Tales of Wonder and Woe: UWOL #7

[Vidar Vedaa]

Hi Kevin

Are you making good proggress,I realy look forword
To your entery.You have some realy nice photo arliare

VJV

__________

[Kevin Railsback]

Well, I'm realizing that with another nine inches of snow and half an inch of freezing rain coming my way tomorrow, there's no way I'm going to even get close to where I need to film my final scene.

So, I'm headed out today to see if I can find a way to stay on topic while not having the shot that wraps it all together in a nice tidy package.

Hopefully I'll find something interesting to film that will work with the footage I've already shot.

Maybe I'll try a different portion of the Sac-Fox trail today.

[Victor Wilcox]

My DSL has been on and off due to storms in the area.

I've got most of my video except for some narrative shoots. Just need some more sun to finish.

It's a hokey adventure, but it's been fun was fun.

[Vidar Vedaa]

Hope you get what you need Kevin,I agree whid David you
make greait entery so good luck for rest of the clip.
I think this round will bee a werry exciting.
And lock forword to all the adder enterys to.

VJV

______________

[Bob Thieda]

Well...I learned a couple of things today....

Leveling a tripod on snow is a pain...
My LCD is pretty much useless at 24º...
And my boots aren't waterproof...

I think I got what I wanted though....
As soon as my camera, (and my feet), warm up, I'll capture what I took and see....

Didn't see any birds of prey....though I did find something pretty cool....

Bob T.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Finished my footage today in a real cold weather -15 degrees Celsius or 5 degrees Farenheit. It was cold especially when I had to mount my Jib with my bare hands. Tiny bolts and thick gloves are NOT a very good combination!

Tomorrow is the day where all this footage gonna be puzzled toghether for hopefully a great story and some amazing pictures!

Picture below hopefully show a bit of the cold action we got today. The actor Guttorm dressed in white almost look like he's dressed for outer space.

[Kevin Railsback]

Per,

It sure looks like yours is shaping up to be quite the adventure story!

We've had another bad bout of freezing rain and significant snowfall again today. Sadly people have already been killed in this latest storms due to bad road conditions.

I'm torn between attempting to go out and get what I know will be spectacular footage in the storm or hunker down and make due with what I have.

Not sure if I have enough to finish as I was planning on getting that one last final shot that would have wrapped it all up in a nice tidy bundle. But on the other hand, I'd like to live long enough to see allot more UWOL challenges. :)

The wind is supposed to pick up to around 45MPH sometime today making for blizzard conditions.

I may just venture around my neighborhood testing out the road conditions and go from there.

Wish we would have had a normal winter as it would have been very likely I could have been able to get my final shot.

Hopefully UWOL 8 will have better weather conditions!

[Bruce Foreman]

Originally Posted by Steven Gotz

Oh well, I just burned out the firewire port on my Sony HDR-FX1 HDV camcorder. I can shoot, but not capture. I was trying out a loaner Matrox RT.X2 and got the connection backwards I believe.

This really sucks. It will be around $550 just to get it fixed. It was my own fault, but still. I have never had a problem with hot insertion before. I guess from now on the firewire cable remains connected to the PC.

I'm just getting caught up on reading here so with 2 pages of posts yet to go, someone may have already said this:

Firewire is supposed to be hot swappable but in reality often is not. Many camcorder manuals instruct both computer and camcorder are to be powered down before a firewire cable is EITHER connected or disconnected.

On the forums in one thread several folks have fried firewire ports, mostly on camcorders but sometimes also on computers. In the OPEN DV DISCUSSIONS on this site I read where one outfit had someone fry the ports on FIVE high dollar camcorders.

While it is a pain in the butt, I now power down both computer and camera before connecting or disconnecting.

The Panasonic PV GS500 manual covered this and stated both should be off, but the Pana3ccduser.com forum "wisdom" was the camera should be powered down and the computer could be left on. This was the way I did it for a year and I had been lucky.

