When I first got the theme, I sat and wondered what the heck am I going to do in Iowa at this time of year?
I mean this is a place where a web-cam set up to watch corn grow makes headlines in the paper and the top story of our local news!

I was originally planning on being out around Moab, Utah so I thought the scenery and mountain bikes would have made a great subject. But, plans changed and I wound up not going.

The first thought that popped into my head when I knew I had to do the film here was Geocaching. So, I let it float around for a while but never really got an idea of how I wanted to do it.

Then I thought about going out to the nature center and doing a film on maple syruping. But, this was a bad year for maple sap, so not much there was going on.

So, back to my Geocaching idea.

My original idea was to basically explain how it all worked and follow along as I found a new cache. But, I quickly realized that I couldn't cover all I wanted to in the three minute time frame.

So, I was basically back to square one with the deadline looming closer every day.

I had a meeting with the director of the nature center about a film project they were interested in having me do.

It was during that meeting that I remembered that sometimes, it's about the journey, not the destination.

I remembered all the great places I discovered by Geocaching that I never knew were basically in my back yard.

I had been on portions of the trail this cache was hidden on before but never explored as far as where the cache was hidden.

So, with camera gear in tow, I set off 1.67 miles away from the cache and spent basically a day capturing the things I saw along the trail to the cache.

By the way, those of you with GPS units want to see where the cache is, the coordinates are N 41° 59.503 W 091° 34.965. :)

So, my film basically evolved from an instructional video to what you see.

Some shots came quite by accident. I realized that I was doing a film about Geocaching but didn't have any shots of the GPS unit taking me to the cache. So I set the GPS on the ground to get a shot while I was still a little ways from the cache.

When I reviewed the footage I noticed that the tripods leg was reflected in a couple of the shots basically ruining them. So, I moved the tripod around to get the leg out of the shot as best as I could. But, I still noticed something out of focus reflecting in the screen. That's when I refocused and discovered the trees were being reflected on the screen. So, I thought it was a good tie in of nature and technology so I shot the GPS then focused on the reflected trees.

So, while I wish I would have had more time to work on this challenge, I thought the film turned out ok for what it was.

My criteria for the film was did it feel like three minutes had passed after I had watched it. For me it felt that it was shorter than three minutes so I felt it was visual enough to enter and keep myself out of the shark tank of shame. :)

I hope you felt it was a worthwhile three minutes as well. http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challenge2/KJR_UC2_geocaching.mov

Nice! I thought your video was great and Geocaching is pretty interesting. I used to scavenger hunt as a youngster -this is the upgrade.

Kevin,

I really liked the feel you created for the viewer of following along in the woods as if you are looking for the geocache, too. The shots of the hiker disappearing into the woods near the beginning made it feel like a real adventure- mysterious, as if the person was as hidden as the cache.

The only thing I noticed, and it might just be my computer, was quite a lot of hiss/static in the audio for most but not all of the video.

GPS is great- I have one hooked up to my regular camera- just to know where I take my photos. I hope they have that capability soon with video cameras.

Ruth

Hey Ruth,
Thanks for the comments.
I've played it on my computer with external and internal speakers and don't hear the hiss or static. Maybe it's my sample rate or something. I had plenty of extra file size so I jacked up the sampling on the audio.
But on my end it sounded good. :)

Kevin,
there are no hiss on my side either, the sound are very nice and music too, so I quess it's something at Ruth's machine?

This was very nice to watch! One minor thing was that you was walking away from my viewpoint all the time, whish you had done some clips where you was fronting the camera. You had some very nice shots of of the life in the woods, steady and clear pictures. And you found the box!!!!
The music emphasized your story in a brilliant way.

The opening timelaps was a wow! Did you take it with a wide lens?

You are on my top five list!

Hey Per,

Glad to know the hiss so far is isolated. The only other thing it coould have been was my footsteps on the muddy cinder trail.

I did have some shots of me waling toward the camera. Obviously I had to walk back and get the camera to continue to the next spot. :)

But it didn;t work as it felt that I was walking away from the cache instead of towards it.

Maybe I should have had the final shot of me walking over the bridge coming towards the camera instead of away again. That would have worked out ok.

The cloud timelapse in the intro was set up on my back deck of my house.
I had the HVX zoomed all the way out and set it to film 1 frame every 5 seconds and just went on about my business inside the house. Checking every now and then to make sure it was still there. :)

That was my first time to that cache so I'm glad I didn;t carry all my gear there and not find it! :)

Thanks again for the kind comments!

