UWOL X CVTA PSA by Jeff Hendricks

[Jeff Hendricks]

Hi All,

The mission of the Carson Valley Trails Association is to obtain legal access to existing trails and property owned by the BLM and the United State Forest Service for the local community for hiking, mountain biking and equestrian uses.
(taken from www.carsonvalleytrails.com).

At the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains near the Lake Tahoe Basin we in Nevada’s Carson Valley have some of the most extraordianry terrain to explore. High desert landscape contends with stunningly green pine forests in which quiet streams lay hidden and aspen groves sparkle like a school of fish in the late afternoon breeze. The CVTA’s trail building campaign has been commendable and have avid hikiers (such as myself) begging for more. The CVTA continues to need help from the community to maintain their efforts in offering trail access so that we may visit our rarley seen natural beauty amidst the mighty Sierras.

It was an honor to work with Kerstin and Jeremy of the CVTA in both creating this film and in their excellent acting. Also a big shout out to the cast and crew of the film for putting up with long afternoons, many many retakes and uncomfortable positions (most of which did not even make the final cut). Also a special thanks to Mark Kuniya for the beautiful guitar music…thanks bro!

It is also wonderful to be back in the swing with all of you very talented UWOL filmmakers.

I look forward to your comments.

Since I did not get to put credits on the PSA here they are…

Starring (in order of appearance)
Jeremy Vlcan as the hiker (also in voice over)
Ryan Kraten and Snicker Kraten
Todd Jezek
Allison Kraten
Kerstin Wolle
Alisa and Mark Kuniya
Aiden and Norma Hendricks


Crew
Sound tech and assistant DP Mark Kuniya
Music by Mark Kuniya
Written and Directed by Jeff Hendricks

[Ryan Farnes]

Well done Jeff. You're using a jib to get those nice moving shots I assume...? Very nice smooth feel most of the time.

Whole piece has a nice informative flow. Plenty of extras to establish a healthy image of lots of people using it. Your mentioning of retakes makes me cringe. :-) Hehe. Gotta love telling people, "Lets try that one more time..."

[John Dennis Robertson]

Hi Jeff
This is no doubt the winning entry.My all time fav Uwol piece was your touching generations for the water challenge, Before every challenge I seemto go back and watch that piece,and learn something new from it everytime.The way you compose the shots,and tell the story in both of these challenges is outstanding...I am a big fan...keep up the good work.

[Trond Saetre]

Jeff, I do a lot of hiking myself, and from the very beginning I knew you had a great theme here. Think this video is the one that touched me most.
Well done!

I had roughly the same thing in my mind for the organization I contacted, but never heard back from.
Glad you made it!!

[Meryem Ersoz]

I felt like I was watching television, what more can I say? You nailed it, man!

Great looking video for a great cause!

[Dale Guthormsen]

Jeff,

Extremely well done!! Message said it all. I think the audio was first class, or should I call it fifth business.

Your shots were well thought out and selected!! I know it is summer and skies are always a bit of a pain but a couple of the skies seemed slightly burnt.

totally first rate!!!!

[Marj Atkins]

Hi Jeff - At the time of doing all my comments your feedback thread wasn’t up yet, hence the late posting.

The first thing that struck me when watching your entry was wow - the professional quality of the camera work and construction of this video is outstanding. You have produced some really stunning footage of the area with imaginative angles, view points, smooth jib work and managed to capture a beautiful quality of light throughout. I particularly like the way you included the logo.

The soulful, poetic treatment of the first half of the PSA contrasted well with the business-like, to-the-point feel of the second half - a neat concept - although my first reaction to the swing over was that your PSA would really befit from a different voice - preferably a friendly but business-like female voice - in the second half. The same person breaking the mood didn’t sit quite right with me and his diction isn’t as clear as in the first half - too fast.

One other small nitpick - the two scenes at the end showing couples enjoying the scenery were too uncomfortably skew for me. I get the feeling those folk are going to take a tumble any minute - not the kind of feeling I want to have in a scenario like this!

All round a really superb job as usual - well done Jeff.

[Jeff Hendricks]

Hello,

Thanks for all of the feedback.

So in making this film I got a bunch of new toys

An A1...my vx 2100 had a chip issue (Sony has not gotten back with me it is supposed to be recalled) so I had to figure out all of the ins and outs of a new camera in one day...

New mic MKH 416 (sweet)

and...

The smooth camera movements came from...the 12 foot Kessler Crane...awesome piece of machinery...except it took me and 5 of my actors to walk it up the hill to the sets...total weight including camera, k-pod, crane, counter weights was like 100 pounds...we all got a good workout that day...I used the crane in every single shot seen in the film...love that bad boy.

and I spent lots o money...but it was worth it!

Finally, just as Meryem predicted, I met some terrific people and gained a world of knowledge from "THE X"

Jeff

[Geir Inge]

Hi Jeff and well done on delivering video for uwolx.
Your tilts and pans gives your video a 3D feeling - I like that :)
You have a story and I think your use of narrator is great.
Different age on the people tells me that this is for everybody, not only some few "nerds" enjoying mother nature.
Love the guitar, footsteps and the backgroundsound. Great sound mix!
When I look at a video I always say that sound is at least 50% of the video.

OK, all the best.
Geir Inge

[Brian Luce]

I want one of those cranes!

Cranes are great, you can do a lot of camera moves with them.

[Jeff Hendricks]

Let me just tell you...worth the money big time!

[Rob Evans]

Hey Jeff,
Firstly, great to have you back in!!
Your pedigree really showed through here, the visual clarity and composition was really good throughout. For me however there was a couple of things that didn't work so well.
The first half felt really nicely paced, and nicely dream like -but then the second half, it felt like you were suddenly trying to jam in too much information vocally, and I really struggled to take it all in on the first viewing. I did love the use of the jib throughout, it really added to the feel of the piece, but some of the horiz pans were a little uneven - hard to get right i know, but I found it a little distracting.
Overall, wonderful use of people and scenery - which is put to good use for this mission ;-)

[Markus Nord]

Really nice camerawork there Jeff… I like the flow in this PSA… one of the best. The shot of the guy from front to back and view of from the hills was really nice. Maybe you could try to use another voice for the last info, just to get a deference between the “walker” and the “talker”… maybe…

Markus

[Mat Thompson]

A JEFF JIBARAMA !!!!

Creative, very nice shots, great emotive feel, great pace and a strong use of characters...which seems to be something you're very skilled at!

Pure pro output with very little to critique. However I did feel your VO was 'crushed' a little at the end of the piece and probably needed to lose a few words to help in breathe. I also didn't like seeing the logo throughout although this is very minor and I know something that occurs more often in the US.

Great quality output fella, I bet the client is chuffed to bits.