Good morning/evening,

Below is a site you can get a glimpse of my entry for this round.



www.vimeo.com/917984

For some reason the title isn't shown but it is the one with the goose thumbnail.

I had a lot of fun making this one to be sure.

Hi Dale,

You are the master of the bird videos! And once more you deliver the high quality work I am expecting from you.
I really like the close ups of the bird's head at 00:45, and of the feet when the bird was walking on the ice (at 00:30).
Very good that you were able to capture the sounds of the birds fighting. May I ask how close you were able to get to them without interrupting them?

Nice closing shots too, where the 2 flowers seem to be the only thing with colors.

Well done! Keep up the good work! And thank you for sharing.

Hi Dale,
Wow nice shots as usual. If they were wild turkeys at the end of your film, then i'm dissapointed i didn't get to see them while i was in Canada recently. There were some near where i was staying, but each time i went for a look they weren't there. I guess it's still a little early in spring for there to be too many flowers like the ones you showed in the praries, but i imagine it must be incredible in a few weeks. Just one note with your music, although i liked it, i thought 3 songs were too much, i would have liked just two, transitioning from where the ducks & water ended & the shots in the praries started.
Good job!

Bryce

Nice job.

My Quicktime player indicates that your video is twice the allowed size. Did you accidentally upload the wrong one? It certainly didn't suffer from the larger frame size.

It is still so gray up there, isn't it. Makes me appreciate living in Florida. Although a lot of the people who "winter" here are heading back up north already.

Dale,

I really enjoyed watching this. Although I would have thought spring would be a long time away for you, watching the displays of the birds toward the end of your video showed that spring has arrived even in the north. That was amazing footage- how did you get that?? I also really liked the details of the webbed feet walking on ice- okay, so it isn't totally spring yet :)

Thanks for sharing this- you have a nice flow in the film, and some outstanding footage, especially of the birds. I thought the music worked very well with the film, matching up well with the action. Great job!


Ruth

Hi Dale

Yes a nice entery again,you make a butiful film her.I must ask about
the bird at the end some grouse or? Realy facinating bird ,whid the
bilding in far bacround.


Nice Entery Dale.


VJV:

__________________

Dale,

My ducks were warmer than your ducks!

I loved the shots of the goose's feet walking across the nice. Panning when zoomed in this far is so tricky, but you've managed it very well.

The best bit for me was the birds at the end showing off what I presume are mating displays - the sound was great of that, and the way it was framed with either the camera really low or the birds on higher ground to put us at their eye level worked really well.

Really nice work.

Good Afternoon,

Here are a few answers to some of the questions:

Spring is always turbulent here. April 3 I shot the establishing shot, old wives lake, 1.6 trillion pounds of ice to thaw.

The geese and ducks are not domestic, I shot these with a 100/400mm canon lens stretched out most of the way.

The fighting birds are the provinvial bird, native Sharp Tailed Grouse. I set a blind up the afternoon before in 50 km/h4 winds, set out my microphone stand where I knew I could get better audio with my shotogun mic plugged into a wireless transmitter. The wind was so bad I had to shut off the third audio channel and go with the standard senheiser mic.

The flower is a native crocus. It is the first to bloom in the northern prairies, usually in may. Dancing/fighting grouse and the crocus are the first two signs that spring has sprung.

I set my blind so that i was between 30 and 50 yards from the birds lek. In this case I used the standard 20x lens most of the time. For the ones further out I used the 100/400 and It was set at about 250, equivalent to 1900mm 35 mm lens.

Music was an issue to me, it was my first effort with smartsound. I was not fully pleased but i could not find exactly what i wanted for the end and I waited way to long to compose, play one and record it myself.

Biggest dissappointment: at 60 mbt on the computer the establishing shot does not look like it did in the original footage.

I was going to voice over but it was suggested to me by outside critiques that they felt the voice over would detract from an obvious story.

Do you think it needs a voice over??

I just don't know how you can get those shots of the fighting birds....and yes, I read your explaination....a patient man, I guess....

Very nice close ups.....I can't even get my dog to sit still for that. :)

I like the shot of the crocus amoung all the brown.....cool!

Bob T.

Hi Dale,

I'm going to have to think of a better way to get close in to get those kind of bird shots. I'm using my Sony VX2100 and they would always fly away before I could get the camera setup. Great shots on your part.

Take a look at my website if you are looking for free music. My library is small at the moment, but I intend to fill it up with share music of my own creation. No copy rights. Maybe there is something there that you like.

www.blindchildproductions.com

Oliver Pahlow

Dale, I am taking both you and Bruce out to the woodshed, and I am going to make you both re-compress your files to 428 x 240...100 times each.

No more cheating the standards, boys!

Great bird shots though. It looks as if you had a very interesting time shooting this....

Hi Dale:

I think this is your best yet. And the music! Thank you for this piece, and the wide open spaces you bring to us each contest.

Cat

Dale, nice job. The fighter birds are especially great. Looks like they are dead serious..... know what was meant about voice over. I had one on mine, but pulled it...

Hi Dale,

You used quite a variety of visuals to portray the transformation of season taking place. In the shot of the goose walking on ice I kept thinking a bird voice saying "Where is that warm sand, anyway?". Yeah they're used to it, good shot.

The colorful ducks were magnificent and all the shots that followed helped tell the story.

I understand the frustration with the music. SonicFire Pro and SmartSound music are worth sticking with, though. Being able to purchase and download single tracks using the Maestro is a really handy function. That's how I got the music for mine this time.

I enjoyed your entry.

