Rick: your orchid was stunning.
Steven: now I understand why you need a mother in the judge :)
How is everybody doing for uwol#3 ?

I'm almost done with my uwol#3 and this time I'm going "puffin".

Now that's got cute and WOW! factor all rolled into one. Can't wait to see this entry.

Rick

I can't wait to see your puffins. Can you send a few over here - we've only seen five this year.

I have never seen one of those ("puffin?") before... I can't wait to see it in action. :-)

I still have yet to have any luck with getting something on video....

~Gabriel

A puffin piece 'fantastic' ! i can't wait to see this. I am going out myself in the next month to shoot puffins and this will be a great starter to get me going :)


Well I've got my hands full trying to finish Uc3 ....still only 50% edited ....hmmm this is going to be tight I think !

I think people with like the subjects though ;) !

Sheesh, Gibbons, puffins, yellow lady's slippers... The only thing I have so far is a mushroom! I guess I better get out my Iowa maps and start looking for something wild! :)

It certainly sounds like a feast for the eyes....I'm looking foward to these entries waaay more than the previous ones and I loved most of those!

Kevin...you could make a mushroom look amazing, I have faith ;) !

Edit : Doohhhhh ! forget this post !

Grant: It's done, I've told some of my puffins to go to Lundy :)
Gabriel: The puffins are sea birds living most of theire lives out in the open sea and they are cute (Rick).
I thought "The wild" would be an easy theme, but I've been high and low, trying to capture something wild. Today I've been on a 4 hours mountainhike and it gave me 7 min on tape, it's all wild :)
I agree with you Mat, I'm looking forward to see everybodys entry.

Was to Trillemarka this weekend, wrote a manuscript before I left what to shoot. This was a new experience, to go to a place where I never been before with a manuscript what to film!
Well, all did going very well, managed to shoot almost everything on my list :-)

Attached a picture of the opening scene for my film "Wilderness", shoot 04:30 am on Saturday morning.

Thats a cool sounding bird Geir! thanks for the description!

*sobering* You guys all have beautiful shots! Just kidding.. Well, you do all have nice scenery, and I have nothing -- yet. :D

I still have a week at least... Maybe I'll be able to get something in.

Last time I did not even shoot until the last day before the deadline! But then I got the nice time extension due to the up-loader. - Hey Mat, is there by any-chance something wrong with the server? lol!

Happy Mothers day to the moms out there!

~Gabriel

Glad to hear you guys are getting on ok.

Had everything planned for a full day's shoot yesterday in three locations, batteries charged, tapes labelled etc. It rained, hard, pretty much all day :(

Time for the backup plan methinks !!!!!

Rob.....I know the feeling ! This rain is killing me, there is a break Wednesday by the way then on friday too :) good luck

Per : Great opener ! I'm looking forward to seeing some more of your work, I bet you've got something special in store!

Hmmm... yes, I gonna use some really interesting jib-shoots which I think gonna be very specially ;-)

Trillemarka
 

Great picture Per Johan.
As always I'm looking forward to see your work.
Jib, now that's something worth waiting for :)

I did also a manuscript for uwol#3, but I had to change it a bit "on the road". I've been on mountains, on the shore and out on a boat-trip.
The trip on the boat was the most stunning, but still the hardest challenge.
It's not easy to get steady pictures with the boat swinging on the waves.
My tripod was useless of cause, so most of my 2 hours handheld shooting I can't use for uwol#3. Never the less I think I've got enough on tape for my 3 min of the wild, but as it is I might take a last trip to Runde for more close-ups.

Care to divulge some more info on this jib shoot Per !!?? ;) come on...

Finished
 

That's that, my entry is finished and uploading as I type this. Why so early? My darn job got in that way again I have to leave town this afternoon and will be gone for the week. I don't think I'll have internet access where I'm headed but you never know. So to be on the safe side I'm sending the film now. I wish I had more time to tidy up some of the cuts etc but I'm out of time.

Good luck everyone.....Brian

PS: Snow, Snow and more Snow....sorry

B

still shooting
 

Good evening,

I finished my uwol with my gl2 and was dead pleased with it. then came compression problems, 60interlaced and 4:3. I gave up trying to get it right.

I got my xl2 back and wrote a new script. I have got some decent footage. I have several other shots to complete yet this week..
Here are a couple grabs from this week.

Some fine pictures there, Dale.
I uploaded my file yesterday, my plan was to get some more closeups, but as my job is giving me some extra tasks for our national holiday (17th may), I've got no sparetime left. Have a nice go with your xl2.

You guys are lucky to have some/most of it completed. As of now, I still have nothing to use for uwol3. Got some on tape earlier, but that idea went straight to the trash again.

Hopefully I will have time to make something the next few days.
(that also includes coming up with a new idea, haha)

Wow, you guys were already very busy and did some lovely shots...
I will meet on Friday afternoon with one of my colleagues with his wild dog to hopefully get some wild footage. ;-)

I am already looking forward to see your guy's movies.

