UWOL #9 - 'Black Swans' - Paul Mailath
 

Well, after my 'hide experience' I decided to just move stealthily along the foreshore to get close to some swans. Moving stealthily in swamp while wearing gumboots and carrying a camera is an acquired talent - unfortunately I haven't acquired it yet.

Still I got some footage and happily made my way on to dry land trying to ignore the 'thrulp, thrulp' of my boots as I extracted them from the mud with every step.

I originally had no narration, just music and perhaps I should have stuck with that but I came across a poem that appealed to my sense of humour - it's a tad on the absurd side - so I threw it in. (I sincerely hope it doesn't offend anyone)

This was all shot on the Canon XH-A1 with the Raynox 1.8 teleconverter.

http://www.vimeo.com/1200856

One thing I'd really like to know is how much raw footage do you guys usually start with?

Paul,
Your swan footage is great, nicely framed and shot. But your narrative is completely wonderful. Never in all my life would I have expected a discourse on Zeus and Dido and at UWOL. Now I have to stop reviewing the entries, because all I can think about is Lady G'diva on a horse. A forty centimeter schlong? Is that what you said? I don't know what's in that Aussie beer, but I've GOT to have some. Totally teriffic. Can't wait for your next entry.

Paul,

Very nice footage of the swans!! Ihe music was gentle and well suited. I found the peom intriguing and intertaining. Did you read it and record it? The quality of the audio was awesome. I personally have real trouble with audio voice overs. How did you get it so nice??


Very very nice!!

Hi Paul:

Mesmerizing... and completely captivating. I thought your poem reading brought a lot to it so I'm glad you kept it in. This is excellent. I also liked how everything seemed to be in grays which made the black swans really stand out. Then just a touch of color at the end with your credits. WAY COOL. I was completely taken by this!

Cat

I like your narration Paul. Unique words to go with a unique animal. Kind of speaks for them since they don't speak for themselves. And thank you for this because until your entry, I never knew you could order swans in jet black with red trim. Always thought we were limited to white with orange trim. Guess those are the US models.

Watched your video a few times Paul.Glad you decided to go with the poem in the naration,as I think it adds greatly to the overall video.Nice entry Paul

And the music was cool too !

Nice one Paul… well done. I, personally, don’t like the design of the titles and it was a bit hard to read in the small window. But that was the one thing I would complain about, I liked you film, that would have been nice with close ups but I fell I don’t miss them in this film. The poem was nice, worked well with the film.

Hi Paul.

I like this entry a lot.

A lovely subject! Extremely photogenic with its bold contrast to the colour of the surrounding water.

I believed we had and escaped Australian black swan living happily on a lake near us but she doesn’t have the white plumage on her primary feathers so now I am not so sure.

Shame about the twigs and sticks in the shot but as a fellow uwol-er who had hide problems I can sympathise.

Lovely music and a great poem well read.

What can I say...absolutely wonderful, great images,excellent music and the vo well well how can you beat that.

So far one of my picks to be in the top films this round.

Brian

Black swans....now, those are cool! I didn’t know they existed; you gave us a wonderfully long look at them and their activity.

You asked about the amount of raw footage people acquire. Might we assume that to get those beautiful shots you stayed in your blind and in the swamp for a *few* hours with the camera running? :)

A while ago I heard that a black swan was a metaphor for something that could not exist, now I know I was wrong! Beautiful film Paul and I learned something from your narrating too. Some minor flaws in composition and level of horizon on a couple of clips but that is minor.

thanks guys - I'm happy that I'm improving

Yes the word was indeed schlong - an Americanism I believe (he's a US poet) - it was really out of left field which is why it appealed to me

Audio wise I just use a small desk mike (with a home made pop filter) and then spend time in Adobe soundbooth cleaning it up.

My alternate narration was going to be about the philosophical theories that surround the late discovery of the black swan (that which cannot exist) starting from the Roman 'rara avis - a rare bird in the land and very much like a black swan'

I'm really interested in your comment Per Johan regarding composition - tell me more! I don't really understand composition so I'd love to see what I did or didn't do in order to get a grasp on the concept. (BTW we are still working on the short film, your footage is in there and I did the narration in my version of a Finnish accent!)

great to be part of UWOL and I learn so much from all of your videos (even if I don't feel competent to comment on most of them).

Paul,

That was great. I've seen those swans on lakes near the road out to Williamtown airport at Newcastle, NSW. I liked the thought that it might've been normal white swans covered in coal dust, but that's probably just a bit fanciful on my part! It was good to see a little more of them than the glimpse I normally get.

I think the shots through the branches looked well, they gave good depth to the image. Lovely images of the swans.

I did notice that the commentary was only on the right channel - was that deliberate? Either way, it was a great commentary definitely something different from the norm.

And the 40cm schlong... great, I now feel inadequate next to a black swan!! I really did laugh out loud at that bit. You've made my day!

Well done, Paul!

Great shots of a very pretty animal. I enjoyed it!

I think the poem was a stroke of genuis...good move. And your voice is excellent for the job.

I also had to go back and listen again...and yep, that's what you said :)

Good work!

Bob

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.