Thanks Chris - lots of ideas and much appreciated. I guess most of us will be seeing maths in all sorts of wierd and wonderful places after this - just wait till you see the rest - it's truly mind-boggling.

Marj,
It gets better and better. First of all, I think your voice is a big plus. I could listen to you all day long. It might be a good idea to say the numbers as they appear in your original
description of the Fibonacci sequence. Since it starts with zero, then one, then the one is repeated before going on, it is a bit confusing to someone who is unfamiliar with the concept of sum of previous two numbers give the next one. Also increased spacing between numbers might help. For continuity and to say that these numbers are part of the real world, I would superimpose the series over the previous scene instead of giving it its own blank background.
I find myself asking "why". You have to approach that, even if there is no answer but Divine Providence.
Somewhere after the pineapple you begin to discuss petal, sepal numbers, etc, and since you are only mentioning one number per plant (usually 5) the tie-in with Fibonacci becomes less obvious, and I find my train of thought wandering. It was all spirals. Now what is she saying?
Finally, I was confused with the Lucas series, and, having watched, still don't know what it is. Don't fall into the trap of trying to be all-inculsive in your explanations. It only can detract from what is a magnificent piece.

Thanks for your feedback Steve - very helpful.

Your bit about my narration came as a surprise as I have generally been of the opinion that it is my weakest point. I have been hoping to find someone to do the final narration for me for this project.

This was all rushed together at the last minute (unintentionally) so I did not have time to do anything creative with it. The “Why?” will definitely be answered in another sequence - there is a very good reason for every little part of this (including the number of petals) and will become quite clear when this section is finally put into context.

Thanks for all your constructive suggestions. My basic graphics will become proper animations in the final project.

Marj, first of all - what a beautiful scenes and colors you got here! Interesting topic too.
As others have said, it's a bit static to me. Different camera angle would have enhanged it a lot and maybe a time-laps (stop motion) too?

Will be interesting to watch your development to this one. Keep up your good work, Marj

Hi Marj,
Love your methodolgy and approach to this, your workload is fantastic!
I did begin to feel a little bombarded with too much similar information, and I felt that maybe that a few pauses here and there, to let the viewer absorb what they're seeing would might help. I really like your voice over - I think your voice works very well - have a little try perhaps at varying the tone and pace throughout - it can really help to enhance the viewers enjoyment and attention.
Image wise great detail shots. Wasn't so sure about some of the quick fades to very similar frames - just didn't sit well with me. A way around would be to flip the angle perhaps, or setup gentle pans for a little variety. Being incredibly picky, there were a couple of fades where the next sequence on the video track had flashed through for a frame or two. Watch out for these, because I know you'll only kick youself if you don't spot it 'til later on!!
But you have a very thorough, well researched and magical piece coming together here... best of luck with it!!!

Hi Marj,
Wow, what a piece you are putting together. I can't believe the depth of your knowledge! I too felt there was a bit too much information telling the same story, & like Rob had said, i felt you could have simply shown shots of other plants without the explanation, giving us time to simply absorb the information, & maybe think about how it works with the plant being shown, maybe even try to count the numbers for ourselves. Ok, so maybe that would take to long for a shot to be shown, but i guess you know what i mean.
Your footage is stunning, your subject is fascinating, & your knowledge of your subject is obviously vast. I am sure when this all comes together it will be just like your other UWOL submissions, & be a very polished, very professional piece & i am really looking forward to seeing more.
Regards,
Bryce

Absolutely fascinating with beautiful images, interesting facts (That I had to rewind in order to absorb on occasion) and I must say that you have a beautiful and soothing voice.

Very professional and nicely done...I can't wait to see how you put it into a final form.

I must say I really value the input from everyone. You have all helped so much in bringing my attention to little things that I hadn’t thought of and I will definitely have a better outcome as a result.

Per - Static clips are the biggest bug bear when it comes to doing macro work and I admit I didn’t put much thought into solving the problem due to the last minute rush. I think your idea of using some time lapse here is a very good one because I don’t have to touch the camera with time-lapse. As you know all too well touching the camera, even a little bit in close-up, knocks the image around wildly, never mind trying to pan with it in that mode. Fortunately, I have subsequently thought of a couple of solutions to this problem and I am busy working on it.

