Hi Mat,

Unfortunately, I won't be able to capture the big red kangaroos, as they live further north in the interior outback regions. I will be filming the many Grey kangaroos that we get down south.

I hadn't been very excited at all about this theme however, your comments regarding kangaroos have got me fired up a bit - thanks.

Hope all is going well with your entry.

I've always loved to photograph wildlife (my first photography book was all about wildlife photography and what to put in your kit, how to get rid of your scent, where to look, etc...published in the 1980s). That was back in high-school days, when I could pursue hobbies. Through my working life, I lost track of that ambition (when I found out it didn't pay very well, that didn't help).

I have to thank this contest for re-sparking my interest in filming wildlife - though now I'm doing it with video instead of still film cameras. I am quickly relearning and recalling things I had studied before. New things too! Even though I haven't turned in anything I'd consider from "the wild", I am on the path to doing so soon.

But one thing that is really awesome about this contest. It has led me to discover things in the area I live that I didn't know about. I've been in Las Vegas almost 5 (long) years now. In all that time, I didn't know there was any wildlife other than the ducks at Sunset Park and the weekend party people. However, because of these contests, I have found 2 wildlife preserves - one only about 2 miles from my house, the other one in the middle of town!

I'm planning to visit both this weekend and am currently waiting on one of them to give me after/before hours permission to visit so that i can film some nocturnal Mammals ;-)

Anyway...that was a long post about not much I guess. Thanks for reading.

David : Yeah I love the big Reds, so much character to them but greys are very interesting as well. Have you ever seen 'Faces in the mob' ? Great film that follows the greys for a year. For me Roo's are just such a unique animals in so many ways I find them captivating.

So get fired up !.....you managed a roo starter in your last film....time for the main course fella :-) !


Lisa : Nocurnal will bring something new to uwol........tough stuff....best of luck !

There's supposed to be a fjord and some land out there.
Sigh....

Hi Mat,

I believe I have seen "Faces in the Mob" - which, if it was the same documentary - was absolutely fantastic footage!

Thanks for your kind words on my last entry (given your standards, this does mean a lot). Now you have really got me excited about getting into this challenge!

I've decided to take a six hour drive to a very special place - where the scenery is absolutely beautiful and the kangaroos bountiful and in their natural environment (rather than the local golf course). Some very early mornings coming up this weekend...

Have been rather busy in the past. My mammals at the mountains have to wait until next weekend. It's rain/snow and fog up there now, the forecast isn't any better for this weekend!
Interesting to hear about the plans from the others, I think we are going to view quite amazing entries this round!!?

Good luck and happy shooting to everyone!

Managed to get out and video a few animals,got some elephant,buffalo and some buck on video.Decided however that these guys were a whole lot more fun and are only found in parts of Namibia,Botswana,and many parts of South Africa.Right now they are the stars in my next UWOL blockbuster.Dont be mistaken and think that this is Timon from the Lion King,they all just happen to look the same

Uh oh. I was think of shooting that particular mammal myself. I'll switch to something else.

With any luck you will see a deer that stands on it's hind legs to eat higher off of the tree. Very odd looking.

Managed to get out and video a few animals,got some elephant,buffalo and some buck on video.Decided however that these guys were a whole lot more fun and are only found in parts of Namibia,Botswana,and many parts of South Africa.

You have so many exotic animals in your part of the world.
I'm looking forward to see your video.

Finally got all my footage and generally pleased with the results - although, the weather wasn't the best for those lovely backlight shots, etc. Anyway, I have something that I am quiet happy with.
I have attached a clip to give you some idea where I am heading.
Hope you are all progressing well.

that's fantastic. bring on the roos and polar bears and meerkats. this is going to be a most entertaining round of films....this is gonna be so much fun to watch.

