Shot with a Panasonic PV GS500, flowing stream audio done with Rode Stereo Video Mic, and edited in Pinnacle Studio Plus 11.1 with music scored by SmartSound.

Link:

http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challenge4/BIF_UC4_therancherandwater.mov

I had fun with this one despite usual frustrations.

Most picturesque river with lots of rock formations and flowing water was "full to the brim" with all the rugged rock bed covered with murky river due to the drought breaking rains we had on the fringes of the weather causing the bad flooding in many parts of Texas and Oklahoma.

Breaking our drought was a series of frequent storms and "frog stranglers" that happened just before the theme was announced. I wanted to include some heavy downpour but best I got was a short rain during the time we had.

And at that I had to grab it handheld fearing it would not last long enough to mount the camera on a tripod. And it was dying as I started rolling tape.

But all in all, it was fun. And the "four wheeler" tour of Bill's small ranch was a real neat afternoon, he's been trying to get me out there for over a year and it finally happened.

Link to the film: http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challenge4/BIF_UC4_therancherandwater.mov

Bruce,

I must say I like your different approaches to these challenges!! I love south west texas, spent lots of time there in the 70's when I lived in New Mexico.
I liked the introductory shot!!! I liked the theme but I thought it needed a stronger conclusion!!!

and, I agree!!! one is supposed to have fun making these things.

thanks for sharing!!

Bruce,

Nice film! The creek bed dissolving from empty to full of water was beautiful. The music was perfect for that.

At :41 it look like there was an errant shot that snuck in with the dissolve.
At :49 there is a one frame shot as well that flashes by.

I always like your films because it's kind of a mini history lesson.

There's a noticeable change in the background noise when your narration kicks in. It's especially noticeable where you talk and there's not any music playing.

I thought the film kind of ended a bit to soon. I was expecting something else to follow.

I think one more line of dialog when Bill is walking before the fade out would have been enough to finish it.
Good job!

Great film and I hope you always get enough but never too much H20.

Hi Bruce:

I think this was your best film yet. You do consistently have a unique approach to contest themes and it's great. Cinematography was very well done as was the music choice. The only comments I have to make is that there was some static in the background when you narrated and I agree with Kevin, the end was a bit abrupt.

Nice job on this.

Cat Russell

Hi Bruce - i do agree with the others - a great concept and some really nice composition, but there were a couple of slightly random cuts/fades which were distracting. Look back across it a couple of times, then think about it when you're out shooting next - always start the camera a little earlier and leave it running a few seconds longer - in that way you'll always have plenty of "get out" space when it comes to the edit. I only say this 'cause i've been there myself ;-)
Audio wise, a good idea is to leave the camera running for a while and get an "atmos" soundtrack with just the birds/wind/water or whatever - this can then be pasted into the background to soften the impact of switching in and out of a narration track - also if you are getting hiss on the audio you can always try a frequency cuttoff filter in edit to try and reduce it without cutting too much into the vocal quality....

Hope that helps - looking forward to the next one!!

Bruce you are quite the documentarian,

I enjoyed this piece of work. The edit where the rancher is driving his 4 wheeler toward the camera is shot very smoothly and the sound is great in that part. I think it would have been interesting to hear the rancher's footsteps as he was walking next to the water storage pond...

Anyway, intriguing story with human emotion and impact, a real standout...nice job

Jeff

Great feedback and the advice is appreciated.

I have developed a tendency to make dissolves too short lately and can see where they seem too abrupt. I do pre-roll and post-roll to leave "edit room" but apparently am not using it enough in the edit process.

For "voice over" narration I'm still using an "el cheapo" dynamic mic and believe that is where I'm getting hiss. I've tried hooking up my Rode StereoVideoMic to the computer mic input but haven't been able to make that work well yet. A better quality mic is in order as well as learning to use Foley for some background "ambience" .Often I have the original audio on the timeline clips pulled all the way down, wind noise is a constant problem. Where I can rig up to use an external mic that is better but I have to rig a good bracket for the mic that works with lightweight tripod for field use.

Bill's comment on "Water looks good" was on the original audio track (recorded with the internal mics" and being weak due to distance was "boosted" too far in post processing. I would have been better off just laying music over that and not using the original audio there.

The ending, to me, was awkward so I'm in total agreement with all comments to that respect.

The feedback we get here is awesome. Very much like a "free" motion picture school.

And thanks for the positive comments also. It's fun to get those from the calibre of talent found here.

Bruce you are quite the documentarian,

I enjoyed this piece of work. The edit where the rancher is driving his 4 wheeler toward the camera is shot very smoothly and the sound is great in that part. I think it would have been interesting to hear the rancher's footsteps as he was walking next to the water storage pond...


Jeff

Yup. And I could have except for him talking while walking. What he was saying didn't fit the action so I had to "kill" the audio. My fault for lack of directing.

However you may see him again. He and I both had fun working together and I think he'll be willing to do something again. I would have done well to let him do some talking on topic.

Thanks, Jeff

Nice video Bruce!

As others have stated, I like your films! They are always unique. And seem to have a small history lesson.
Pretty much everything I was going to say, Kevin already said for me. :)

I saw the ATV and I was hooked.. hahaha.