Rob - Thanks for your observations. Glad you picked up on some of those little things - I will check them out. This entire sequence is going to be reduced by half its length so much of the repetition will be gone. I have to balance things very finely - give enough information to make it easy to follow but keep it short enough to keep interest going.

Bryce - really appreciate your comments and thanks for your suggestions - very helpful - and every bit helps.

Jeff - a lot of work still to go but hopefully it will pull together in the end. Found your comments encouraging and helpful - my biggest problem is to find a way to convey info effectively so folk don’t have to rewind to absorb it or get bored with too much. I really don’t want to end up with a classroom lesson which is what I have here at the moment.

Hi Marj.
Great colors, crisp and clear.
Also like your VO, and as a foreigner to english it's omportant for me to understand what's been said - and I do :)
The part 2 of your ULF, seems a bit static, but I'm sure this will be all changed in the final film. I think it has to do with all the information given at a short time. If it's possible, maybe put some questions in, to make it more exciting?
I think you have a great plan for your ULF.

Geir Inge

Uwol Long Form #3
 

Filming the material required for this long form film has kept me pretty busy . What a mission! I must say, however, that filming this section was a lot of fun.

We had a good break at the coast last week which we deliberately planned around the low spring tide at full moon (Thursday). This did not leave me much time to do a great deal with the footage after getting back. I had the opportunity to film a variety of useful things from snow-covered mountains to sunny beaches; rock pools and seashore animals; pineapple plants and some bits and pieces at a gem of a game park we’ve never been to before. Uwol certainly pushes our boundaries and makes life pretty interesting in unexpected ways! I have met so many delightful, helpful people along the way.

I have not been able to give you a story to help you along this time unfortunately. I will drop the music and most of the beach and rock pool scenery which are just gap fillers for the music this round. Basically this section will cover the mathematics found in many of the seashore species and its purpose. The pentamerous, radially symmetrical design of the sea stars, cushion stars and brittle stars as well as the pentagonal mathematics found in the exquisite pansy shells - relatives of the sea urchins that also bear spines while alive. Many of these species can be found at the lowest levels of the sea shore in rock pools that are exposed at low springtide.

I am very grateful to my friend Debbie, a dental surgeon, for doing the X-ray of the little ram's horn shell (Spirula spirula) for me and to my neighbour Sherryl who very generously offered her comprehensive and beautiful shell collection for me to film. In this collection she amazingly had two Nautilus shells, one with it the exterior surface polished off to reveal the beautiful pearly surface below. The Nautilus shell displays self-similarity in the structure of its flotation chambers that are arranged in a logorhythmic spiral - all of which will be explained in detail in my final story. The Nautilus lives inside the shell which is approximately 20cm across while the little 2cm ram’s horn shell is the internal skeleton of the Spirula - a squid-like creature that lives 1000M below sea level and is therefore rarely seen. Their shells, however, are found scattered along our beaches in great numbers.

I may also include the Paper Nautilus. (Not shown in this submission) I found a number of these large, delicate shells washed up on the beach after a storm many years ago. The paper Nautilus shell is in fact the egg case made by the female octopus that guards the entrance. Who would have thought then they would come in useful for something like this!!!

The cone shells are examples of natural cellular automata.

My video has been uploaded to the Uwol Challenge site and should be up on Vimeo sometime tomorrow. Look forward to viewing your films. I was short of bandwidth last round with Uwol 13 going at the same time so I apologise for not commenting on some of your films - hope to sort that out this time round.

My video is now uploaded at Vimeo for anyone who would prefer to view it at a higher resolution.

By design (#3) selected clips on Vimeo

Really really nice!


I like your composing in the cut here Marj, and understand you have strong card on hand.
This cut with a god Marj story, I lock forword to this one.


All best fore this film.


VJV

Beautiful macro work, Marj. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I hope you showed the nautilus shell and the cowry on black backgrounds because you intend to add the equasions later. Demonstrating that god thinks in math will blow people away.