Meryem,


It ain't intentional!!!!

I cut two, one vimeo and one for uwol!!!

the one was 57 and the other over 100, somehow I must have sent the wrong one!!!!


sorry, sorry sorry!!!


da da dale

Dale, really nice birds shots from 1:45, good exposure and sound. It is always welcome with some close ups…
Nice job.

Hi Dale,
Great bright closeups on Canada Geese and Mallards. wasn't quite so sure about the focus drop on .50 - just seemed to hang around a little too long for me. Also try playing around with cutting away from long zooms before it reaches an abrupt halt, sometimes this can preserve the visual continuity a little better. Careful on 1.45, during the transition another frame has crept in, these are a real pain ;-) Now I have nit-picked.... I loved the grouse footage - beautiful in the early spring light, with an amazing soft backdrop of rolling hills - action and sound captured really well to round the film up nicely. You must be proud with that stuff ;-)

Hi Dale.

I liked the winter/spring transformation and with it the extra life in your water fowl...nice change in pace and action. I think you dwelled on some shots for too long and could do with some more snappy cutting. I loved the the tones/colour in the grouse? shots...very nice. You were oversize on this challenge Dale....naughty!!

Nice piece
Mat

The winter/spring transformation is so obvious in this video,so bonus points for that.The bird life you capture is always spectacular...Good video as always Dale.

Hi Dale.

As always you deliver a great film, even if your format/size is a bit larger then permitted :)
You have some great shots of those birds fighting at the end.
Very similar to our Black Grouse, when they fight just around this time of year.

All the best to you Dale.
Geir Inge

Hi Dale - apologies for taking so long to do my feedback comment

A very nice video you have put together here. I think this is your best to date especially in terms of picture quality and content.

You asked if you should have done a VO. I thought the images told the story of rejuvenation very nicely without a VO but then lots of people did have questions at the end of it so maybe a VO could have helped in that respect. Having said that however, I don’t think you needed to know the names of the birds etc to enjoy this. (Okay - that probably doesn’t answer your question after all does it?!)

I am always fascinated to see landscapes with ice and snow because it is not something we see much of round here. 1.6 trillion pounds of ice to thaw? How big is the lake then?! How thick is that ice!?

Your two geese dozing on the ice are lovely - mallard too (- you picked up the sheen on its feathers beautifully - not always easy).
What a delightful contrast to see the goose taking a bath so energetically after its previous inactivity- shows rejuvenation really well. Your music worked well here too to accentuate the change of pace from gentle activity to more lively.

(I am just wondering if it wouldn’t have been more chronological to have placed the clip of thawing ice between these two shots rather than afterwards. The jump from the geese on thick ice to the goose in the water was quite sudden whereas this view of the ice thawing could have linked the two nicely.)

Those images of the grouse are stunning - the subtle earth colours, textures and incredible sense of space behind them created by your angle of view!

(What IS the plural of grouse? groce? grice? greece? mm grouses maybe? :)

(What IS the plural of grouse? groce? grice? greece? mm grouses maybe? :)

I thought the plural of grouse was grouse, a bit like sheep and sheep. :)

Though I do like "greeces" for some reason...

Yes the English language is indeed funny. Grouse and grouse, sheep and sheep - but what about mongoose ?! - not mongeese, mongai or mongoose but mongooses! :)

(Sorry Dale for hi-jacking your thread with this bit of nonsense.)

Good Morning,

Yes, grouse are grouse. But for mongoose I really like mongai!!! When in Se Asia I actually got to see, one: very cool kinda like a Mink.

Marge, thanks for the review. I actually agree with you thought about natures ice sculpture. My wife felt the same. I placed it there a couple times but it did not really work with the chronology. herre is why (perhaps a voice over here would have helped here!) when things are locked in the deep freeze there is no ice majic. Once there is partial thawing during the day things refreeze everey night, the pressure expansion of the ice creates the ice sculptures. you do not get that till after thaw. So, once the partial thaw of the water was shown, mallard preening on the ice spit, then there would bee freeze up and be followed by the sculptures the next day. After much deliberation I left it in chronologically.


The lake is about 225 square miles of water and ice freezes between 3 and 5 feet thick, at 60 pounds per cubic foot of water (at least that is what my sailing text tells me).

Meryem was right, I really enjoyed filming this one!!! I knew my theme immediately, the shot list came easy.
Getting the shots required some serious hunting, stalking and shooting, a lot of time and serious patience, something I am not overly blessed with!!!

I got a lot of nice footage I can use on future projects. I am building a loopable dvd of local wildlife for a Camera store to play on their big screen in the shop, I will use several shots from this shoot in it for certain.

Geir, black grouse are a bit bigger than our sharp tailed grouse. If I recall they are more like our sage grouse in size. Did you ever see that video of the golden eagle killing two black grouse?? Awesome footage.

Hope I answered any questions.

Only three weeks until uwol 9

Have a couple cool ideas if they can be stretched into whatever theme meryem drreams up!!

enjoy the day!!

Okay, now I know a whole bunch more about ice than I did before! You're right - maybe a VO would have been very interesting considering that bit of info.
Back to the grouse bit . . . grouse and grouse, mouse and mice, house and houses . . . don't you feel for our foreign entrants?!

Marge,

Yes, having my first degree in english literature made me aware of that years ago, What a bizarre language! It all started in Babaylon, whos falt was that??

Was of thinking of naming our new sail boat ( yes I got it instead of an xlh1) "By Grace". But foriegn friends might think I mean you can "Buy Grace"!!!!


Oh, the digressions!!!