Adventure! Tough topic, Meryem. We have a serial killer on the loose down here, and plenty of crooked politicians, but a legal adventure is hard to come by with three weeks' notice. So I had to borrow someone else's adventure and shoot some video to fit it.

William Bartram was an early American naturalist. In 1765 he made a trip through the Carolinas, south to Florida, then west into the lands of the Cherokee and Creek Indians. He made observations of the animals he saw and collected plant specimens. From one of these, a small tree he named Franklinia (after Benjamin Franklin), he collected seeds for his garden in Philadelphia. A lucky thing, because it was never again found in the wild.
While in Florida, Bartram encountered alligators. In his description of these monstrous beasts we see a world long taken from us, where shoals of fish are so thick, that a river is solid with them. Where the alligators feeding on these fish are packed so tightly that one might walk across the river on their heads. (He didn't try that!). He did, however, have to beat them away from his canoe with a club, and dispatch one that walked into his camp with a musket ball.
For the purpose of this project, I had to edit Bartram's text somewhat, but his description of the courtship rituals of the bull alligator is so accurate, that I had no trouble in getting video to fit. The bellowing season in South Florida begins in February.
One thing that Bartram could not have understood was that the droplets of water dancing over the back of a bellowing alligator are caused by ultra-low frequency sound waves that we can't hear. I guess this is similar to the sound used by elephants to communicate over long distances.

Although Bartram's 15 foot (5 meters) long monsters have mostly been made into handbags, gators are still plentiful here, and ten-footers are not unusual. We have crocodiles, too, which, in the scary looks department, put alligators to shame. But that will have to be another adventure. Hope you all enjoy this one.
I have put this video on Stage 6, if you want to see it at higher resolution.
Here is the link:
http://www.stage6.com/user/stevesiegel/video/2252651/

That's it. I'm screwed...


Nice job Steve. I thought about narration but my voice scares me. Love the misty sun shot against the trees.

That's it. I'm screwed...

You and me both Eric....LOL!

Very nice work Steve....I'm impressed.

I've got gators less than a mile away..... and none on film mating with supersonic dancing droplets. =D Guess it's too late now, though. ;)

Can't wait to see 'em! I'm an hour away from a highschool named Bartram Trail, btw. I immediately took note of your entry's name. ;)

C

Wow great work Steve, something about it reminded me of a Ken Burns doc. Well minus the still shots that is. Reading from the book really helped bring the story together!

I was going to narrate the beginning of mine but decided against it, since I don't have a decent mic right now.

I live near a lake with a gator. But just the one as far as I know and he doesn't come to our side that often - so no good shots of him yet.

Very well done. I think that the theme this time really required a narration to make it an "adventure".

Steven, your visuals are absolutely stunning, and I like the way you introduced the whole thing. The audio on location worked very well and really complemented the visual elements. Editing was smooth and continuity flowed well.

A couple of suggestions on the sound. The music was very well chosen and complemented your scenes and editing very well (Kevin has some neat stuff). In my opinion the music level needed to be pulled down some where narration was present so that the music did not dominate and overpower the narration. And the narration level could have been boosted just a bit.

Balance between music and voiceover does get tricky, that track from Kevin, while somewhat soft, does want to dominate a bit.

I really enjoyed watching your submission. You hit the theme on the head, showed a great cinematic approach, and taught us all something to boot. Wow.

Steve, lovely piece! Those aligators are HUGE!! How far away (or near) is it possible to be from them?
Your opening scene of the river was nice, like watching an old movie, did you use any particular filter or setting there?
I minor out of focus at 1:36, the fight at 1:52 was spectacular, so was the bubbles at 2:42
Very nice and interesting to watch, keep up your good work.

Hi Per Johan,
Thanks for the encouragement. I hate to ruin the mystique, but it is possible to get within a few feet of these guys in relative safety. They tend to be pretty sluggish when on solid ground. I had to jump over one once because it was lying in the middle of the path. (That was 40 years ago when I was a bit more agile).
As far as the color, I didn't use any filters, but Adobe Premiere Pro has an extensive set of color manipulation tools that let you intensify certain wavelengths (like yellow) without "yellowing up" the whole image.

great topic, very compelling footage, and i liked the approach--i always enjoy a bit of natural history. you always have a unique way of approaching my silly theme ideas....

the gators may be sluggish to you but i would not want to meet up with one of these babies in a dark alley. they give me the willies...

