooting. But the bits didn't arrive in time for my first weekend, and I had to bin a lot of potentially good telephoto work. Ah well.

I hope everyone's had fun this time round. I don't think I have even an outside chance of winning, but this has certainly given me the excuse to get out and about and do something!

And that is what this challenge is all about. To get out, have some great moments, learn new things, and especially to have the magic word FUN! (rule #11)

Well, I have about three seconds of footage so far. Today is do or die day.
I have about three hours to go to as many different towns to get some shots for an idea I came up with last night.
The weather is crummy so everything is going to look flat.

So, do I run around like an idiot for three hours and put up a crummy entry or do I do my usual and take a swim since I know I'm not going to get my cotton candy film like I like?

No more swimming, Kevin! We need your entries too.
Hurry out and see what you can get. I'm sure there must be something you can find.

Woohoooo I’m finished…

I shot the last pictures this morning and finished the editing 30 minutes ago, and now it’s uploaded. This round has been really fun. I have definitely gone outside the box and entered a new area for me, yes that’s right folk… a non UW film, even with out any water in.
I can’t wait until the deadline and we can watch all the films… weiiiii like a kid :)

Cheers from Sweden

Well i've just got back from a days shooting. It was the first chance i've had to get out since this challenge started, so i must say i was happy to finally start something. It's now almost 2am & i've finished digitizing the footage from today & done a rough edit, but it looks like i will be heading out again tomorrow to get the rest of the shots i will need to finish my entry. Looks like it's going to be a long day tomorrow!
Hope everyone else is going well with their entries.

Bryce

Well, I just got back from shooting caterpillars and butterflies at Epcot. I have no idea if my focusing was sufficient to the task, but it is an absolutely beautiful day. Abundant sunshine with the current temperature at 75 degrees on the way up to 84 degrees or so.

I know the topic is probably a bit trite considering the theme, but you know someone had to do it.

Oh well, time to capture and see how it all came out. Or maybe I'll head to the pool and edit tomorrow. No, first I check the footage to see if I need to go back tomorrow to try again. Then I head to the pool.

Repeat after me...
"Don't pan with OIS turned on. Don't pan with the OIS turned on. Don't pan with the OIS turned on."

Arrrrgggghhhhh!

Yup, did that too! Something else for the virtual cutting room floor... argh.

Worst of all is my voiceover recording, I've just completed that. Never mind the cringeworthy aspect of having to hear your own voice - I'm pretty sure the great voiceover talent of Hollywood doesn't get cramps squatting on the floor of a small wardrobe reading their script by torchlight!

And I thought my hastily rigged VO "tent" collapsing on me a couple of times last UWOL challenge was the limit. Your description is just so funny :)

Hope you didnt get strangled by all those clothes - resulting in muffled sound in place of echoes!

It gets better. I need to re-record a couple of paragraphs and my torch battery is flat.

I wonder if I could start a small fire in there...?

I bought a Rode Podcaster and it only picks up my voice, not the background. No more closets for me.

Not sure why I'd want a Podcaster when I can have this luxury! Ssssh, someone's recording a voiceover in there. And I have a patent on that mic mounting, in case anyone's thinking of marketing it.

It would only be funny if I was 6 feet tall and built like a rugby player... which might explain the cramps!

And goal number one......Finish! Upload complete!

YeeHaa!!

Good evening,

Spent half a day getting the last shot i wanted, only to cut them out in the end.

Put a wrap on the video today. The snow did not come as expected but I still spent most of the day working on it.

First download failed at 25 %.

Second download seemed way to fast so i suspect it did not go.


I am pretty pleased with this effort.

Can't wait to see others efforts!!!


Would be interesting to hear how much time you all spent in total to make your films.


Dale

Well I had to really squeeze this one into my schedule in order to even have a shot at it. I think I spent about 3 days from start to finish on it. I wish I would have had more time but that's the way it goes sometimes.

My biggest challenge was trying to come up with a plan that could be shot and edited in 3 days or less.

Done! Just finished uploading.

Once I got started I put in parts of 2 days shooting, and much of the next two days editing and refining. Tonight I finished titles and did a render. Easiest render ever on one of these, in the past since nothing I had would ouput .mov I'd have to render to an AVI and then use QuickTime Pro to compress and convert to .mov.

This time I rendered straight to MP4 from the AVCHD clips on the timeline and it looks clean and sharp (and only 40MB too).

Be fun watching what the rest of you did!

I spent about 4 hours hiking on the mountain where I shot my video.
Editing was another 6-7 hours, but a lot of that time includes searching for the right music.

I spent a week waiting for approval to film, 2 hours being driven around the park by a ranger and shown the problem, about 4 hours filming and 10 hours editing (not sure what I'm doing) and another week obsessing about the mistakes before deciding not to do anything about them.

Not as much time as the last one, that's for sure.
Shot about 5 hours on the first day after the theme annoucement, (3 hours was on one time lapse shot), just because it was a nice sunny day.
Glad I did.....would have shot more, (and better), stuff if the sun had ever come back out, which it didn't.
The sun is finally back out today....after I finished of course ;)

And yesterday spent about 5-6 hours editing and rendering.


Bob

Got back from Norway last night - 14 hours of footage to capture and a fair bit of editing to do - better keep the kettle hot!!!

Ps you guys in Norway - you have some country there! - I was totally spellbound.....

Good Morning,

Last nights download did not go. My one computer doesn't seem to want to get involved!!! Went to the old P4 and it is downloading as I write this.


After seeing what you have done, I do not feel so bad about the time i spent on this stuff. You all seem to put in a lot of time as well!! No wonder there are so many outstanding videos!!