Marj,

A lot of fantastic images!!! the colors and compositions arre sweet, How did you do the rotation of the subjects? Pretty slick. the compositing is grand, done in After Effects???
A couple portions of pans seem to stutter ever so slightly, is that a compression issue??


Can't wait to see the final rendition!!

Thanks Vidar, Steve and Dale for your comments. I have been working steadily gathering my information and images but still have some way to go yet before I can pull it all together into one story.

I set out at the beginning of this project with the aim of learning new techniques. After the almost unanimous comments about the static images last round I have been trying out different ways of solving the problem because I have so many little illustrations which only require one object in the frame - like one flower or one shell. Rob and Chris both mentioned the idea of using an elastic when doing pans - which I tried - and this works like a dream even when using a macro lens. (Thanks guys.)

One idea I came up with was the turntable which I thought would be effective when doing the spiral shells. After doing some research into the matter, I hauled in the technocrats around me and we - sorry they - put together a basic turntable for me made from a windscreen wiper motor, a lazy susan bearing and a v-belt linking two grooved circles of wood (make-shift gears). The main issue here was getting it to turn slowly enough. Using a potentiometer instead of the v-belt (the easy solution) just would not bring the speed down enough - there is a limit to the amount of power one can take away before the motor just won't work.

The compression this round has highlighted a couple of problems for me - the major one is with the compositing. This is the first time I have tried compositing images and I used Premier Pro. However, while my blacks are black in the original, in the compressed versions you can clearly see the differences in the blacks of the composited images. I will fix this now that I am aware of the issue. I am learning After Effects and will sort it out there - if my poor brain can handle any more info that is. I feel like I have been studying for a major math and biology exam the last few months - and I thought this was going to be easy! The research has taken me deeper and deeper into this fascinating subject which has advanced so much since I first learned about it in high school. What I did not realise when I started was that pattern formation in nature and plant morphology in particular are still being actively investigated by mathemeticians and biologists today and they are discovering some amazing things. Problem is, I now have to digest it all and put it into a simple, understandable form. This sequence thankfully has given me some light relief!

Very good Marj, I can see you’ve been hard at work! Isn’t it fun learning new things? I’m working on learning more AE too. Good job incorporating movement into your shots. I especially liked the wipe with the Chambered Nautilus shells. With the Spirula you might do a composite showing that the chambered shell is internal like the remnant shells of squid and octopods. Maybe just an outline of the body around the shell that then fades away. Were all of your reef shots done underwater or were some shot through aquarium glass? Very nicely done if so. I loved the X-radiogram. A sped up macro shot showing the sinusoidal rhythm of movements in echinoderm tube feet might be useful. Perhaps put an urchin in an empty aquarium and shoot up through the bottom? Watching your finished program will be a real treat.

Hi Mike - thanks for your comments.

I have been trying to work out how to acquire images of these animals and had thought of doing some illustrations. I like your idea of just doing the outline - that would simplify the task. Good idea.


Many of the rockpool shots like the lobster were done in situ, but none of my underwater shots were done underwater. I needed plan B - so before I even got to the rock pools at spring tide I did some back-up footage at the aquarium - just in case. All I can say is I am very glad I did because there wasn't a single sea star to be found even though the tide was way down. I really battled with the dim lighting in the aquarium. You can can actually see the octopus is up against the glass here.

Right - now how am I supposed to do that, now that I am 6 hours from the nearest rock pool!!?? Fortunately not essential for my final film - but would be nice to include -as would
footage of the sea star protruding its stomach into a mussel and literally liquidating its prey before consuming it!!! :)

Marj,

Again you show us your talent. Your macros are always clear and tasteful colored.
The rotating objects gives live to the images. It was a good idea. The illustrations are also very good.

Hey Marj

Nice continuation of the matematical /geometric theme to your piece. Loving some of the shot and I like the turntable work. For this sort of thing I thing its a perfect way of illustrating your concepts. I also like the use of cut through sections through the shells showing the internal structures. - As I said before and I know you are aware of I think your challenge is the provide interesting back stories to link your math into other aspects and stories of the natural world. That will really make the piece solid and keep the viewers interest on your main subject.