Really nice Job Kevin,

Especially in post. Really liked the titles, effects (time lapse etc.).

Kevin:

There was some great video in this film. Wanted to see in more detail what the prize was, but my wife said it was cash....

Glad to see the film addressed a recreational activity !!

Hey Chris,

Glad you thought it was ok.

Usually there's just little trinkets in the caches. You always worry that someone may discover the cache by accident and take it home. :)

I've been to book swap caches where you take a book along with you and when you find it, you drop off your book and take a new one with you.

Then there's also the things called Travel Bugs. They can be any little object and they have a dog tag with a tracking number on them. You give them a goal say to be photographed in front of Mt Fuji or something. As people find the caches that it's in, if they can move it closer to Japan to reach it's goal, they'll drop it in a cache and eventually, you'll get a picture of your little travel bug in front of Mt. Fuji.

I've taken travel bugs with me to California from Iowa to move them further along their goal and dropped them off in to California caches.

Maybe we can start a UWOL cache that has a film theme or something. :)

Thanks again!

Hey Kevin

Well fella, you know what I think of the quality of your images. Fantastic and a real picture postcard look to them. You have a great eye and good techinques for the smallest of details. I really liked this film, it was on-topic, it introduced something new...well I'm sure to a lot of us anyway and your edit was interesting and super clean.

I was discussing your film with my girlfriend last night and she hit the nail on the head I think. She said that by the end she didnt really want to know what was in the box and she wished you'd made her want to know. I agree, I think If you'd added that building up of tension as to 'whats this guy looking for' then this piece would have been fantastic, leaving aside the visual aspect which I think is fantastic anyway.

Great idea, lovely imaging !

Hey Mat,

Thanks for the comments!

I thought about that after I hiked 1.67 miles back to my car that I should have laid everything out that was in the cache. But by then the sun was setting and we had rain the next day so that was the end of that.

Maybe I'll do a sequel for UWOL#3. "The Return of the Indian Trails Cache." :)

I originally had planned for the film to be more informational but along the way to the cache I started thinking that the journey was more important than the destination.

Here I was coming across all these beautiful sights on my way to the cache that the cache became secondary. I don't know how much time I spent by that little rapids in the creek with the sun dancing off the water. The sound, the peacefulness, it was awesome.

Where's your feedback thread? Your film rocked!

I agree fella, many people overlook their journey with the all important 'destination'. But I guess what we thought was to bring the viewer into your piece by showing you were engaged in a task to find something and maybe show you frustrated, lost, making choices and there 'the goal'. Its a toil = success story I'm talking about I guess.

Anyway, I liked it a lot how it was. You deserve a placing for sure :)

Kevin, really nice film. As much as I love Geocaching, I don't think I could have even come anywhere close to how good you did with it. Two thumbs up!

The timelapse was awesome, and the shot of the GPS with the trees in the reflection was incredible. I always love those shots...

Haha, I would not have chosen a cache I had never ben two. I often only find 2 out of every 7 (I only have like 30 finds since last year when I started). Thats how bad I am at looking! lol. So congrats on the find!
Ammo cans are my favorite kind of Cache, I hate macros, those things are insane!!

Anyways, back on topic. Nice stuff, great work. I really liked it!
~Gabriel

I liked everything about your film. The music was well done and worked with the visuals and the photography was excellent. Nice job.

Like others I liked the time lapse work you did. You showed us not only a bit what Geocaching was about, but showed us visually what the spirit, feeling, and satisfaction of involvement must be like.

I especially liked the glimpses of details of nature and wildlife you incorporated. Were those whitetail deer trotting thru the woods? I don't hunt but love the thrill of seeing critters out in the environment.

I really liked everything about the way you did your video. Angles, movement all gave a feeling of being able to follow along with you.

Bruce Foreman

Bruce,

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, those are whitetails. I was filming something along the trail and I usually take my time framing things up and quietly watch as I record.

I heard a couple twigs snap so I turned to see who was coming down the trail.

Turned out it was the deer. They were pretty far back into the woods by the time I swung my camera around and started filming them.

Well, I've been away filming for a few days and now everyone has comment everyones film. So instead of repeat what the others says, I wish you good luck. I think you've done a great job in this film.