For this one I used 4 one hour tapes and one 80 minute tape. The time lapse took just under 3 hours. I spent 4:30 am to 9:30 am in the blind to get some terrific shots, of which I only used perhaps 30 second of footage.
Half a day to get a quadrupid I did not use. Also got a great shot of a lapland larkspur at the same time, did not fit into the theme well enough to use, good archival footage. I drove 180 miles to get a couple shots I did at least use.
I pretty much spent 6 or so hours getting the music right, but that was because I was learning how to use sonic fire pro at the same time. I wont count yesterday as I spent most of the day trying to compress it with better resolution and staying under the 60 mb limit!!

I have made a 156 mb version for vemeo and will post it on the 21st.


I learned a bunch more this round!!! what a Blast, What a relief to be finished!!

I must learn to not be so darn obsessive compulsive!!! wish I had more talent to go with the compulsiveness.

Nice to hear you had a great trip, Rob.
14 hours footage will keep you busy for a while...

Well, being new here, I have learned this round that there is much more for me to be learned.

It seems that the popular term here for not completing the assignment successfully is the not so fun swim in the shark tank! For this round of UWOL, I am definately shark food! Seems that little Nemo is safe from Jaws grasp for the moment. :)

Perhaps the most valuable lesson that I've learned so far is to flesh out the best idea that you can think of and begin working on it right away. I think I spent way too much time trying to come up with the great aha! moment and went through something like 5 topics before finally settling on my last idea (that I know would work) only to not have time to shoot it and actualy get it completed.

It's definately one thing to sit back, watch the movies produced by you all, and totally another thing to watch after having attempted to make one yourself. There is a whole new level of appreciation that comes into play with the experience. I think I will be much better prepared for the next round (I hope).... I just hope we have an easier theme to work with. This one, Transformation was a real brute for a first-timer! I had like a gazillion ideas that I could have used for the Adventure theme. Too bad I didn't know about it then.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of you alls entries (those of you who are not sleeping with the fishes in the shark tank with me that is!)

Ralph

Well that's it, I'm uploading right now - one day early, against all my expectations!

Overall, I've spent:
+ 10 hours shooting (most of that time was hiding under trees waiting for the rain/sleet/hail to stop, or the sun to come out again).
+ 6 hours capturing and sorting through clips.
+ 14 hours editing
+ 1 hour in a wardrobe trying to record voiceover
+ 3 hours compressing and uploading
+ 3 hours choosing music
+ 20 minutes being accosted by random dogs along a riverbank
+ 15 minutes wearing my UWOL Challenge hat (people started to point and laugh)
+ nipped fingers, bruises, bumps and strains from carrying a Vinten aluminium pozi-loc tripod around for a day
+ oodles of fun and experience

That's a lot for a 3 minute video, I suppose, but I kept going back and fussing over the editing, particularly the sound.

I'm quite pleased with the final result, given that I've never tried to film anything remotely nature/wildlife-ish before.

Now I can have a night off!

I suppose I should feel guilty for having things so easy. But let's face it, I knew what I was going to shoot the minute I saw the post with the topic. Caterpillars, Chrysalis and Butterflies, Simple. The veritable definition of "transformation".

I drove the 30 minutes to Epcot, waited 15 minutes for the park to open, made a mad dash for the butterfly tent, spent 15 minutes or so shooting before anyone else even wandered into the tent, drove 30 minutes home. I mean, really, who else gets to Disney's Epcot at opening to see the butterflies?

I had pretty much planned the shoot during the drive there. And I pretty much knew what was going to make it into the video on the drive back. The only question was "How much of the footage would be in focus?". I don't have a special lens for closeups.

It took me 10 minutes to set up and record the voiceover, and about one hour to capture and edit the footage. The music took 10 minutes to find and edit. I shot the footage in the order I planned to use it, so it was pretty simple.

All in all, this was the easiest challenge yet. I only ended up with a little over two minutes of footage, so encoding the result was simple. I didn't come close to the file size limit. So one encoding did the trick.

I just hope everyone enjoys it. I won't win, but I made some pretty pictures available for people to look at. That was the very simple exercise (for me) this time. Just make it pretty.

Well, went out yesterday and got a few clips.
Today was perfect but of course, there were so many things on my plate that I never had an opportunity to get out at all today.

So, hopefully I can get a couple more shots tomorrow, edit,compress and upload by midnight.

It's going to be very simple and certainly not my cotton candy stuff from previous entries for sure.

My goal was to stay out of the tank this year. So, I'm trying really hard to resist the urge to chuck the whole thing cause I already know I'm not going to be happy with it.

Yahoo,
Ten to one here in the morning, & i just finished uploading. Nothin like leaving things to the last minute!

Bryce

My entry is uploading as I type this.

I've stretched the theme in the past but this time I think I've stretched beyond the breaking point. Transformation my butt....it's still winter.

Good luck everyone, I'm looking forward to watching them.

Brian

A tale of woe I’m afraid.
 

We spent a successful day filming in a beautiful wooded valley which, 150 years ago, was a major gunpowder works producing high quality powder for the local mining industry. The idea was to show the slow transformation from a hive of industrial activity to the wildlife haven that the valley has become. We were especially keen to show just how long it takes for an environment to recover after alteration by man. There was certainly enough potential there for a decent film but alas the tape heads on Nicks XL1 were totally shot. All the footage was useless with frames dropped all over the place and the sound cutting out for about a second every two or three seconds. An all round disaster which sees us plunge without style into the shark tank on only our second UWOL. We’re obviously both gutted but will back stronger next time; I’m already counting the days!

Can’t wait to see all the films from those who were more successful than us, it sounds like there are going to be some great entries!