Steven,

What a fantastic short!!! Not much I can say other than WOW.

I rreally loved the Audio of the gator!! What mic are you using??

Great Job!!

Dale,
Thanks for the thumbs up. I'm just using the mic that comes with the
Canon XL-2. It's a really good mic and I have a wind damper on it. I did cheat a bit in post, however, by boosting the bass and adding just the slightest bit of reverb.

Steve,

Awesome film. The set up was simple but so very effective. It was a perfect way to take us back and experience the adventure as he must have so many years ago.

Loved how the birds were almost evenly spaced as they flew away from the camera in the sunrise shot. :) I could almost see you off camera directing the birds when to fly into camera view. :)

Great gator footage! The vibrating water shot was icing on the cake.

Great work!!

A good story in a good film. Beautiful shots on the gators… this could be a winner.
A solid film Steve.

Markus

Hi Steve

Her you make one of the top entery,I realy love this film.
From my view her is allot to learn for os ader.


Great-film!!


VJV.

______________

Hey Steve.

Well what a great film. I think this was lovely approach to the topic, it was on topic but creatively so and while it was nicely narrative it was a wildlife production. Really nicely staged and you made such simple shots work very well in that intro which added to things even more. Your gator footage lacked something for me though, it needed more detail and more variation in the feel of the shots. That said what you have is solid I just think you obviously had the focal range to get more out of it.

Great piece, top notch, you've placed for me !

Very well done.

Steve!

Creative take, excellent footage, stunning to think that your footage today could fit the descriptive text from centuries ago (with only minor adjustments). This is one of the best, so well done.

Cat

Hi Steve,

Those animals are amazing. I'm impressed (and surpriced) that you can get as close to them as you described. I like the way you filmed the gator.
Great story too.
Well done! Keep up the good work.

Hi Steve,

Congrats on a very nice entry - which you set up (and ended) beautifully with the browse through the book on Bartram's experiences. This worked really well.

Establishing shots were very nice and you did get some nice shots of the alligators, although I would have liked to have seen some wider shots at times. That shot of the water bubbling was amazing - given your explanation of how it is caused and also the audio of the bull gator was very spine tingling.

A really nice overall feel to this entry, which I enjoyed very much.

Well done Steve.

Steve, that was really good. The story, the VO, location audio and choice of shots were all spot on. You lead nicely up to the "dancing water" with a shot that you did a double take on, and then revealed with a much closer shot - I like the way you did that, makes you as a viewer hungry for more. I saw 20 foot salties in the north of Oz, but they were never doing that!!! Great film!

Great video.good editing,Always an adventure when you film something that could eat you...This video had the "wow " factor

Hi Steve.
What a great entry and exciting adventure you give us.
Not much to say only that ending question from your wife? It somehow sound very familiar :)
You have a storyline and you show us some great action scenes of Btarams Gators. Very clever done and I wish you good luck in uwol.

All the best
Geir Inge

Steve this is so neat. You have assembled you movie well - a simple story that is interesting informative and very creative in approach. Your video is very watchable and easy to follow. Good narration. You did a brilliant job of matching up the footage of the alligators to Bartram’s account. What a super movie.

Steve, very well done. An interesting concept that I would never have thought of. I have been to the great swamp and seen the gaters, but I never got to see them fighting. Now, did you write that to? Excellant use of lighting in the attic. Narration was crisp and clear with no hum or other white noise. Great job. Bob

Thanks for the comment, Bob. No, I didn't write the text. It really was from William Bartram (with some editing to fit, but still his thoughts). I'm glad you enjoyed the attic lighting. I worked really hard to get it right. It was 4 PM sunlight through a dirty window. I arranged the items in the trunk to juxtapose deep shadow and warm colors and when the sun was just right, bingo.
In case you are interested, I use a program called GoldWave to get any noise out of audio, and modulate the sound as needed. I don't remember, but it was either free, or very cheap and is wonderful. As an example, last spring I was able to take a very faint song from a Bicknell's Thrush in one of our local parks, remove wind noise, boat motors and electrical hum, and boost the song enough for the local experts to identify it as definitely the rare Bicknell's, not the commoner Gray-cheeked Thrush. It was a county record. All with Goldwave.

Hi Steve,
Wow, what a ripper! I loved the way you told the story of anothers adventures & had me totally immersed in the story. Your opening & closing shots tied it all up perfectly.

Bryce