Nice pics from your films John and David.
Don't know about you all, but I feel definitively that nr5 round of uwol is the most exciting one. Maybe because there will be many different animals to watch from around the world. Polar bears, roos, merkat, etc...
Also because, for me, the ultimate challenge is to catch wild animals on tape.

On the other hand, as for now, I still twine my thumbs patiently waiting for the rain to go someplace else.

The picture shows the place/little island where I'm heading to catch my last shots for uwol5, if only the rain will stop.

David - This is fantastic. I love the way roos use thier tails as props while sparing. This is going to be fantastic....I'm stoked someone has brought roo's to uwol....if only it could have been me, unfortunately the distance is just a touch excessive!!

Awesome looking stuff guys!

Hm... Speaking of Roo's, who here on DVinfo was talking about 'Roo-Bars'? I need to go find that thread now. lol.

Still have not even touched my camera.
~Gabriel

Geir you can send the rain my way. Need some before they will let people back into the mountains.

Gordon Hoffman

Good Morning:

That's it the reasonably good weather this weekend allowed me the opportunity to grab the last of the footage I was hoping for. Now if I can get the story that's running around in my head out the other end of my editor I'll be a happy camper.

Tonight with fingers crossed I'll start the edit process......with any luck I should be offering up five arctic animals.

All the best and good luck to all....man am I ever looking forward to seeing the entries.

Brian

My first plan for this challenge fell through. Went out over the weekend but only managed to get some footage of some insects. Not a mammal to be seen. Never heard back about permission to film after-hours at the local preserve, most likely they'll say 'yes' on the 24th...thats how things tend to work out. hahaha.

Plan B is in the works for this weekend as I'll be camping in central California. I haven't been to that area since I was a kid, but back then it was teaming with wildlife. If things haven't been too destroyed, I think I'll be able to find something.

If that doesn't work out - I still have a Plan C to fall back on. Hoping it doesn't come to that though.

My first plan for this challenge fell through. Went out over the weekend but only managed to get some footage of some insects. Not a mammal to be seen. Never heard back about permission to film after-hours at the local preserve, most likely they'll say 'yes' on the 24th...thats how things tend to work out. hahaha.

Plan B is in the works for this weekend as I'll be camping in central California. I haven't been to that area since I was a kid, but back then it was teaming with wildlife. If things haven't been too destroyed, I think I'll be able to find something.

If that doesn't work out - I still have a Plan C to fall back on. Hoping it doesn't come to that though.

Hey Lisa:

What part of central California ?

The talent I needed didn't let me down. Had to reschedule a couple of times but yesterday at 5PM we got started.

It's a horse story, Cinco is an older quarter horse that has been used as a "lesson" horse, one people learn to ride on. So when Mike got him he was so used to being ridden only in an indoor arena kind of place, he would "freak out" when someone attempted to ride him out on a trail or in a pasture.

Mike has worked with him and now the two enjoy getting out and Cinco loves to "move out".

The stable owner says Mike is the first person he has ever seen Cinco develop a close relationship with.

Our film (Mike is an old friend from active duty times) will show this and portray one incident that actually happened.

I've got the first edit done but there is some "smoothing" to do and transitions that need work.

Hey Lisa:

What part of central California ?

Out near Lake Isabella, an area called Cedar Creek up in the mountains.

Today I got some shots for my main plan.
My sister is getting a baby dog in a few weeks, and we went to see it today.
I'll tell you one thing. It's very hard to film a bunch of puppys running all over the place. Had to go all hand held (of course).
Hopefully I can use some of it. If not, it's back to the backup again.


Gordon:
I'll do my very best to send some rain your way. We got way too much of it lately. :)

As Elvis sing in one of his songs: "It's now or never......!!"

Well I put my cards on the weekend Sept 15. - 16. to go to the mountains and get some footage for the challenge.
Geir Inge emailed me a interesting link for weather forcast, which I have been looking into for some days and it's seems pretty accurate!
http://www.accuweather.com/world-forecast-15day.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&locCode=EUR|NO|NO010|HJERKINN&metric=1

Cross my fingers now! If not... ...plan B... ...hmm... let me see....

