South Luangwa

[David Watkins]

Hi Folks

First time, good to be here.

Started videoing wildlife this year, loads of tape. don't know what to do with it all, anyone got any ideas? Commissions welcome!

Heres a few snippets taken in South Luangwa, Zambia this year, what a place, came back with 4 hours of just about everything we saw.

Any feedback appreciated, will keep adding bits, tried uploading here but keeps failing, am I doing something wrong.

http://www.myspace.com/northernwildlife

Cheers


David

[Yeo Wee Han]

Hi David,

Nice action caught here but there are a few things that can be improved. The first is the shooting angle, it is a tad normal (touristy) viewpoint and it would be great to be able to get down to the subject's eye level. The second is the light, if you're on a normal safari tour, chances are they will not give a bother about the lighting that you as their client will want to be shooting in. Photo safaris are a different thing altogether and they do cater specifically for videographers as well as photographers.

Do you have any more shots of the hippo? It would be great to make it a sequence instead of just a single shot.

Cheers

WeeHan

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hi David, welcome to the uwol-team!
Second what WeeHan tells you. Combining different angles is the way to go and of course at the eye level of the animal is the best choice, not sure how you could do it with the nightshot of the Leopard though!! ;-)
The audience talking was also to some grade disturbing. The shooting was mostly handheld, which is ok to some point, but by using some support like a beanbag would enhance and stabilize the footage a lot!

What kind of camcorder do you use?

[David Watkins]

Hi guys

Appreciate your comments, I have a lot more footage ( 4 hours ) which I am slowly editing into a 20 minute short. I have about 20 minute of leopard, 5 minutes of wild dog and lots more

I take your point about angles etc but everything had to be done from the back of the vehicle, I do appreciate all this stuff but the rule is absolutely no-one gets out at any time, and for good reason, not just about disturbing the animals. These are truly wild animals and whilst they'll tolerate you as long as you are in the vehicle it just would be so dangerous out of vehicle, these arent zoo bred animals or
human-tolerant animals in captive breeding projects. The sound I havent worried about yet, I'd do that when it's all edited together, probably with a music overlay or some narration or both.

So I do admit it may look a bit touristy and sometimes shaky as it's 100% hand held on a Canon xl1s from the back of an offroad vehicle, but it was my first safari with a camera ( and family! ) and I'm pretty happy with the results under the circumstances, and I've got shots of one or two mammals rarely encountered by your tourist let alone filmed! ( Check out my genet which will be on myspace today/tomorrow, now you couldnt plan to shoot that, or set a up a tripod or hide, it was simply about being constantly ready and sacrificing some quality )

However I will be very happy if someone will sponsor me to go back with enhanced gear, specially hired vehicle and shoot some more...( South Luangwa is such a great place and Flatdogs Camp such a laid back base )...or even commission something in the UK..I'd love it.

Anyway over this winter I'm hopefully going to do some quality tripod/hide stuff here in wet and windy Yorkshire..I've uploaded a clip of Water Rail on myspace and also a Sparrowhawk in rain trying to get at a hedge sparrow it's chased into some sedge...

I do appreciate your comments and I would like some feedback on the short when I finish it..anyone suggest where I can put it on the internet, the myspace quality is a bit lacking...there must be a wildlife video site where we can all upload and exchange views.


Cheers for now

David

[Per Johan Naesje]

David,
to my knowledge there is no suitable place for you to upload any wildlifefootage. The Myspace, Youtube etc. is heavily compressed and not suitable to get the quality you want.
I run my own website, where I can put up my vidoes in a better format and I also know others do the same. Beware that some ISP don't allow for media streaming or have a limited bandwith for downloading.

We have a uwol-challenge going on in another forum:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=144
and the challenge site:
http://www.uwolchallenge.com/index.htm

It would have been nice to have you onboard there David. Take a look and read through some of the threads. The last challenge for this year is closed for new challengers but it will start up again in February next year with 6 new challenges every second month.

[David Watkins]

Hi

Thanks, the challenge sounds great, I'm so annoyed I didnt latch on to this sooner, never mind, I'll register and get involved in the next one. Will check out your website, have a look at my genet when you get a chance, what a beautiful animal

Cheer

David

[David Watkins]

Hi Again

Hang on, deadline is 19th Nov, can I submit something still?

David

[Per Johan Naesje]

I'm afraid not, the rules are that you sign up before the challenge start, sign up period for this one was from 24-31 of October, then on the 1 of November the theme was annonced which was NIGHT and challenger had approx 3 weeks to shoot, edit and upload the film.
Deadline for uploading the film is tomorrow 19 of November. I'm still working on mine, have to shoot something more tonight!
Winner will be annonced a week after the 19 of November.

[Ron Chant]

David the uwol challenge sign up date has gone, so you will have to sign up when it starts up again net year,
(February)
Contest rules from here = http://www.uwolchallenge.com/contestrules.htm

Love the lazy Leopard
As far as showing your wildlife footage try Photobucket.

I did have a .Mac account last year but I have not renewed it as yet, A .Mac Webb site is very good, but only for Mac users.

I use Photobucket to send video clips to my family to have a look at, it’s not the greatest but better than U-tube IMOP.
Here is a sample I done last week on Photobucket.com. It will take a few minutes to load.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v7...nt=DeerDay.flv

[Meryem Ersoz]

Hi David: Just watched your night footage of the leopard--would have been great to see something like that in this round of our UWOL Challenge (since the theme this round is NIGHT). We have one player from Johannesburg, it would be great to get footage from other parts of Africa.

Come join us for the next round--sign-up will be here at DVinfo during the last week in January, the new theme will be announced Feb. 1). You'll learn a ton.

I agree with Per that a bean bag can get you some really unique shots. An on-camera spot would help you track the night shots while being able to focus on the camera rather than the light source. Ah, gear, we love gear! More gear!

[David Watkins]

Hi Meryem

Yes I only learned of the challenge today and am spitting feathers as I have sequences of leopard ( including leaping up a tree ), lion, genet sp., white tailed mongoose, nine banded mongoose, elephant, hippo, elephant, crocodile and spring hare.... all filmed at night! Would perhaps have made a nice little film for the Challenge...AAAARRRGHHH!..sorry needed to get that out of my system...I'm OK now........never mind, I'll have a go at the next Challenge!...anyway I'll keep popping snippets on myspace to show what sort of stuff I've got...the good thing is at last I've found some like minds at UWOL who can help me out now and again..

Oh and if there are any wildlife editing guys or filmmakers in Yorkshire who could help me I'd like to hook up and chat...

David

[Per Johan Naesje]

David,
the really big challenge with the UWOL-challenge is that you shall shoot, edit and upload within the 3 weeks of the challenge.
This means that using stock or library footage of your own is not allowed!!
And our chief Meryem is a petrous woman watching that we the particapants obey the rules!

[David Watkins]

Aahhh! I see and will obey

David

ps new hyena clip at myspace, love em or hate em they're tenacious