Tales of Wonder and Woe: UWOL-Long-Form 2009

[Dale Guthormsen]

good evening,

first, I do not consider this round 2, but rather Update 2.

The crocus' have broken through the native prairie grasslands, gives a couple weeks of bloom each spring. Went out to film yesterday, it started to get windy and rained!! Today we woke up with snow on the ground and it snowed all day!! If it kills the flowers that is it for the year, UGGggg. Not essential for what i am doing but it would be nice.

Next week, weather permitting we are heading a few hours SW to shoot.


Hope all is going well for everyone!!!

I think geir is right, this is kind of videography is a "Love Hate" relationship!

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hi folks!
Well, long time since I've been writing something here!
Deadline for second round of footage for the long-form is approaching and I got nothing!

Last week I spent 5 days and nights out for the capercaillie and black grouse mating game, an empty moore was the only thing I was able to record during these days! So I'm in a real bad mood right now!!!

But I've been into this game for too long, so I know that sh** happens from time to time and I will definitive make up an entry showing Ole-Arne and me strive in the moore during these days and nights. But please don't expect any masterpiece... ...think I have to rewrite my script a bit... ...hmmm... ...but there is a late spring, summer and fall coming... ...have to make up a plan D, or was it plan E...

[Geir Inge]

Hi to all of you Long Formers :)

Sad to hear about you not finding the capercaillie and black grouse, PJ.
It's such an exciting game to watch.
Way up here on the north west coast, we have "the springtime og our life".
Well, maybe I'm overdoing by telling you so, but the leaves are at least green and in the gardens the flower is blooming, so just come on over Mat and do some gardening :)
The weather has been great for many days now, but on Saturday it started windy and today it also started raining.
Last week I took a trip to Runde and the Puffins was there allright :)
Thousands of them and I did see the Great Skua, too (my favorite).
On Saturday me and my youngest daughter (Elisabeth) made another trip to Runde, but this time the wind was to rough for any filming. Very sad, as the Puffins was struggling to make a landing :) It was quite amusing to watch, as they came in for landing like some torpedo missiles and then again, at the last seccond made a loop not to hit the ground.
I wish I could have capture it on tape, but sorry, the wind was too tough for my camera.
As my schedule is almost over booked because of my studies and work, I have to make a change in my plans for this Long Form contest. This change will be in how I "sew" together the whole story. Maybe the main story not will be about the seabirds or the puffins, but a travel through this part of Norway, showing the rich nature where the puffins and other seabirds will be a part of it all? Also I wish I was 2 person sometimes :) It's very hard to make certain takes and moves if you're filming yourself walking/talking etc.
Okidoki, I'll post a picture of a puffin at my feedback tread.

CU
Geir Inge

[Dale Guthormsen]

Per,


I thought I might share something that perhaps you know, perhaps not.

Various Grouse species that use a Lek to Drum up their mates do so at two different times of the year. In the Fall when the photo period is similar to that of spring you can often find them at their lek putting on a bit of a display.

so, if you can find the birds Lek you can get another chance at some footage.


Just a thought.


I know what its like to be out and get nothing, frustrating to say the least. After the snow on the blooming chorcus, I was pleased to see some survivors (perhaps late bloomers) yesterday. Now I am fighting gales. Kind of hard to fim macro when the plant is bashing around!!!

Considering building a wind barrier today!!!

Oh yea, last trek out in the blind the wind broke the inner graphite spars of my blind!!! Man, this year has been bad for wind!!!!!!!!!!

the Fun???!! Never Ends

[Catherine Russell]

Hi all:

Have a question for all of you experts out there. But first, sorry to hear about you not finding what you were after Per! You have the experience so you know this happens. I'm new at wildlife filming and I am starting to find out how Much this happens! For me, spying the Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep is my ultimate inspiration, and I spent 4 months in the park before I finally had good fortune to see them and catch them on film. I actually feel very fortunate that it only took 4 months. Talking with some rangers of the park, one said that it took them 6 years before seeing them! (As elusive as they are, still I don't think they must have been looking very hard ;-)).

Question for all of you. I have an MP3 music file for part of my entry. If you play it, it is a flawless recording but when it is processed with my movie, it isn't completely clean and has a slight skip here and there. It is the same using the MP3 or using it as a WAV file. These hiccups (there are only a few) are not random but occur in the same place every time. It's processed at the highest rates for audio recording.

Any suggestions?

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to seeing everyone's progress in a week!

Cat

[Kevin Railsback]

Cat,

If you have a lot of video streams with a high data rate WAV file, sometimes your NLE can't keep up and it skips frames.