Kevin, that was impressive!

The opening sequence was awesome!
But I want to know what was in the box. That is the only thing I felt was missing.

I did not notice any hiss in your video.

Hi Kevin:

You have an absolute tallent for great cinematography and I put this up in the "wonderful" category along with Mat Thompson's piece. No wonder you both are having a dialoge about your work here and that Mat likes it, because both films have so much of the same qualities. The composition, eye for detail, choice for music, beautiful transitions synched well with the music.

Your beginning was great. I have to go back and watch that again. Very captivating and a smooth way of using special effects. Job well done. I also didn't hear any audio problems.

Finally, I think your comment to Brian Mckay about his film title: hold my beer and watch this, was classic.

Thanks for an enjoyable film on a tough topic choice.

Cat Russell
Spike Productions

Trond,
I posted the coordinates. Come and find it and have a look for yourself! :)

Cat,
Thanks for the kind words. Mat does great work doesn't he?
I have the good fortune to converse with him quite often. Usually it's about how to get a foolproof uploader going but we do pause from time to time to talk about how our films are coming along. I thought it was pretty funny that we both had a kingfisher in our films. :)

Glad you liked the opening. Wish I had a bit more time to work with it but you know how it goes.

Hopefully I made geocaching look like an enjoyable recreational activity.

Thanks again!

I think this is honestly my favorite of the bunch. The opening timelapse and really interesting titleing just caught my attention immediately. As the video progressed I thought everything just occured very naturally and laid out the experience of geocaching perfectly. Excellent, stable shots, vivid colours and good use of effects really tied it together to make the video virtually flawless.

If there was only one thing I would add it would be to get a glimpse of what's in the cache but in a way it's unecessary, just more out of curiousity.

BTW...is it etiquette for geocaching to take an item and leave an item? If so I suggest you go back there sometime and leave a copy of this video in there.

Great entry!

James Hooey

Hey James,

Glad you liked it. Didn't think a video about walking to a hidden cache would amount to much. But, it was all I could think of.

I did email the cache owner and told him I used his cache as the basis for my film. He was very pleased to know that and was going to get his kids to watch the film. :)
He said he decided to place the cache there because that part of the Sac-Fox trail was so pretty.

There were allot of happy accidents in the film. Like the trees reflected in the display of the GPS unit. My favorite shot though was of the sunlight dancing on the little rapids. I must have about thirty takes of that. Some at 24fps, some at 60fps. Some at 720p some at 1080p. Some with a warmer white balance, some with a cooler. ( The cooler wb was the shot that made it into the film.)

It sounds like there is a divided camp. Some wanted to see what was inside, others thought it should remain a mystery.

But I have to say that the absoulte coolest thing in that cache had to be the j876EYTBU97*(^&^^%$#*&&*&UGHGF&%$$^%&&*&(()IU(&R%$#$#@@# DISCONNECTED

LOL...nice.

Kevin
As others have said you have a good eye for detail. Nice shots and well edited. I've heard of geocaching but never gave it much thought until now. Looked up my area and there is a number of caches around here. Who'ed of thought! Anyway well done and I was wondering if you would mind telling me what software you use to compress your video.

Gordon Hoffman

Gordon,

I just compressed it right out of the FCP timeline into Compressor.

Set it for Sorenson 3 and 1800Kb data rate and let it rip.

I had to monkey withthe keyframes a bit cause it caused some nasty artifacts. I finally settled on 240.

When I forst got into Geocaching I couldn't bellieve the number of caches I had passed by without ever knowing that they were there.

Let me know if you start getting out there and looking for them.

Like I mentioned before, I use my GPS to mark spots that I want to return to when the light is right to get some footage.

Not to mention they're nice to have if you need to navigate to some street address and you have no idea on how to get there. :)

Trond,
I posted the coordinates. Come and find it and have a look for yourself! :)


That sounds like a challenge. Maybe I should do that sometime, hehe.

Kevin
Thanks. I had my data rate down to 280 kb to get it down under 50 MB. Looks like I need to dig deeper in the compression settings to see if I have more option or do an upgrade.
I've always got my gps with me. I'm always marking locations of tracks, feeding activity and predator killsites. I then download them onto my computer on a topo map.
I'll have to grab some coordinates and give it a try this year.

Gordon Hoffman

Hi Kevin,

Great film, one of my favourites.