You’re right Per Johan it is now or never, it’s the best bit of weather we’ve had in the southeast UK since April /May and my car is still in the workshop.

Well I woke up at 7 am this morning and the sun was shining!!!
I couldn't believe my eyes, after weeks with rain, finally the weather's on my side.
I ran to the bath to wash my face and get dressed for some real nice shooting. Back in the kitchen again I looked out through my window :(
The sky was in total change, cloudy and the rain was pouring down - again.
Well, I just have to be patient I guess and maybe it'll change on sunday, at least the weather forecast looks promissing.
To get to my little island and film the rest of my uwol5, the sea must be calm and no rain. You can only disembark this island when the sea is really calm, as there is no dock. Just big waves/sweell from the North Sea, hmmm.
If you all think I'm moaning at this time, Yes I am :)

PS to Per Johan.
If I only had the time to make a trip to our eastern part, I would have considered "Langedrag".

I'll do my very best to send some rain your way. We got way too much of it lately. :)

Thanks I hope you succeed.

Gordon Hoffman

Hi Gordon.
Hope you're doing fine and your work on uwol5 is in schedule.
You want some rain?
Well, take a look at the weather forecast for my home town.
Larsnes weather (http://www.accuweather.com/world-forecast-15day.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&locCode=EUR|NO|NO007|LARSNES&metric=1)
It's been like this for many weeks now so you're welcome, take all of it :)

There's been just a few glims of the sun now and then letting me film some cutaways. I've also been together with some local hunters (the hunting deer season opened 10.sept) and got lucky shooting a small clip of a deer. Also filmed a squirrel in a tree and a heron in my garden :) So I have to make a twist to my original plan if I'm to come up with a documentary of my mammal.

All the best.
Geir Inge

Wow! Looks like you better be ready to shoot on the 18th! :)

For UWOL#3 I had three shots up until the last day pretty much. A duck, a flower and a mushroom. That last day was a whirlwind of shooting. So hang in there!

I just found out my next free day might not be until the week of Thanksgiving now. Might have to sit UWOL#6 out as well. :(

Yes, I'm not loosing my faith.
Always have a backup plan :)
The worst part is that I'm not able to go to a island where my mammal live almost as wild :(
Sad to hear that you'll miss uwol6 too, I really enjoy your films.

Geir Inge

Well Sony's had my A1U for three weeks now and it's not fixed yet.

Guess I'll dust off my TRV103. I think I still have some Hi8 tapes somewhere. I may be a no show this time, but who knows?

Hope everyone else gets there shots. Watching them is the best learning experience I know.

Man, I thought I'd be in the shark tank for this one. Then, out of the blue, I am gifted with a HUGE mammal surprise (gig) to film on Sunday!!! OH MAN< I won't be able to sleep, this is gonna be GOOOD! Wish I could give it away, but you all will have to wait until it's cut.

Sounds like you have something interesting coming up, Marco.
I'm looking forward to see it.

My project will be a "last minute shot".
The plan is to get most of the shots next weekend.
So far I have only got parts of what I need.

Geir Inge,
Do you still survive all the rain we got lately?
Almost as if we should include a dry suit as standard video equipment these days.

Hi Trond.
Well, can't do much about the weather, rather than talk about it :)
I've never seen so much rain since I was born, as the past weeks.
Today it is some rainclouds, with a few blue spots on the sky.
The rain stops for 5 - 10 min and then it's pouring down again and it's windy.
After all this rain I just have to put some of it in my uwol film, or else it would have been a waste of moaning :)
I've decided to stick to my original plan but with some changes. I don't think this will be my best uwol film, but it's the one I've put most effort to in research, planning, writing manuscript and translating it to English. This part have been fun though, and a challenge itself. There's been a Heron in my garden for some days now, and I think I will use a clip of the bird but she's not the star in my film. I had one day with sunny weather, and then I managed to film a squirrel, so I'll put it in my film as well.
How are you doing?
If you live in Bergen maybe you should visit Nordnes?
Some great water splashing mammals there :)
If it wasn't that far I would go to Langedrag and film some wolf and polar fox.
I mentioned it to Per Johan if Dovre should turn out wrong because of the weather. I'm looking forward to see all the entries in this round.