I am really looking foward to seeing all this put together and undertanding some of these principles !

Great stuff!
Mat

Hi Marj.
A big change from nr 2 this is, so many great shots.
I like the way you show the different shapes and I'm looking forward to see how it all will turn out in the end :) How you will put together the end product from the 3 videos you have given us in this forum.
That's one of the things I like about this competition, you never know what or how the end product will be.

All the best.
Geir Inge

Hey Marj:

Nice work as always. You have a flair for close-ups and the use of the turn-table is VERY effective. You really are putting together a great foundation for the end product. I am very interested to see the next round when it will have a more finished feel to it and we can put the illuminating information together with the imagery.

Fascinating topic!

All the best,

Cat

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Glad the turntable idea has improved things.

My biggest task now is to work on the story and find those missing shots. Time is really running out - especially when all this has to be done in spare time. Most of us are in the same boat though - so wish you all success.

Marge,

Can you post a picture of your turntable?? I like to build stuff, sounds intriguing!

Hope this helps Dale - send me an email if you have any questions.

Marge,


thankyou for the pictures, that is enough for me to understand and build one this winter.

It also gave me some ideas for a donut shaped one for full circular shots of an object.

Uwol Long Form - By design #4
 

My video is up at the Uwol Challenge site - will put it up at Vimeo later today.

This is the first ROUGHCUT. It was my intention to have the entire movie up but I ran out of time to finish so you have approximately a third to half of it - will only know once the entire thing is laid out on the timeline. (This may have to be cut drastically.)

The introduction is incomplete but gives you the main premise upon which I have based my film - Galileo’s quotation. The exposition is missing - it will introduce Math’s place in the natural world today.

The animation following the quote is a rough idea of one idea I had for the background for the exposition.

All animations except the first two are rough ideas of what I want - place holders till the final ones are completed. Please ignore the quality of the animations just judge the effectiveness for the concept they are putting across.

Please would you note some of the following while watching my film - I really need your input.

How easy is it to follow?

Did it hold your attention or did you lose concentration - if so - where? Do you think the stories are interesting or inconsequential? Are they structured in an interesting way?

Is the pace too fast/slow. Where?

No matter how hard I tried I could not seem to cut down on the talking. Most of the concepts seem to need to be explained. Is there too much? Is it too tedious with so much narration?

My film will follow the following structure:

Introduction
The geometric shapes around us
Spirals and helices in nature
Number sequences in nature
Golden math in nature
Conclusion

I will try to give a musical interlude like the one in this section at the beginning of each section to give the narration a break. Not sure if that is going to work or not but one needs time to digest some of this stuff before moving on.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome! Many thanks.

Really looking forward to seeing what you have all been up to.

Marj

We will be offline from midnight tonight till Monday night. I will not be able to post my link to Vimeo before then but if you go to one of my previous links it will take you there if you wish to view my video- should be up at Vimeo sometime tomorrow.

Marj

Hi Marj:

Wow! O.K! This is Marj at her best, and no one does this like you do. Now a few things come to mind as general overarching suggestions. Please forgive me, as these will spill out in random thoughts as they come to mind.

First, the opening animation absolutely blew me away and I would love to hear how you put something like it together. The second animation was good, but a comment here is it was distracting to try and read Galileo's quote scrolling from bottom to top and watch the small electron circling the nucleus (or whatever it was). The quote is all important for it is the basis of your entire film. It is imperative you make that quote as easy as possible for the viewer to read and absorb what it says. Finally, the "filler" animations I actually didn't mind and thought they served their purpose.

Now, for understanding the content. For this type of film and the mathematical nature of it, don't be shy but pick your specific audience and then go for it. Just by who you are and the nature of your film, you have narrowed your audience from the general audience and casual viewer to an audience that doesn't mind working their minds as they watch this masterful film. There is nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't worry too much whether people are getting it or not and thus potentially water down what you have to say. Your focus should be on organizing your film clearly and concisely, explaining mathematical principles and then backing them up with your stunning video. As long as you are clear and organized, you will captivate your audience.

