Judging Timeline and, have you considered this lately? ...

[Catherine Russell]

Hi UWOL 45-ers (and beyond!):

Reviews are going well and I hope to have the judging review thread posted by this Wednesday.

In the mean time I was wondering if you have seriously considered the idea of, collectively as a group as team UWOL, setting your sights on an international wildlife film festival of your choice and working together to submit a film? Perhaps something like this has been bantered around before on the forum. But I think you should reconsider if you have and it lost steam before. I think a team UWOL could be competitive in such an endeavor. Just an idea, but think about it!!

I'll leave it at that for all of you to pile on.

Until Wednesday....

Cat

[Kevin Railsback]

Several of us attended WildScreen in Bristol, England and it was amazing! Would love to have a film there some day.
A collaborative effort would be a great way to get footage from all over the world.

[Bryce Comer]

Agreed, I think it would be a great thing to do. I suggested it a while ago, but it was just a bit of an idea i was throwing out there. I think it would be really great to do, on so many levels.
One of the biggest challenges i faced in making my UWOL long form film was the fact that it was only me working on the film. No other ideas, no one telling me, "what are you thinking putting that in" :) But seriously, collaboration is the thing i missed the most, & i didn't realize it until i was close to the end.
With so many great ideas & incredible talent around here, i'm sure we could make a film collaboratively. An award winning film at that!! :)
Definitely something worth talking about.

[Trond Saetre]

A collaborate project was tried out some time (5-7 years?) ago. Didn't work out back then, but that doesn't mean it can't be a great success next time, if we try it again.

Absolutely something we could discuss more and try out.

[Vishal Jadhav]

Collaborative film, yes that was one idea i remember being discussed however it didnt take off back then.

Film festivals are interesting places some of the UWOLers meet at last Wildscreen and it was great place to be, i am currently a finalist with a film at the Japan Wildlife Film festival. If we all put in we should be able to produce a amazing film with a global outlook.
Now to again find a topic that most of us can work on together .

[Bob Safay]

I think it is a great idea, wildlife and nature from all over the world. Question is, who would do the editing? I would volunteer to do the VO. Bob

[Mick Jenner]

He he, well here's the films synopsis!

A small group of social misfits (poetic licence to sell the the story) from both sex's from around the world who's only bond is their love of nature and its beauty decide to get together and take on the likes of Nat Geo, Discovery and BBC NHU and produce a nature film that wins the Golden (whatever) at the worlds top nature film awards gathering.

In order to do so they overcome obstacles such as distance, language and zero budget to produce a film so ground breaking (and cheap to make) that industry veterans are left fearing for their future if this new genre of wildlife film making takes off.

We make a film about taking on the big guys and winning!!!!

All the above said in jest (in case my English sense of humour is lost in translation)

Would be great though if we could all pull together and a produce film

[Bryce Comer]

Agreed! Maybe the way to move forward with something like this, would be for everyone to write a synopsis & then we could put together something from everyone's ideas?? Of course, we would need to keep in mind that we are all from different corners of the globe, so that would be a major part of how the film is put together.

[Donald McPherson]

Here's my lame idea for this. Is there an animal or a bird that is common throughout the world that we could film in its varying habitat?

[Trond Saetre]

Originally Posted by Bob Safay

Question is, who would do the editing?

Editing can be done either by one person, or several in cooperation. (As an example, one could do the basic editing, another could do color correction, music, After Effects if needed,... and so on, or each person do it all for different segments of the film.)

[Vishal Jadhav]

Originally Posted by Donald McPherson

Here's my lame idea for this. Is there an animal or a bird that is common throughout the world that we could film in its varying habitat?

Donald,
Last time we put up this idea the common animal i found was the wolf is nearly in each place we are and under different circumstances ( UK its now in the folklore ) but then thats the extreme it has gone .
Australia wolves have never existed and the closest we have are the Dingos or the one that went extinct Thylacine . This idea didnt take off.
But we may find similar animals/ birds

[Catherine Russell]

Hi guys:

I could see why if the potential requirement for a collaborative film was for everyone to come up with wolf footage in the wild may have been daunting. :) I think maybe Kevin is the only person with wolf footage from his trip to Montana (?).

To test the waters, maybe focusing on a film short and choosing a theme where there isn't a restriction of subject matter might help get things started?

Just a thought.

Cat

[Bryce Comer]

Agreed! Wolf footage in the wild is definitely not easy to come by.
Perhaps if all those who are interested in making a collaborative effort a reality, were to come up with an idea/theme for the film, we can then put up those ideas & look at what idea is the most popular. If you think about it, what film doesn't start out as an idea in someone's head. They then go & put that idea to those with the ability to make it happen. (Ok, so this is normally the people with the funds, in our case it would be the ones who will be helping to make the film). Of course the beauty of collaboration is the ability to put those minds together and make the original idea even better.
Here's a quick & dirty idea as an example;
The original theme might be "climate change". From that i can start to come up with my idea for the film. Since we are from all over the world, we could look at what effect climate change is having on the region in our individual areas. What effects is climate change having on the flora & or fauna in our area. What if anything are we doing to change, or help species adapt? Ideally this would be focused on one subject & then become a sequence in the film.
How long the film ends up, will depend on how many are involved & how long we try to keep the sequences to.
Everyone would need to be involved in helping each sequence reach its greatest potential & make sure it fits in with the whole film.
Gear might be a little bit of a challenge since we all own different equipment, however i think that almost all of the modern day cameras can produce an excellent image so this shouldn't be too difficult to work around.
Editing, at least rough edits, should be done by each individual with feedback from others. Just like our challenges here, we produce our own little edits. The difference here would be that with the feedback we get from each other, we re-edit things until we have the best possible edit of the sequence. Of course we would also have the opportunity to re-shoot parts to get the exact shots that fit.
I really do believe something like this would help everyone learn a lot about making a great film, and of course, believe that in the end, if we can make it happen, we would end up with a truly great film!

[Vishal Jadhav]

I guess if we want to choose a topic it may not be a great idea to be closed to ideas or discount them from start .
No hard feelings guys

[Gordon Hoffman]

I like the idea of a collaborative film. My personal feeling is that as we are a very diverse group from different parts of the world it would be better to try something, as Cat just mentioned, of a more unrestricted nature related subject for our first attempt.
I had thought about the the climate change also as Bryce suggested but I think it might be better to see how we can work together on a simpler idea first. I feel it would give the opportunity for a lot of us to go out and get the footage to work with. There will be a lot of kinks to work out one being all the different cameras being used, the different shooting styles, etc. I don't think we have to be targeting to do a film for a film festival yet but more to see if we can pull off an idea. But hey if it works out all the better.

Gordon