Hi Paul

Nice piece fella. It was soothing and had interesting words to ponder at the same time. The musical track fit very well indeed. I have to say I found it lacking in shot diversity. Much of it was the same type of shot the same focal length and similar action. You got very good looking footage from a small size so great use of compression settings.

Good stuff
Mat

Hi Paul,

Well I had to watch and listen to your entry about five times - 3 times whilst concentrating hard on the poem - which was very clever, and the rest to go back and focus on the video footage.

I really liked the music selection and I think your narration is one of the best I've heard this round. Very powerful and fitting music after your narration ended.

In terms of your footage, I thought it was very sharp - with some nice smooth pans at the start. The sticks in the way at 00:49 - 01:15 was a little distracting - but not too much of an issue as your narration carried the film well here. In terms of Per's reference to composition, he may be referring to the shots at 01:37 - 01:55 - where it may have been better to place the swan in the lower third of the screen for better composition?

Nice editing and I especially liked the titles. Well done Paul - sounds like you went to a bit of trouble to capture your footage and I really enjoyed soaking the whole piece up.

You asked about the ratio of RAW footage to used footage. I think this would vary enormously with each individual. I actually got hours of footage this time round (including a peregrine chasing a parrot) however, I try to avoid anything that is not rock solid in terms of movement - so I ended up not using most of it. I think a really, really good tripod is probably worth it's weight in gold. Hope this helps in some way.

Great entry - well done.

Paul,

The poem put a smile on my face, especially your last line. Excellent footage, well worth the muddy boots.

Oliver

Paul,
The opening shot really was good, pity about the twigs and reeds that were in shot but I guess that you couldn’t move from your hidden spot.
The pans were smooth and focus sharp the poem was unusual I liked it
looked up the poet
Aaron Belz was born in 1971 in Iowa City, Iowa

Paul,

Good choice of music to support both the subject of your visuals and the pace of editing.

One suggestion and this is not meant as criticism: We are so used to hearing sound in stereo these days that to hear music on the left and voice on the right for something like this can draw attention to itself.

I, too, am using a mono source for voice over but I use one of those mono-stereo adapter plugs to patch the mono voice over into both channels. Then it becomes a matter of finding how far down to pull the music level for the voice and when to put the music level back up to where it was.

I enjoyed this selection very much and it was a tremendous leap over you last entry.

Keep up the good work.

Hi Paul.

These birds are just beautiful to watch, so I'll start with saying; thank you for showing us. Excellent choice of music but your VO could be tuned up a bit, though I understand it's just on the right side :) You could have lowered the music a bit as you read the poem. I miss some closeup of the swan and maybe some over look at the beginning? Showing us the area, habitat, location? Great mix between background sound and music. Keep up the good work down under :)
Now I have to watch some more uwol videos :)

Wish you all the best.
Geir Inge

Paul I really liked your music, nice clear VO but could have been louder as some have mentioned. Love the swans, very beautiful birds. Good story too!

Cheers

I haven't seen the black swans so often, so it was really cool to see them in your video.
Enjoyed every part of it.
Great narration, and I think you made a good choice of music.

Hi all,

I've decided to shoot this again, I think in the 'quiet time' between UWOL comps I can do a 2nd version of my entry and concentrate on fixing the mistakes I made. The music is 11:30 and I'd like to leave that intact and build the footage around that

I'll be tromping through the marshes to get some wide shots of the lake area to introduce the subject more and trying to get some different shots, perhaps larger groups of swans.

I was thinking of taking a canoe out into the lake and filming from the water but I'm not game at the moment - a 7m (21') white pointer was sighted in one of the 3 connecting salt water lakes in our area.

I'll also get some footage of the lake edge, maybe some reflections in the water.

Okay - over to you - what other shots should I get? What would you look for or what would be in your shot list for this project?

An extreme close-up of a reed head or swamp flower with insects if there are any, with soft focus on water and birds in background. Dynamise that with a focus pull to subject or lateral track the close-up out of the frame then pull focus. - No doubt you are already doing this but there's the thought.