UWOL#15-"1000 Feet"
 

Well, I shot this one in SD to save rendering time so I could get back to working on my Long Form entry as quickly as possible. With the new camera and new compression software I think I’m getting better image quality, though. Most of the shooting was done in conjunction with shooting for the Long Form. The last bit is a tip o’ the hat to Catherine Russell and her excellent UWOL Long Form entry. (Please be sure to see her feedback thread.) It is a much simplified version (with different content) of an animation that I did for my own Long Form that was inspired by Catherine’s work. Thanks Cat!

Contest size- 16 MB:
http://www.hotspot-online.net/Video/...Feet-small.mp4

Larger version- 34MB:
http://www.hotspot-online.net/Video/...Feet-large.mp4

Mike,

The macro shots are clear and the colors are great.
The sound and narrating are also fine and interesting.
The book sequence at the end is amazing.
I really like what you have done here.

Mike,

this was awesome, discovery chanel material for certain. The naration is excellent and I learned some really cool stuff!!

What are you shooting the close ups with?

Beautiful macro photography and a nice educational story behind the film too. I learned a lot about a subject I really knew nothing about. Thanks Mike !

Thank-you Finn-Erik. I am pleased that you enjoyed it.

Thanks Dale. The macro was shot at various focal lengths on the XLH1a with EF100-400L and Canon 500D close up diopter attached.

Thank-you Chris. I hope everyone noticed that this is a different salamander this time. It is a Spotted Salamander, which is a cousin of the Tiger Salamander from my previous UWOL.

O.K. Mike:

I'm speechless! This entry is stunning. The macro shooting is fabulous and it was so interesting. Not only that, but entertaining too! I laughed out loud at the "Do not disturb" sign.

But the ending... HOW did you do that book? It was awesome. A tip of the hat to me? If so, in inspiration only. I need a lesson on how you did the pages like that. The flowing movement and the details on each page. I'm thrilled you did so well with that! I know it was After Effects, and that is my playground too. Can you give me a few tips? At the end of my long form, I would like to close my book as well, and would love a few pointers.

Thanks Mike! Best of luck this round. What is the status of the motherboard and completing your long form. I hope you are up and running again!

Cat

Hi Catherine- I’m glad you liked the video. I was worried you might be offended. The animation is set up to open the book, so to close it I just played it backwards. The main animation is done in Lightwave9 with the cover and pages all separate objects. Then to animate them is just a matter of rotating and bending the appropriate objects for each frame. The content is jpegs prepared in Photoshop and mapped to the page surfaces. The things that sell it are the use of perspective, rotating and zooming the camera while the pages turn and the sound effects. The frame zooming into the page is done in AfterEffects. I did a frame grab of the last frame of the previous clip and used it to make the jpeg mapped to the page. I then put the Lightwave animation on an AE layer with the frame grab above and used the pin corner effect to animate it zooming in. In the Long Form I open then close a different book and do some other things in between. I’m close to back on track for the Long Form- see the Wonder and Woe thread. Feel free to contact me with questions:
Contact Hotspot!

Mike, this was nice, real nice! Totally agree with what has been said already.
I love the macro shots. So nice to see the details, and hear the story you told.
And the artwork with the closing of the book in the end. Impressive! I see you and Catherine are the masters of After Effects. :)

Mike,
Very nice! The macro footage is outstanding. A nice entertaining and educational video. I had no idea that millipedes lived that long.

Trond- Thanks for the nice comment! These programs have such a steep learning curve that I am no where near a master. I’m still an apprentice that’s learning something new every day. Most of what I learn comes from watching the rest of you!

Rich- Thank-you. There is much more I could have told you except for time limitations. For example, did you notice the small semicircular bumps at the base of the antennae? They’re called Tömösváry organs. They are a sense organ ,so far, not found in any other group. They allow millipedes to sense relative humidity.

Mike,

Fascinating creatures, even if they do make me shiver with all those little legs for some reason.

That was beautifully shot, the colors were lovely and the macro shots (including a rack focus in macro mode to show off the legs) were perfectly executed. Excellent use of graphics, and the section on mating did raise a chuckle. A well-told story, well researched.

Nice one!

Mike.. I always enjoy your entries. You always have nice footage, often unique and breathtaking, and there is generally something to learn, if not in cinematograghy (which there often is something I take away from your films in that arena) but in learning about the subject matter.

If you are not somehow involved in education, or some offshoot thereof, you should be.

Thanks for a very interesting (if creepy) piece.

Chris

Thanks Mike. I wish I’d had access to some of the tropical species with their beautiful hues of red, blue, green or gold. Unfortunately most of them are poisonous and/or stink like… well you can imagine!

Thanks Chris. Sorry you found it creepy (or should that be creeeeeeeeeeeeepy?) Just think Halloween. I used to teach at a major university. I guess I still miss it. Sorry if I tend to lecture too much.

MIke,

From the title I thought it was going to be a film about birds or something. :) Never dawned on me that we'd be at ground level. :)

Beautiful macro footage! Loved the close-up shot of how all the legs work to allow movement. Especially the shot at 01:54.


You certainly have a knack for getting great macro shots!

I thought it was a great educational film. It was the right mix of science and entertainment without going over anyone's head.