Have you tried exporting the video and see if it plays fine?

My last computer would do that since it only had a single 1.67GHz chip. In order to get smooth playback I would have it skip frames. But once I exported the movie, it played fine with no problem.

If you're still having problems try reducing the data rate.

Good luck on your project. I haven't shot a thing for phase two yet!

[Catherine Russell]

Hi Kevin:

Thanks much for the advice. I'm still having the same problem, which is a bit baffling. I thought you had solved the problem by suggesting to Down-sample instead of keeping the data rate really high because I noticed that the data rate for the audio I was using was at 44.100 KHz and I was processing it higher. But no matter how low I go, it still hiccups in the same places in the exported movie file. If I play the mp3 file through itunes on my Mac, it plays fine. An interesting note. The hiccups occur in two places, and both times the music is playing the same notes for it repeats at the end.

I'll keep experimenting and let you know if I stumble across anything.

Thanks much!

Cat

[Kevin Railsback]

You're doing this on a Mac? Convert it to AIFF instead of WAV and see how it does.

[Catherine Russell]

Ahh, now that's smart! I'll remember that! I'll convert to an aiff for the Mac. Thanks, Kevin. That's why they pay you the big bucks. I didn't think of it because I haven't run across the problem before with wav files, but mp3's seem to be a different story.

For some reason, I re-exported the mp3 as a wav and tried it again, and it seemed to like this. So for now, I'm re-processing with the wav instead of the mp3. But what you say makes sense, and I'll stick with the aiff files on the Mac from now on.

Now what's this? You have all of that amazing footage from Africa and haven't started yet for the long form submissions starting tomorrow? And you're in the short form round as well? For shame, Kevin! You act like you actually have a real job with film or something ;-).

Don't think for a minute I heave a sigh of relief hearing you admit this. You tend to blow things out of the park once you turn your mind to it! Looking forward to seeing what you "throw" together.

Cat

[Chris Swanberg]

Yes Cat I agree.... Kevin's work inspires me. I too have "nothing" new for this round, but have ideas how to cobble something together by the deadline..I am excited because end of this month I get to go "home" to Glacier Park and spend a few days with the archivist.

Chris

[Per Johan Naesje]

Cat, just confirming what Kevin says. I had to convert a MP3 to AIFF before it was useable on my FCP-timeline. Think I did the conversion in QuickTime Player (Pro-version), File, Export..., then choose Sound to AIFF in the Export to-field!
In fact this was the Wilhelm Tell soundtrack, which I used in my Norwegian Wood entry (DVC/UWOL Charity Challenge).

[Kevin Railsback]

Cat,

Yeah, I'm in the short form too. Going to try and get out today and try to get some filming for that.

Not looking too promising on the long form. :)

[Mike Blumberg]

Hi All,

With the increase in projects over the last few weeks coupled with everything else we have in production, it is not a reality to keep my long form project alive at present.

I wish you all the best of luck.

If any of you need something feel free to contact.

And remember HAVE FUN.

[Annie Haycock]

It seems like nothing in the last six months has gone to plan, and UWOL long form is no exception.

Plan A - to film five-minute segments each month for a "year-in-the-life-of" type video seemed achievable at the time, but fell victim to lack of time (especially during the short daylight hours of winter and early spring)

Plan B - modify plan A to do ten-minute segments each season - but even that has failed due to lack of time.

Plan C - came to me yesterday when I took the camera to work with me in hope of producing something for the UWOL 13. The conditions weren't right for what I had in mind, but I thought I could start another project for the long-form. So I took some 20 minutes-worth of clips.

Today I went through the clips with MPEGstreamclip (back to the old computer for this as it doesn't seem to want to run on the new one - something to do with Vista 64?), discarded the obvious failures and wobbly bits - the strong winds yesterday weren't helping with keeping the equipment steady. That left me with some 10 minutes to clean-up and trim down in Premiere elements - on the laptop as I was fed up of the old desk-top crashing. Except that PE4 stopped working - it has apparently imported the clips, but won't let me do anything else. I will get version 7 for the new desktop - but I don't have time to organise it right now, as I have to go back to work in half an hour.

So, sad to say, I'm now out of the running on this.

Next video objective - to keep out of the shark tank for UWOL 13!!

The rest of you - remember rule #11

[Dale Guthormsen]

Good Morning,


Just rendering a few minutes of footage for part three of my long form.

Im in the short form and was thinking about shooting some today, well its blowing and snowing out there!! Ugggg!