Part of the problem we uwolers have by viewing your works in progress is that we don't have yet the clearly organized fundamentals to base our viewing on. We have only received snippets without the fortified building blocks to get us there. That being said, this entry was fairly clear. You were giving us stunning examples of why nature chooses the shapes it does: because the particular shapes are the most efficient, requiring less energy and is the perfect shape for the job at hand.

Finally, in your intro you provided for us in the lower left corner the geometric shape that was exampled by the natural wonder in the film. I didn't catch the geometric shapes the first time viewing your film. Perhaps that can be more prominent so we won't miss your intention here?

And what is this that you are concerned that we might lose interest? Get bored? Think this is inconsequential??? Are you kidding?? All of it is in the realm of fantastic! I've heard someone say that, "God is a mathematician of the highest order" and you are proving it here.

Anyway, all just off-hand impressions. Your mastery of close ups and being able to seek out the subjects of interest is exceptional. Well done!

Oh yeah, the dung beetle was comic relief for me. Not the one doing all the work but the one going for the ride and getting rolled over time and again! Ha!

Awesome work, if I didn't make sense in some of this let me know and I will try again!

Cat

Marj,
I loved this. Simply loved it. There is so much drivel on TV and on line. Thank the Lord for something with a brain in it.
You wanted comments. In your quote from Galileo is the past tense of "learn" "learned"
or did some old translator put it into Old English as "learnt"? I find the whole thing to be jerky, and assume that has something to do with Vimeo. How big are your files? I find similar behavior when I try to put too big a file into Vimeo. Your closeups are so pretty and sharp. Wish I could do that.
It is very difficult in a piece this long to stay on subject all the time, and, when you started this work, I'll bet you didn't realize just how complicated it was going to become. You might do well to follow the old advertiser's mantra. First tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell it, then tell them what you told them. In other words, a brief summary setting up order of the shapes and equasions as it will be related in the piece, then the body of the work, finally a summarizing conclusion. I can't wait to see the whole thing. You've already taught so much.

Marj... I had to watch this several times...the content and presentation is masterful... it is a lot to digest on the first time through. I agree with CAT, don't be afraid to pick your audience...yet at the same time I think you can/may and are reaching potentially several audiences all at the same time in different ways. I guess I just don;t want to see you dumb down something that you fear may escape reaching ALL viewers.

I laughed when I saw Steve's post for I too hung up on "learnt" - to the point of stopping the film and getting out my dictionary, wherein I saw it WAS a proper spelling, and only then when restarting did I see it was a quote.

Your closeups leave me agog*. Simply fantastic work. This film is shaping up to be a winner for sure.

Chris

* Since I had my dictionary out I needed a good word to express my sense of excitement and intense interest. Hence agog.

Marj- I think the pace is much improved this time. The narration holds my attention and is easy to follow. I love the second animation! I think your proposed structure is logical. The usual way to break up narration is with music, just as you are doing. I think it will be OK. For me, it wasn’t too much narration anyway! I’m looking forward to watching the whole thing next time.

Thank you so much Cat for the time you have taken to answer my questions and for giving me exceedingly helpful comments and encouragement! I have been slogging away at this rather intensely for two weeks now trying to get something logical together and, being so immersed in it, I honestly did not know if I was sitting with a complete disaster here or not.


Cat this animation arrived for me as an email entitled “Prezzie for Mom”.

When I told my youngest son, Greg, about my project and asked for his help to do a very complicated animation for the sunflower section, this first section somehow caught his imagination and unbeknown to me he went off and did this animation for me. He was really chuffed with it and I was so over the moon that I make absolutely no apology for using it rather than something I created myself! How he put it together only he can explain. (Greg wanted to study 3D animation after high school but opted for electrical engineering instead - I wanted to give him an opportunity to use some of his animating talents in my film. He has come through for me in an amazing way.) I will let him know how much you liked it. :)


You have confirmed my thoughts on this Cat - I had felt the animation was okay until we added the moon, then it became too busy. (This is a model of the earth, sun and moon actually, but you have just given me the link I needed to show the universe in macro and micro so I will try morphing it into electrons circling a nucleus.)