Nice video! I enjoyed it.
Keep up the good work!
~Gabriel

Bruce,

I really enjoyed watching your film/documentary. Your narration was wonderful - very professional, smooth and enjoyable to listen to. I loved your choice of music (given our tastes are very similar) and also the general flow of the story - which was well thought out and researched.
It would have brought nice to hear from Bill (at the 2.00 mark), to hear his account of the severe conditions, and how he managed to get by better than others.
In terms of any critisism, perhaps the audio "hissing" could be worked on (recognising I am being very picky here) however, overall I really enjoyed watching this entry.

Hi Bruce.
I loved your film, it was all great and a very good story too.
My brother-in-law is a farmer and I know it can be hard sometimes, but over here in Norway we have more of a rain problem. Just one thing though, it seems like the VO is a bit noicy. How did you do your VO?

Geir Inge

Bruce,


In terms of any critisism, perhaps the audio "hissing" could be worked on (recognising I am being very picky here) however, overall I really enjoyed watching this entry.

You're not being "picky". I am using a very inexpensive dynamic mic intended to plug into the mic input on a computer. It's got some noticeable hiss.

I do need to look into other options. What do you use?

Hi Bruce.
Just one thing though, it seems like the VO is a bit noisy. How did you do your VO?

Geir Inge

One of those $9.95 dynamics sold in the computer section at Wal-Mart. It does have a bit of noticeable hiss so I need to look into other options.

What do you use?

Hi again Bruce.
In the field I'm using a Sony ECM-674 as for VO I'm doing this at home. I've got a little midistudio Tascam 688 (20 years old but still working) and using it as a mixer hooked to my computer. The mic is a Shure SM 58 and I always record my VO straight in to the timeline in my edit prg, Avid Liquid 7.2

For "voice over" narration I'm still using an "el cheapo" dynamic mic and believe that is where I'm getting hiss. I've tried hooking up my Rode StereoVideoMic to the computer mic input but haven't been able to make that work well yet.

Bruce, your film is a good one!! I have always liked your films. You manage to make them interesting.
I like your story, and the sequence where the river is empty in one clip -> (dissolve) -> full of water, was great.
The abrupt ending has already been commented.

To me, your voice over sounds good.
A suggestion/tip:
When doing voice over, you could just connect your VideoMic to the camcorder, and after capturing, only use the audio, and cut away the video.
This is what I do. And when capturing the VO, I have the lens cap on as a reminder that the (black) video is not to be used.
I have the Rode (mono) VideoMic myself.

Hi Bruce,
I only use the mic on the camera (XL H1), but I am about to purchase the sennheiser wireless mic (112p model from memory) and also their shotgun mic (ME67) - given some good reviews and also hearing the sound that Per achieves in his Bear entry & his Grouse Lek work (see his web site to view this one).

Bruce, first of all a very interesting and educational film you got here! I second much of what Rob says about the editing and sound, but thats minor which you already are aware of.
Good work Bruce!

I enjoyed the documentary feel of this, and felt the narration was very professional. The story was interesting, and the shots very compelling. As others have said, it ended somewhat abruptly, but I think that's the nature sometimes of trying to put so much into the time given. Great job.

Ruth

The hiss present in the voice over seems to be "white noise" from the computer sound card circuits. Sounds to me very similar to what we used to call "transistor hiss" in the early days of hi fi stuff going solid state from vacuum tube.

I ran tests last night, compared the cheap Labtec ($9.00) dynamic with my Rode StereoVideoMic condenser (got it to work on the computer sound card mic input) and sure enough I am getting about the same amount of background "hiss" out of both at the same input gain levels.

So it looks like one solution is a pre-amp to get an adequate mic gain level going into the computer sound card so I can cut back quite a bit on the gain in the computer. (Looking at a Shure SM58 and an inexpensive single channel M-Audio Fast Tracks pre amp.)

The noisy audio of Bill's voice saying "Water looks good" is my fault all the way. I simply boosted the original audio for that second and a half, built in mics on the camcorder were fighting wind noise and rustling vegetation so I turned the audio level down while recording, intending to kill it completely in post. Then succumbed to the temptation to try to bring his voice back up
to an audible level and use it.

I could live with a low level of background hiss if I had to but ain't a gonna try pumping up weak audio again.

Bruce
Nice work. I've always found your videos interesting and I like your voice. I've never had much luck with getting good clean audio with the average sound card.

Gordon Hoffman

Well, Gordon, looks like I found a way to do it. I ordered the Studio Projects microphone preamp for $119 and change from ZZSounds.com. Interesting piece of equipment, has both a solid state preamp stage and a tube preamp stage with a dial that allows using either stage or variable blending of both.

Then in a local music store I found a Sennheiser e845 dynamic mic for $139.95.

Mic input gain on the preamp at 75%, blending control at 60-70% and output gain at about 85-90% allows me to pull the mic input gain on the computer sound card way down to about 15% and the internal amp hiss or "white noise" is gone.

Initial tests give me a good clean voice over with rich full bodied tone to the voice. Adequate level, and the tube stage does "warm" it up some.

I actually didn't need to buy the Sennheiser mic. That preamp brought an old (purchased in the 1980's) Radio Shack stereo dual pattern condenser mic (powered by one AA cell) to life and made it sound really good, and by running the Rode StereoVideoMic through it I got voice over that is as rich sounding as the Sennheiser but a bit "brighter". Beats the socks off of the cheap LabTec dynamic from Wal-Mart.