Here is my entry for the UWOL Challenge 15. Thank you to Chris Swanberg for his work on the Voice over.

I shot this with Chris's 400 mm lens on my Canon 5D. Used a 2x extender to get 800mm out of it. Quite an improvement over what I was able to get out of the FX1 or the HV20

I put a 24p version up on YouTube, and a 30p version on Vimeo, so those who are interested can compare.


YouTube HD Version here: YouTube - The Sandhill (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sqp44Fl-P4)


Vimeo here:

The Sandhill on Vimeo

A very calming beautiful film. Except for the 5 FOOT TALL BIRD!
with a 5 inch sharp bill !@#$%

Just kidding, it had great pacing, the shot towards the end was very exceptional with the sunset.

Chris,

This video is interesting. I have watched the flying birds 00:50-00:57 several times.
I just love these seconds: FANTASTIC!
The narrating is also very good.
The movements and the slow motions look better in the 30p version, I think.

Chris,
A very nice video you have. The sunset shots at the end were amazing!
Nice to see those big birds, and your story is interesting and informative.
I like it when the video teach me something new, and yours did.

Interesting to see the 5D in action. A great competition for the real video cameras out there.

Chris- I’m always intrigued by your beautiful DSLR footage. Do you use one of those Zacuto style focusers? How do you edit- do you recommend an intermediate codec like CineForm? I love the shot of the pelicans flying through the “V” at sunset. I believe in California you also get small numbers of Siberian Sandhills (another subspecies) as well as an occasional Common Crane (a sister species). I also thought your audio is very good.

Chris,
Beautiful! A very nice entry. You had some really nice video segments that really show off the 5D.

The segment at 2:50 with the flock of birds in the colorful sky was exquisite. What lens did you shoot it with?

As I recall you use Vegas to edit. How did you convert the 5D's 30p to 24p?

Chris,

Five feet tall. Blimey! I wouldn't want to find that on my bird table in the morning!

What magnificent birds those Sandhill Cranes are. You've got some beautiful sequences in there, showing them wading through the wetland.

I think you told the story well, it's well structured, with some nice shots of the birds in flight. Good choice of music and good voiceover too.

A nice demo of the capabilities of the Canon DSLR too, very impressive.

I did so hope to get the geese in my film landing or taking off en masse, flying in Vs etc., but all they did was land or take off in 1s and 2s most of the time. They just don't co-operate.

Thanks all for your comments.

For Mike Sims:

For most of the shots I was on tripod. Birds were down on ground and I could take my time focusing. I actually used a 15 inch monitor mounted on a stand, and powered it with a battery brick and convertor box. Focused with normal barrel focus. Actually tickled with how that works. Of course as far out as birds were, shooting with 800 mm I had to be somewhat lucky that flights I was catching were in the same plane...

I shoot the scenes very flat, convert to Cineform using NeoScence. I think this stands up to color correction and other editing very well.

For Rich Ryan:

Lens for that sunset shot was an old Nikon 80-200, shot at widest 80mm setting. As I was packing up from that shot, heading to the car, I looked over my shoulder and saw the Pelicans coming in behind me, I dropped the tripod, swung legs open set it, and pulled the zoom wide again and pressed button to start recording, and managed to get the tail end of the overflight.

As to 24p render, what I normally do with these films is make a master in the Cineform Codec. Then I render the various files for upload from there. For the

Chris,

I just love that opening title shot. The music, the font, the moon, the clouds. Really worked well together.

It was educational as well as soothing and peaceful. I like how you came full circle and ended back with the moon.
Thought the shots were crisp and vibrant. The music and VO went great together.

You gave the film plenty of time to breath. Never felt rushed. The pace took me along at just the right speed.

Very well put together dude!

Chris asked me to do the VO for his film, and I had not seen it until I did so. Like others I was taken by the opening and closing sequences, and most of what he was able to capture of birds. I know this is NOT easy!

We made very few changes to his script, and he did all the timing. I read the script as I watched the movie and by the 4th take had it down pretty well I thought. Was an easy film to comfortably narrate to and the total narration time start to finished WAV file was under an hour (maybe less)... Was great fun to be a small part of this film.

I think it's awesome that you guys got together for the VO. It's nice to see UWOLers working together on a project.

I know when I did The River, I had Bob Safay's voice in mind the whole time I was working on it.

Like you guys, Bob helped with the script and improved on it,making it even stronger.

I hope we see more people working together on projects. That's one of the things that's so sweet about this group!

Chris and Chris....nice team work!! I like this one a lot.

Everyone is getting great VOs in this round...

Chris...like the others, I loved the sunset lit clouds shot...and your mix of long and close shots....

I can't even imagine having 800mm to work with.
Those shots came out very steady and very nice, like you just walked right up to the birds...

And once again this round, I learned something...cool!

Chris and Chris,

That was a great job. Your red sun down really cought my eye. Excellent bird shots and Chris's VO flowed smoothly with the imagery. The more that I look at these entries the more I learn. Thanks.

Whoa there... I just did a little work on a VO in post. Chris made the film... it was all his idea (or in case you didn't like it, fault.) Seriously I was honored to get a little VO practice. Probably the least impressive part of the piece.

Chris S

Chris,

Very nice film. I loved the closing shot. the footage with the actual sand hill crane calls in it was awesome. We get hundreds and hundreds of them here every september on their way to your house.

I think your shot composition is as good as any I have ever seen.

Thanks for taking the time to share your wonderful work.

Hi Chris B.
I think this is a great video about the Sandhill Crane.
Great colors and a fine mix of shots, also informative and educational.
I miss a real good close up of the Crane though but I guess you can have it all, eh? :)
The shot starting at 0.50 to 0.57 is a bit unsteady, but what a great shot it is.
Another shot starting at 2.07, if possible, I would have tried to get another angle to it, because the cars passing by up in the right corner do distract a little bit I think.
Great VO, music and editing.

Wish you all the best and good luck.
Geir Inge

Strange how we all notice different things in a film! I thought it was a lovely peaceful kind of video, so everything was wonderful except for about three seconds at 1:12 when the camera wasn't level - or the horizon wasn't level. Maybe I'm just paranoid about level horizons because of living near the sea. But I certainly didn't notice the cars in the corner that Geir did.

Next time one of my DSLRs needs replacing, I'll certainly be thinking about a new one with a video facility.

Annie:

Wow I never noticed that, but I think you are right. l usually have my tripod and camera combo leveled, but not sure whether that shot was just not leveled initially. Thanks for pointing that out. Something I will be more aware of next film..