UWOL#1 Wind Country by Gordon Hoffman
 

I really want to thank everyone involved in getting this going. It was fun. I'm kind of looking forward to the next one. I had to go find a high speed internet to download the entries. Man I hate dial up!
Here's my entry. Any advice or criticism welcome.
http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen...indcountry.mov
Thanks all.

Gordon Hoffman

I really like what looks like time lapse in your entry. The imagery is great, I can almost feel the cold, and the look of both clouds rolling and snow curling off the mountain tops is fun to watch.

Very well done.

Bruce Foreman

P.S. Looks like I'm not the only one with 300' windmills in an entry.

Gordon, wow you got some stunning landscape out there. Your opening scene was very nice done. I could feel the cold when the wind was blowing through the snow covered mountains.

It seem that something happend to the aspect ratio? Especially in the opening scene you can see that the moon is squized a little and you got the black border on both sides. What kind of software did you use for editing and compression?

Bruce a lot of the shots are just sped up. This area is known for its' wind but this winter has been exceptionally windy with strong winds day after day. It makes you appreaciate a day with no wind unless you own a wind farm. I haven't even bothered to take out my old XL1 with the long lense. It is beautiful country.
Thanks.
Gordon Hoffman

Hi Gordon.
I loved the scenes in you video, together with the relaxing music.
It was all very peaceful and good for my soul.
Nice colors and beautiful muntains with the snow blowing off.
I live in a winterland too, you know, and finally we got some snow, after months with rain and windy weather. Usually we get snow in october/november, but this winter it came just a couple of days ago.
Rather "spooky" environment these days, if you ask me.
Your video made me wish I could come over and go some cross skiing in that wonderful landscape of yours :)

The scenery is really nice.
I felt the cold wind all the way to Norway, haha.
Your video makes me want to go there someday.
Well done!

Per. This area has alot to offer a person with a camera if you can put up with the wind.
Yes there is something wrong with the aspect ratio. If you look at the clip info it says 428x240 but in bracket 357x240?? I tried it in mpeg4. The ratio was right with the moon being round but my file size was way over 50 MB and I though the quality was worse then what I had with Sorenson Video 3. I shot this on a Sony HC3 handy cam in 1080i HDV down converted in camera to 16x9 DV. Edited on Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0 and use Sorenson Video 3 that was there so not alot of options. I'm new to this compressing for the web so any suggestions whats going on?
Thanks.
Gordon Hoffman

Geir this year we are a little above average for snow in the mountains but it has been fairly mild. Have been down near minus 30 C this winter but right now it's plus 7 C just before 8 am. Man am I a slow typer. The Chinook Winds as they are called ar well known for raising the temperature. This area has a lot of winter recreation in down hill and cross country skiing and snowmobiling.
We have had some years like you are having to.
Thanks.
Gordon Hoffman

[QUOTE=Trond Saetre]
I felt the cold wind all the way to Norway, haha.
QUOTE]
Trond. The way the wind has blown this year I can believe it. :-)
Thanks.
Gordon Hoffman

One good thing came out of the strong wind you have.
You got an awesome video. I really like it.

We have also had some strong wind here lately, and with it came tons of rain.
Think we set a new record with around 90 days in a row with rain.
Not the best combination when using a video camera.


Trond

I really liked the video sequences. And the wind in the background made you feel you were there. Did you create the time lapse effects in camera, or in the editing? I really enjoyed the video.

Ruth

Hello Gordon:

For some reason I had a %^*& of a time downloading your video, man I'm glad I stayed with it, wonderful work the wind audio truly worked putting the viewer in the scene. Ain't Canada Puuurdy....AH

Brian

Beautiful footage Gordon! I love the way you put this video together. Very nice job in post!

One of the things that I really appreciated in this film, was that you made the music blend seamlessly with the video! It really helped with the mood.

Great job, keep up the good work, and hope to see more from you soon!

I'm rooting for you!
~Gabriel

I'm not familiar with Adobe Premiere, so I don't have any solution to you right now.
I will suggest that you go back and look into Premiere once more. If you have a choice of Sorenson 3, use that, try to reduce the bitrate, instead of adjusting the aspect ratio. Reducing bitrate will reduce your filesize.

I will check with some who have Premiere and try to find a solution for you. Hopefully we have solved this before the next challenge!

Best;

Ruth all the effects where done in post. I just lock the camera down on a tripod and let it roll. The opening shot of the moon setting ran for almost 20 minutes in real time.

Gordon Hoffman

Per I suspect Sorenson video 3 (which I assume is a version of Sorenson 3) or how Premiere handles it has a problem (Now that's a brillant conclusion). My lap top is the only machine that has that codec so it may have come from upgrading quicktime. I'll have to play around more to see if I can figure it out. That or invest in better software for compressing files.
Thanks.

Gordon Hoffman

Gordon:

Great job. Everything fit together so smoothly, that I did not even notice the slightly squished moon. A great work of art.

Randy

Gordon,
I use Premiere Pro 2, and I did a short test today to see if I could replicate your problem.

I encoded as Quicktime and chose Sorenson Video 3,
and I got about the same problem as you did.

My original video was DV 16:9, and the exported .mov appeared as regular 4:3 when viewing in the quicktime player.

I will try to work more on it this weekend to see if I find a solution.

Excellent Trond! I'm also working on this, hopefully united we can solve this.
Gordon, the Norwegians resque-team are here to help you out :-)

Trond and Per
Thanks guys. I've been working on this and I think I figured it out. I was using export-movie-sorenson video 3. If I go export-adobe media encoder-sorenson video 3 it seems to work right.
Thanks again.

Gordon Hoffman

Sounds very good, Gordon.
Glad you found out of it.


Trond

Gordon: And I thought it was cold in California this year. I could feel that wind blowing through me. Nice job. Loved the moonset timelaps to.

Opening shots were superb and closing with the windswept snow peaks provided fine contrast and a good finish.

Hi Gordon!
 

This was great. Do you happen to live along the Rocky Mountains? Much of it reminded me of those.

I noticed 2 shots that had airplane chem-trails (not contrails) in them. Were you making any sort of comment there? Am curious?

Loved that closing shot...almost a dry ice brew feel. Very cool!

Best wishes~
Bradley

Sorry all I've been a little tardy on replies!

Brian "Ain't Canada Puuurdy....AH"
And I'm a lucky son of a gun with a million dollar view out my kitchen window. I'm glad you stuck with it. Thanks and take care.

Gabriel
I sure hope to have time for the next one as this was fun. Thanks

Randall
Thanks for your feed back. It good to hear that you like how it flowed.

Chris
I believe it was cold in California! A little luck helps in nature stuff. The moon set was done from my yard. Thanks.

Brendan
Some times things turn out better than you think they will. Thanks and much appreciated.

Bradley
Yes I live on the east side of the Rockies.

"I noticed 2 shots that had airplane chem-trails (not contrails) in them. Were you making any sort of comment there? Am curious?"
Not really. I was running out of shots to use.:-)

I've been wanting to get the shot of the clouds pouring over the divide for a long time. Seems like I never have a camera along when it happens. This time I was to late in the day and looking right into the sun. I waited until the sun set behind and shot what I could get.
Thanks.

Gordon Hoffman

Thanks Gordon. I live along the Rockies too. More specifically, along the Eastern side of the Wind River Mountain Range. I thought those mountains had a familiar feel. :)

Running out of shots...lol...I think we all know that feeling.

I really liked your shot of the clouds pouring over the divide. Great job on capturing that. It was quite beautiful.

Best wishes~
Bradley