So what happened to you may have not been plugging something in backwards. Simply hot swapping is not safe.

[Marj Atkins]

You people in the northern hemisphere deserve a gold medal for even attempting to do a movie - never mind an adventure movie under those weather conditions. I couldn’t think of anything worse!
We have had the wettest summer in eight years in my area of South Africa and when the weather bureau predicted a window of five days of sunshine at the beginning of the month I grabbed my camera and made the most of it. As it turned out we had a lot more sunshine than that and I could have had a bit more time but better safe than sorry I guess.
Most of my footage was done in temperatures between 30 and 40 degrees C! (I had to protect my XL2 from the heat.)
How, Brian, do you avoid freezing in -69 degrees?!!
I cannot wait to see your wonderland movies.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Originally Posted by Marj Atkins

You people in the northern hemisphere deserve a gold medal for even attempting to do a movie - never mind an adventure movie under those weather conditions. I couldn’t think of anything worse!

Well, the worse is that we do LOVE to live here! I can not think about any better conditions than real cold winter weather at my place this time of year. Think about how beneficial we are who can film in 4 different seasons. The same scenery change dramatically in a couple of months.

Ok, my entry is almost ready for the final small adjustments, which often take too long time! I've screen the entry for Anne-Kari and Guttorm, the actor and wildlife peer this afternoon.
Observing them through the screening was interesting.

[Trond Saetre]

The rough editing is done. But there are always some details to be improved. And then finding the right music... Will have mine done in a day or 3.

The big challenge this round:
To get my star doing at least one of the things I wanted.

With all the different challenges (weather, equipment...) many reports here, there must be many great, interesting films coming up this round. Amazing what we go through to do what we love... to make film, and to have FUN! :)
I can't wait to watch all of them.


The photo is a "behind the scenes" shot taken by my sister while we were shooting the film.

[Kevin Railsback]

Well, rough edit done here as well. It would have been suicide to go out today so I tried as best as I could to transition the footage I had to make something work.
The transition still isn't right and I think it ruins the whole pace of the film at that point but unless I can find time to get dug out and shoot more footage it'll have to stand as is.

I'll put it away for a couple days and come back to it with fresh eyes and see how it looks then.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Good evening,

Spent another 4 hours behind the computer editing today. Had it all finished, Burnt a dvd of it, played it and it played well on my 54 inch plasma.

I made a quicktime rendition and disaster. two of my clips do not play in the same aspect ratio for some reason, My three freeze frames are widescreen but recuced 20% in size!!! I have never had these problems before!!!

I went out and shot a new establishing shot as I can't repeat the original which I loved. Did the other clip and will cut it in tomarrow.

I am comtemplating doing something more stoic instead of my action video.

Frustrating!!!

[Eric Gulbransen]

You know something Dale, sometimes things like that happen to me as well. And when they do I'm heart broken - "it'll never be as good.."

But you know what? Every single time it happens I come back stronger and create something even better.

Take a break, breathe a while, charge your batteries - and then make it happen!

[Eric Gulbransen]

All these ice cold tales of wonder and woe have me feeling a little "left out in the warm" over here on California's Pacific coast. Maybe I'm lucky to not be overexposed, but then, maybe I'm not. I grew up in the cold and I do remember how well a snow covered landscape captivated me. Biggest change the winters give here are we finally see green again. Green comes with the winter's generous rains which serve us much needed relief from the stingy dry climate of spring, summer, and even a good bit of fall.

Shooting for me this past week has been very exciting. Mind the fog, which I will somehow turn to opportunity, the bright sun has shed light on many new discoveries - all of which I have this challenge to give thanks. If I never tried, I never would have discovered Adventure's new meaning for me - embarking on an unknowing journey with no expectations, and no limitations.

I spent today learning about royalties, and searching through libraries of song for inspiration. I now understand, and have found, both. And just in time too because this winter's rains are about to return.

From somewhere in this can, and only in this can now, my short film will soon be born.

I hope...