If you're not doing this type of work for a living, you should be!

Wow Mike...where do I start?

You've already heard most of it...Great macro! Interesting creatures! Educational!

And yes, I learned something and that is always a plus....
I even learned how you did that great book animation at the end, (of course I don't understand half of what you said...LOL...)

Oh...I laughed out loud with the marching feet sound effect....

Very nice work...makes me anxious to see your long-form video...

Mike,

That was very interesting and I loved the quality of your macro shots. I did not know that millipedes can live up to 10 years. Well done.

Mike... maybe creepy was the wrong word. All my life I have struggled with how to get "warm and fuzzy" with the animals with hard exoskeletons, or other members of family arthropeda for that matter.

And I wasn't meaning to suggest you had been lecturing, at all. Your films always have a strong educational flavor to them and you carry it off very well. You could successfully make a line of shorts for a series to be used in school science programs methinks. Sort of a Mr. Wizard meets the Yeti film-maker. (with apologies to Kevin for that reference).

Ahh, my kind of video.

Great visuals, loved the macro,I'm biased on that, good VO, and I learned something.

My kids would love this, but I bet as hard as I try, to get them into the small world,they would still say ewwww!

I'm working on them.

Great video.

Wow! Thanks Kevin. Praise like that is better than those huge UWOL cash prizes! (What? UWOL doesn’t give out huge cash prizes? Aw shucks!)

Thanks Bob. I’m surprised no one has said anything about the marching feet title that goes with the sound effect- so I will. I was at a wedding and I tried and tried to corral people to get that shot. Finally I enlisted my niece who had everyone lined up and marching in about twenty seconds flat.

Thanks Oliver. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I should have mentioned that some only live a few weeks.

Chris- I used to work for a boss that is a crustacean expert. Some of them are, admittedly, pretty creepy. (For that matter so are some of the crustaceans!)

Hi Sam. Thanks for the nice comment. Go ahead and line up the kids and tell them- “Hey! Watch this. It’s really gross!” Works every time.

Hi Mike.

Holy Moly what a great video this is.
I am sure this video will be a hit in every school class, eh?
Especially at children’s school :)
The close ups are perfect and I love the way you are starting up.
Lifting the stones, finding a salamander under some leaves, etc, etc.
Very clever done!
The opening title is neat and I liked it, I can’t remember anyone using a “Matte Track” in Uwol before, or am I wrong here?
The bird at 00.41 (is it a falcon?), well I think this shot/clip is a little bit “snowy” if you know what I mean? Maybe shot at different light conditions?
Also the sound track, is it Foley or original sounds? If so, can you mention how you did it or what resource you’ve been using?
I think you have made a great video in this round, for educational, scientific and entertainment use.

I wish you all the best and good luck.
Geir Inge

Me too. But I don't miss it because watching all you self-starters learning scratches that teaching itch.

And I don't have to hold my nose and grade any really bad papers. Bonus.

Nice film--

Thanks Geir Inge. I experimented with a Track Matte title on my UWOL video “Hunger”. It wasn’t very good. I’m glad you liked this one.
The sound is a combination of Voice Over, ambient sound, and Foley with a few sound effects. I record the VO and Foley direct to disc with a MXL USB.008 microphone. I place my Foley Box in front of the mic. It is a low walled wooden tray that contains sand, soil, sticks and dried leaves. I then watch the clip I am recording Foley for play over and over while I use my hands in the box to try and make appropriate sounds. The audio recordings are then trimmed and placed into the timeline in Premiere. I then edit each audio clip in Adobe Audition. In Audition I adjust the amplitude, do noise reduction and then run them through a 20 stage Graphic Equalizer to emphasize or de-emphasize certain sounds. I then send them back to Premiere where I do the final sound mix. The ambient sound and sound effects (like the sliding window and the thumps from my hand striking a wooden table) are recorded live with the camera’s on board mic and then edited the same way. Ambient is the hardest for me because there is so much noise from cars, airplanes , dogs ect.
The bird is a Red-shouldered Hawk which nests nearby. I was taking a break from editing and saw him sitting a few feet away out the kitchen window. I grabbed the camera and just got the shot. Because I didn’t have time to attach the polarizer filter, there are reflections from the glass. I tried to minimize them in post but it doesn’t look very good. I should have used another shot, but I didn’t have time.
There is an interesting story about these birds. The hawks will build a nest and raise young in it. The next year they will move a short distance and do it again. Barred Owls will nest in the first nest. The next year they will switch nests. They may switch back and forth for several years. Why? It is thought that perhaps this arrangement helps keep down the populations of feather mites infesting the nests. These are species-specific parasites that chew on and damage feathers. Both birds have several subspecies but this only occurs in the subspecies of each which is found in central Texas. The other subspecies, whose ranges also overlap, have never been observed to do this. Why?…

Thanks Meyem. It’s worst for me at the beginning of term in fall. By mid-term I’ve usually returned to my senses!

Wow! I saw some colorful tropical millipedes at the zoo yesterday. If I had only known, I could have included some shots. One was lemon yellow with light brown tiger stripes.

Yet another fascinating UWOL film. Now I'm itching to find out just what kind of macro stuff I can achieve with my XH-A1.