All the best.
Geir Inge

How are you doing?
If you live in Bergen maybe you should visit Nordnes?
Some great water splashing mammals there :)


I live in Haugesund these days, but I'm often back home in Bergen.
But yeah, I know what you mean about the aquarium in Bergen.
I got one sunny day so far during this challenge.
The challenge for me this round is to make a video I basically can't make a script for, or to make any specific plans about what will happen.
Have to catch the good moments as they show up. Hard to tell baby dogs how to behave. (or even to stay in one location long enough to catch them on tape)

Yes, this round will be a great one.
Seems like we will have video about everything from polar bears to not so exotic animals. I can't wait to see all the videos.


Have a nice and productive weekend everyone!!

Hi Geir Inge
Thanks all is well. Yes I would say you're going to have to go right down to the wire on this one by looking at the weather. Hope things will work out for you.
We did get a bit of rain last week and they dropped some restrictions. Got out three days last week. Things started to get interesting Friday evening but I have to work this weekend so I suspect I'm missing out on some good footage. I know I'll hear about it as a number of photographer friends will be there.
Thanks and best of luck.

Gordon Hoffman

Well, well, back from a weekend in the mountains. We are writing middle of September but believe it or not it's almost full winter up there now. Are we talking about a climate change or....!!!???

Last year about the same time I was at the same place. Back then I was laying on a carpet sunbathing in my underwear (no... you ain't got any photos...!)

Luckily I managed to get enough footage to be able to make up my entry. When I woke up today it was snowing heavily, almost 20 cm snow cover on the ground.
Left photo below show a muskox male passing by in a very short distance early in the morning Saturday 15. of September 2007.
Right photo is taken 6 hours later (believe it or not!), almost at the same place showing the beautiful colors in the mountains right now

Great to hear from you Gordon and Per Johan and I'm longing to see your films :)

My film is almost done, but as I've told before, with a little change from original plans.
I was lucky and get to join a local deer hunter some days ago (the deer hunting season started 10. sept), but the clip I got of the deer is a bit dark. I'm joining the hunter again tomorrow or tuesday to see if I can get a better close up of the deer. Also I had to use my cheap Sigma 300mm lense, and the quality wasn't good. I had to tune up the gain and it all get "snowy". This is the one clip I need to finish my film.

Just one week left to deadline guys and gals :)

To Meryem: uploading instructions?

I wish you all - the best.

Geir Inge

Well, done editing and was ready to upload yesterday until I noticed what compression was doing to 2 scenes.

I had just a few hours with Mike and Cinco, once we got to shooting the "incident" sequence we were faced with rapidly changing light due to approaching sunset (with the sun ducking in and out of the edge of a cloud.

I adjusted lighting and white balance on both scenes in post and it looks good in AVI format and on the DVD's burned from the project.

But compression did some weird things with the subtle lighting changes and I got a change to blueish color, then magenta, then a tinge of green. Like a slow strobing effect.

So I've taken most all adjustments out of both scenes, allowing them to go a tad dark which works with the end of the sequence anyway. But sometimes this compression drives me NUTS.

If the render underway works well enough, I'll be uploading shortly.

Edited to Add: Render went fine and upload is underway, about halfway through.

