http://vimeo.com/7417439

Well, here is my vimeo link.

At the start of this challenge, I had a totally diiferent view, than what I ended up with.

As with most of you, it was a challenge to find any wildlife, to include.

I thought that with the fall, there would be migrations to film, and the fall colours.

Well with the weather not really cooperating, and most animals being elsewhere, this is the result, me looking for ....

Enough excuses, on with the show.

Hi Sam,

Is there a way to make it a public view? It's locked right now.

Sorry ,

it should be now viewable, by all.

Hi Sam,

Finally we could see your video too :)
I really like the close ups of all the insects.

The music was very low in the beginning. (like the first 40-45 seconds).
Was that intentional?

Thank you for sharing.

Hi Sam,

I think you may have had the most veriety of life in your animal kingdom. Nice closeup shots. When ever I tried to do a closeup of a butterfly they would always fly away. Very nice. I would have to agree the music was very low at first. The imagery flowed nicely with the music though. You have some great shots.

Thanks Oliver,

I was hoping for Canada Geese and some Mallards, that frequent, the local ponds and rivers, but they were absent, on the days I was able to get out.

The butterfly came as a big surprise, as on my last day of being able to get out, and got nothing, I came home and saw this sunning itself on a rock in the back garden.

I rushed to the van, grabbed the video camera and tripod, but it was gone.

It came back to the same spot, would leave and come back.

I got lucky and was patient.

The Wooly Bear caterpillar, well, there were alot of them onthe trail that day, but most had been squished by the hikers. I managed to save this one.

I have always like macro work and insects, as I was growing up, during my still photography days, and am trying to get similar results on video, with the tools at hand.
Sometimes it work, othertimes, it is a learning and go out and do it again process, always getting better.

The music actually starts out this way, the piece is called Outside My Window, which is from one of my Narada Sampler CDs. I have large collection of Narada music, from various composers.

I have a friend who composes new age and classical pieces, but have never appraoched him to wirte a piece for me, I guess it is because I have seen what it takes for him to get a piece finished. He writes for his band, as well as having some of his pieces performed by orchestras around the country. I have always liked his style, slow and low to start, then more uptempo, and low to the end.

The compression of the video, really took its original look and detail away, the highlights were blown out, which does not appear in the original, so that is something I will have to learn to control, in the future, as I have seen what most of the group is putting out, and it looks great, even though it is compressed.


Thanks for the comments.

Sam... I'm glad we FINALLLY got to see your entry. You had a vertiable potpourri of life in yours! I agree by a simple count, you have way more than just about anyone else! The music was very soothing and your pacing and transitions worked well to my eye. I liked the way you used the wooly caterpilla leaving the frame as the end too.

The one scene of the leaf in the water hiccuped in my minds eye as possibly a teensy bit too long, but that's just an observation, and it may be just me.

Oh, and (sticking out tongue at Mike Beckett) I also noticed you and I had a similar shot of a turdus migratorious. (The American Robin).

Well done. Congrats!

Chris

Sam,

Well you definitely have the largest number of animals! Some nice shots. And I really liked your musical selection, it set a really nice mood.

I enjoyed your macro shots, particularly the caterpillar (although I did think that shot was a bit long).

Glad we finally got a chance to take a look.

Sam,

Certainly top prize for wides variety of wildlife. Seems like they were all at your place since so many of us had a very hard time finding anything in our neck of the woods.

You'll want to make sure you used licensed music if you want your entry judged to include the audio.

On a different note I see your file is in the upload folder today. Mat, if you're reading this can you link it on the main page?

Thanks for the input, everyone.

Kevin, as far as the music goes, we here at work have had this discussion with numerous lawyers and movie houses.

We show videos and play music over our inhouse tv system, at the hospital, where I work.
I am responsible for the AV department, and we actually have a fully equipped movie theatre in the building, for the patients.

The ruling was that, so long as we owned the video/music, ;ie we actually bought the disc, and did not charge for viewing or listening, and it was for a showing to family and friends, then it was deemed liscensed, so that is how I have been using this piece.

I know there will be arguments over this, but who am I to argue with corporate lawyers.

The file in the upload folder, is the file that had compression issues, by the way, you will see
the artifacting on the right hand side of the screen.

again I have to thank Mike Beckett, for his work flow, on how to get the compression issues sorted.

If I wasn't at a weekend conference, this weekend I would be out taping, and I bet you that since the competiton entry is done, there will be a lot of other wildlife the tape.
Maybe Sunday afternoon after the conf. I'll get out and tape something and practice, what I have seen from the rest of you.

Again thanks for the comments.

Sam,

Glad I could help with the compression, it was a voyage of discovery for me too.

I'll get round to watching your video tonight, and I think Ryan's too.

As for music... well, I always stick to library/stock music as there are no legal issues provided you stick to their T&Cs. AKM, 2bRoyaltyFree.com and Digital Juice more than meet my needs for UWOL and similar work.

Hey Mike, thanks again.

I have Digital Juice, but never get around to playing with it, enough to be comfortable.
I will have to put some time into it, to avoid any future issues, here.

One of the members here gave me permission to use music he wrote, for a CD, but have never gotten around to using it. I will have to give it another listen,and contact him again, on the issue. Also, I will have to get in touch with friends who write music, and see what they can put together, for me, and give them some exposure as well.
It will be like scoring a feature film, only if I was in that league.

Sam,

Look below...

Oliver,

Perfect timing, as your site is one I was going to check out today.

Thank you.

I haven't updated it in a while but there maybe some stuff you can use.

I was just looking at the original compressed video, that was submitted, and even though it has some funky thing happening on the right side of the screen, the quality of the video is much better than the vimeo version.

So, I am happy that a better looking version will be in the vault.

Sam,
You have made a fine video from the animal kingdom. I will not go into the discussion of the music's legality, but your choice of music is very tasty.

Copyright law must be different in Canada. The REAL question is would Meryem allow it to be judged with the audio. :)

Yes Kevin it is different, but I totally agree with you, Meryem has the final word.

Hi Sam. Great work, I much enjoyed it. Sorry about your problems compressing and uploading. I’ve just started using Sorenson Squeeze 5. I couldn’t really justify $500 for the full program, but there is a “light” version that only outputs mp4’s that is less than $100. So far, I’m making better looking files that are much smaller than the ones I was making. You might want to give it a look.