The significance of this second animation will only be made clear with my exposition. (It was done by my son Gary who has recently finished a course on 3D animation for his auditorium design work. He appreciated the opportunity to practise and I am so grateful for his contributions which are in a later section.)


This bothered me a bit when I read it , because I want to bring this topic into the living room of most folk - a general audience - not just to people who can understand the topic. I have a few ideas that may help in this regard without watering it down - thanks to all the helpful comments I have received.

As long as this particular entry is clear, that’s all that matters to me, because I am now working according to a strictly ordered story structure - the other submissions, as you correctly say, were floating outside any planned story.

Agreed. This section was a real headache for me - trying to find a way to put across what I am trying to demonstrate with these shots but without TALKING is difficult. That was a last minute idea. I thought afterwards - it might have been better to do it boldly and not as an excuse on the side. I would love some suggestions if anyone can think of a better way of doing it.

Many thanks Cat - your comments are amazingly perceptive and soooo helpful!

Hi Steve - Thank you so much for you comments - they are very helpful.

:) As Chris has said, there are two acceptable spellings for this word. I too looked it up (Oxford English Dictionary) just to make sure. Perhaps I had better put everything into quotation marks - may help.

Thanks for letting me know Steve I wasn’t aware there was a problem. This is the first time I have put such a big file up at Vimeo. I will try to get them smaller in future. I wonder if everyone had the same problem - not nice to watch a jerky video for sure.

Tell me about it. I would never have chosen this subject had I known how much work it was going to be. I have had to find hundreds of shots, never mind organize them into a logical sequence! It has also been difficult because there is just so much to cover and you can approach the topic from so many different directions. I have had to select the most important things to do.

Could I ask you to clarify something? Have I gone off the subject or did you find your concentration wandered from the subject? If I cut it down/changed it to solve the problem where do you think it would be best to do it?


Once again thank you so much for your help.

Hi Chris
Appreciate your compliments - this is one time when I actually did not know how my movie was going to be received - I can see though that there is still a lot of work to be done on this section to sort it out.

I will try to add a few more narration transitions just to help out in this regard. I never realized it was quite so brain-draining to watch!!! I am so glad everyone has commented on this though because it is quite difficult, after doing so much research, to get it all disentangled and and laid out in simple terms.

Hi Mike

Thanks so much for your very helpful responses to my questions. Glad at least you didn't find the narration too overwhelming - that was my main concern - too much talking again - and I 'm not even an overly talkative type of person!

I am sure Gary will be pleased to know you appreciate his animation when I tell him. Thanks Mike.

Hi Marj:

Let me clarify. The stunning video work will captivate any type of viewer, and this is an entry that can be brought into every living room and not fail to delight. I was hoping to communicate that you need not worry about everyone getting the math behind it all and thus shouldn't worry about whether or not to lighten that aspect of the video. We all will understand that these geometric shapes and mathematical principles are found everywhere in the natural world for a reason. You will probably have viewers that are so intrigued, they just might dive into the math to understand it better. And this is where artistic video can change lives. I think this is what you are ultimately wanting to do with this piece of work.

So please, no offense be taken. If you craft it well (which you are), it will be a multifaceted film that reaches people on different levels, from the mathematically savvy to a six year old delighted to watch the bees in the hive and the dung beetle rolling that big ball of poop!

Cat

Hey Cat - Absolutely no offence taken - quite the opposite - I'm so grateful for your observations.

What bothered me was how to solve the problem in the very limited time we have left! I see that you agree with Chris - don't bring it down in level. I will help it along though, by adding more introductory and concluding statements as Steve was intimating.

Anyway I hope the stories I have used, as you have said, will be enough to hold interest even if the amazing underpinning maths doesn't.

Thanks Cat.

Marge,

I learned a lot more once again. Look forward to next month!!!! You should be able to market this video i as number of ways if you so desire.

Marj,
Your work is so delicate and perfectionistic. The animations, macros and colors are superb. In a time where all good films are equipped with an amount of flying skies and fast-moving sunsets, you show up with many personal qualities.
I am impressed.

Marj, I could not find your link. Bob