Tip on compression: I'm compressing with QT 7 Pro (Would love Sorenson Squeeze but can't afford it for now). I render out to an AVI in Pinnacle Studio and open that with QT. (Looks great in Windows Media Player but AWFUL in QT)

I select Sorenson 3 video in QT, set the size to 428x240, pick 30fps and set keyframe for every 5 frames (just picked that out of my head today), and then start playing with the quality slider. This morning's render was done at 41 on the slider and the file came out at 48MB. But the keyframe every 5 instead of automatic gave me the best compressed render I've seen come out of QT yet.

Wow Per I love that second image....the first too but that second one has such great colours and lovely contrast. Looking forward to the Musk Ox its been too long since the last episode ;-) !

well shucks, plan A fell through. was out all weekend in the forest, but didnt see even one non-human mammal. too bad the theme wasn't insects though - there were lots of great butterflies, dragonflies, and "ladybugs" where i was.

will have to wait until saturday to implement plan B. still have to come up with a decent story, but I know I'll be able to get footage at least.

Hope you guys are having better luck at it. I wish i had more free time.

Right photo is taken 6 hours later (believe it or not!), almost at the same place showing the beautiful colors in the mountains right now

Very nice photos, Per Johan!
Reminds me that I have to bring both my shorts and winter clothes when going to Hardangervidden (another mountain plateu in Norway, a bit south of where Per Johan's musk oxes live) this weekend.

I'm looking forward to see your next musk ox film.


Lisa,
Hope your plan B works out.
Saturday will still be "a long time" before deadline. :)

Very nice photos, Per Johan!
Reminds me that I have to bring both my shorts and winter clothes when going to Hardangervidden (another mountain plateu in Norway, a bit south of where Per Johan's musk oxes live) this weekend.

I'm looking forward to see your next musk ox film.

Thanks Trond, the weather is changing dramatically rapid in the mountains this time of year. But I think you can leave your shorts at home ;-)

Good luck with your entry Trond!

Good morning,

Like several of you this time of year is totally socked in for me. I have also been having to commute to work for the first time in my life which takes a huge chunk out of my day as well, uggg.
I carried my camera and did some shooting on the way home a couple times. I had one afternoon where i had a couple free hours and i went out and got a little bit of footage. When i got home I had one hour to put it all together.
One of my bits of footage is a very rare bit of footage. I will tell the story of getting it after it has been viewed. A little hint, it shows some real speed even though it has been slowed down dramaticly.

Wishing i had spent more time on this one !!!!!

That was my first train of thought. Spent three weeks getting all the necessary permissions from doctors, hospitals, mothers to be, and so on down the line. Finally had evething set....ran off to pack up my gear and wait for a phone call; and no batteries for my backup cam. Left all the A gear in Montana where I had just begun a hunting series.

Cancel plan A and its off to the tank.

But wait after reading over and over Kevins post about passion, and a little help from coffee (will explain later) a new plan was hatched. Grabbed a long extension cord and the AC adapter and I was back in business.

Thanks Kevin for reminding us what this is really all about.

Jim

Glad I was able to give you that extra push!

If I can get something done late on Sunday, it's gonna be down and dirty but it'll have passion.

Passionate down and dirty.....oooooo errrrrrr! I think your getting your genre's confused now Mr Railsbach ;-)

some good news!

i snagged my mammals today! not my most brilliant effort, but hey they're mammals....it's hard to get good footy of mammals when you're dragging a child and a dog along....i'm going to have to knock out most of the audio which consists of me saying things like, "no no stay back. i said NO! ok be quiet you guys. violet, i said SIT!" considering the circumstances, i managed to get one or two decent shots...the dog insisted on a cameo.

i woulda left the dog at home, but since i had to bring my daughter anyway, why not make it a real Challenge!! and drag the whole gang along to spook the critters....actually props to them both, they were fairly well-behaved.

it will be short but what is most exciting to me, personally, is that this will be my first footage shot for the Challenge--everything else i have posted was shot in the Challenge time frame but for some other project. i'm always happy when i can get something tossed together. who knew that running it would leave so little time to play?