Regards,

Oliver

Well, the sun appeared last night after work!!

And then disappeared 5 minutes after i got to my spot :(

So the backup plan went into action, and by 10.30 last night i called it a wrap :-) Time to hit the edit suite tonight!!!

I wanna say thanks for putting this idea together - I was blown away by most of the footage i captured last night, and if it hadn't been for the UWOL challange i doubt i would have even thought about doing it....

PS as I'm a bit new to this, are many of you guys putting links up to HD content afterwards as well? I'm editing HD so I guess i will push out a WMV HD copy, but i guess it will hover round the 200mb mark.

Hey Rob, blimey I'm intrigued as to what you might be shooting at that time of day in Berkshire.....hhhmmmm !

Hehe ;-) all will be revealed.

Interestingly, the spot i did get to last night was on the thames. I set up, the sun disappeared and I heard a high pitched bird call from behind me. I turned around, and 10 feet away a kingfisher had just landed on a willow branch. But, by the time i had turned the camera round, it had flown off.....

LOL....hey I know the feeling oh so well !! Still a treat though huh !

Absolutley! For me, they're up there with bee-eaters and rollers from a beauty perspective!! Again, i think thats the hook for this competition, I was walking through a meadow getting buzzed by swallows last night and thought "now wouldnt it be great to film them...." It makes you think more about whats going on around you :-)

I got a shot of a mushroom. Did I mention that already? :)

Done!
 

Did a final re-edit last night, tightened things up a bit, and it's uploading now.

The server must really be busy, total upload time for 54.2 MB will be about 55 minutes. I still don't like what the compression does to quality in converting to .mov file format, I had to use about 44% on the quality slider in the QT7 Pro settings to get below 60MB. It looks good so long as you stick with the normal small size viewing window.

I had to settle for what I got on the Ft Chadbourne cavalry and re-enactors, I had hoped to intersperse the re-enactors with some rugged cactus & mesquite terrain and rough looking riverbed stuff. But constant thunderstorm and tornado watches got in the way.

Looking forward to seeing what others have done, that's almost as much fun as getting out and doing video

Almost starting..
 

If all goes as plan, I will be getting up way to early tomorrow and start filming! :)

Last night, after drinking lots of caffeinated beverages, I stayed up till 3 'o clock in the morning coming up with an idea. I wrote down a concept script (or whatever you would like to call it), and then woke up 4 hours later to start my day. Ahh, what I life! lol!

Can't wait to see the all of the entries.
~Gabriel

Jib footage in the river
 

As promised: here is a short footage of my Jib. This shot was taken during my trip to Trillemarka and uwol-3 production.
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/UWOL/jib.mov (2.8MB)

This rig is huge and heavy with additional 10kg weight to stabilize the camcorder up front. But I'm very pleased with the footage taken with the jib.

Enjoy!

That looks like a nice rig Per. I can't wait to see some more footage from it. :)

I had some fun today. Got about 15 minutes of video.. And still not enough!

Good-luck everyone!
~Gabriel

Nice rig, Per.
I'm lookng forward to see the video you shot when using it.
Is it hard to getting used to the jib, or do you find it easy?

Per,

Nice rig, and i can already see some great uses for such a jig!! Ok another thing to add to the kit to get great shots!!!

curiously,
does the jib attach to your tripod or does it have its own independant pod???

I finished my uwol today and am compressing it as we speak. Problem is the fool things are never done!! have to let go at some point!!

wonder??
 

Well,

Thought i would share this with you all. I have been shooting with my broken tripod which was welded back together but is basicly toast!! I was looking at a libec and thinking of a vinten vision.

A few week ago I was talking to an aquaintence who did merlin research 20 years back. I told him of my fall and disaster with camera and tripod. He said he had an old tripod in the garage which they used for the merlin studies. anyway, I said dig it out and tell me what it is and i might be interested in it.
he phoned today to tell me it is a miller tripod with a fluid head. I have no idea what model, but it is bound to be better than my broken tripod!!!
It is coming down on the bus tomarrow and i am very curious to see what it is.

The hardest thing is to carry this monster out in the wild ;-) It's double the weight of the tripod and camcorder.
To use the jib is easy though you must have an external monitor to view what you are recording. I use a Canon HV10 connected via composite as a monitor.

I attache the jib to my tripod via the quick release plate. Works great!

I use a Miller Arrow HD tripod/head, can't get any better IMO :-)
Go for it Dale, if it's function properly!

It looks like Per Johan is very serious about winning this challenge... ;-)

Well, it's more about developing my own skill as a wildlifephotographer. Thanks to this community and especially the UWOL-Challenge which force me to go out in the wild ;-)

Hey Per .....What camera is attached to your jib....its not the h1 is it !!??

If we see jumping Salmon in this entry I am going to be very amazed and very jealous :) !!