Tales of Wonder and Woe: UWOL #8

[Trond Saetre]

Originally Posted by Dale Guthormsen

Would be interesting to hear how much time you all spent in total to make your films.

I spent about 4 hours hiking on the mountain where I shot my video.
Editing was another 6-7 hours, but a lot of that time includes searching for the right music.

[Paul Mailath]

I spent a week waiting for approval to film, 2 hours being driven around the park by a ranger and shown the problem, about 4 hours filming and 10 hours editing (not sure what I'm doing) and another week obsessing about the mistakes before deciding not to do anything about them.

[Bob Thieda]

Originally Posted by Dale Guthormsen

Would be interesting to hear how much time you all spent in total to make your films.


Dale

Not as much time as the last one, that's for sure.
Shot about 5 hours on the first day after the theme annoucement, (3 hours was on one time lapse shot), just because it was a nice sunny day.
Glad I did.....would have shot more, (and better), stuff if the sun had ever come back out, which it didn't.
The sun is finally back out today....after I finished of course ;)

And yesterday spent about 5-6 hours editing and rendering.


Bob

[Rob Evans]

Got back from Norway last night - 14 hours of footage to capture and a fair bit of editing to do - better keep the kettle hot!!!

Ps you guys in Norway - you have some country there! - I was totally spellbound.....

[Dale Guthormsen]

Good Morning,

Last nights download did not go. My one computer doesn't seem to want to get involved!!! Went to the old P4 and it is downloading as I write this.


After seeing what you have done, I do not feel so bad about the time i spent on this stuff. You all seem to put in a lot of time as well!! No wonder there are so many outstanding videos!!

For this one I used 4 one hour tapes and one 80 minute tape. The time lapse took just under 3 hours. I spent 4:30 am to 9:30 am in the blind to get some terrific shots, of which I only used perhaps 30 second of footage.
Half a day to get a quadrupid I did not use. Also got a great shot of a lapland larkspur at the same time, did not fit into the theme well enough to use, good archival footage. I drove 180 miles to get a couple shots I did at least use.
I pretty much spent 6 or so hours getting the music right, but that was because I was learning how to use sonic fire pro at the same time. I wont count yesterday as I spent most of the day trying to compress it with better resolution and staying under the 60 mb limit!!

I have made a 156 mb version for vemeo and will post it on the 21st.


I learned a bunch more this round!!! what a Blast, What a relief to be finished!!

I must learn to not be so darn obsessive compulsive!!! wish I had more talent to go with the compulsiveness.

[Trond Saetre]

Originally Posted by Rob Evans

Got back from Norway last night - 14 hours of footage to capture and a fair bit of editing to do - better keep the kettle hot!!!

Ps you guys in Norway - you have some country there! - I was totally spellbound.....

Nice to hear you had a great trip, Rob.
14 hours footage will keep you busy for a while...

[Ralph Gereg]

Well, being new here, I have learned this round that there is much more for me to be learned.

It seems that the popular term here for not completing the assignment successfully is the not so fun swim in the shark tank! For this round of UWOL, I am definately shark food! Seems that little Nemo is safe from Jaws grasp for the moment. :)

Perhaps the most valuable lesson that I've learned so far is to flesh out the best idea that you can think of and begin working on it right away. I think I spent way too much time trying to come up with the great aha! moment and went through something like 5 topics before finally settling on my last idea (that I know would work) only to not have time to shoot it and actualy get it completed.

It's definately one thing to sit back, watch the movies produced by you all, and totally another thing to watch after having attempted to make one yourself. There is a whole new level of appreciation that comes into play with the experience. I think I will be much better prepared for the next round (I hope).... I just hope we have an easier theme to work with. This one, Transformation was a real brute for a first-timer! I had like a gazillion ideas that I could have used for the Adventure theme. Too bad I didn't know about it then.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of you alls entries (those of you who are not sleeping with the fishes in the shark tank with me that is!)

Ralph

[Mike Beckett]

Well that's it, I'm uploading right now - one day early, against all my expectations!

Overall, I've spent:
+ 10 hours shooting (most of that time was hiding under trees waiting for the rain/sleet/hail to stop, or the sun to come out again).
+ 6 hours capturing and sorting through clips.
+ 14 hours editing
+ 1 hour in a wardrobe trying to record voiceover
+ 3 hours compressing and uploading
+ 3 hours choosing music
+ 20 minutes being accosted by random dogs along a riverbank
+ 15 minutes wearing my UWOL Challenge hat (people started to point and laugh)
+ nipped fingers, bruises, bumps and strains from carrying a Vinten aluminium pozi-loc tripod around for a day
+ oodles of fun and experience

That's a lot for a 3 minute video, I suppose, but I kept going back and fussing over the editing, particularly the sound.

I'm quite pleased with the final result, given that I've never tried to film anything remotely nature/wildlife-ish before.

Now I can have a night off!

[Steven Gotz]

I suppose I should feel guilty for having things so easy. But let's face it, I knew what I was going to shoot the minute I saw the post with the topic. Caterpillars, Chrysalis and Butterflies, Simple. The veritable definition of "transformation".

I drove the 30 minutes to Epcot, waited 15 minutes for the park to open, made a mad dash for the butterfly tent, spent 15 minutes or so shooting before anyone else even wandered into the tent, drove 30 minutes home. I mean, really, who else gets to Disney's Epcot at opening to see the butterflies?

I had pretty much planned the shoot during the drive there. And I pretty much knew what was going to make it into the video on the drive back. The only question was "How much of the footage would be in focus?". I don't have a special lens for closeups.

It took me 10 minutes to set up and record the voiceover, and about one hour to capture and edit the footage. The music took 10 minutes to find and edit. I shot the footage in the order I planned to use it, so it was pretty simple.

All in all, this was the easiest challenge yet. I only ended up with a little over two minutes of footage, so encoding the result was simple. I didn't come close to the file size limit. So one encoding did the trick.

I just hope everyone enjoys it. I won't win, but I made some pretty pictures available for people to look at. That was the very simple exercise (for me) this time. Just make it pretty.

[Kevin Railsback]

Well, went out yesterday and got a few clips.
Today was perfect but of course, there were so many things on my plate that I never had an opportunity to get out at all today.

So, hopefully I can get a couple more shots tomorrow, edit,compress and upload by midnight.

It's going to be very simple and certainly not my cotton candy stuff from previous entries for sure.

My goal was to stay out of the tank this year. So, I'm trying really hard to resist the urge to chuck the whole thing cause I already know I'm not going to be happy with it.

[Bryce Comer]

Yahoo,
Ten to one here in the morning, & i just finished uploading. Nothin like leaving things to the last minute!

Bryce

[Brian McKay]

My entry is uploading as I type this.

I've stretched the theme in the past but this time I think I've stretched beyond the breaking point. Transformation my butt....it's still winter.

Good luck everyone, I'm looking forward to watching them.

Brian

[Peter Damerell]

We spent a successful day filming in a beautiful wooded valley which, 150 years ago, was a major gunpowder works producing high quality powder for the local mining industry. The idea was to show the slow transformation from a hive of industrial activity to the wildlife haven that the valley has become. We were especially keen to show just how long it takes for an environment to recover after alteration by man. There was certainly enough potential there for a decent film but alas the tape heads on Nicks XL1 were totally shot. All the footage was useless with frames dropped all over the place and the sound cutting out for about a second every two or three seconds. An all round disaster which sees us plunge without style into the shark tank on only our second UWOL. We’re obviously both gutted but will back stronger next time; I’m already counting the days!

Can’t wait to see all the films from those who were more successful than us, it sounds like there are going to be some great entries!