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

Ok, so this starts our wonder and woes for the long-form challenge. Hopefully this gonna be a very long thread with lots of ideas, thoughts, fails, those magic moments, the shoot I was missing (oh'boy) etc, etc...

I had a flying start, joined the dvc/uwol charity challenge. Got some great footage. I'm still developing my idea, having some plans to do a docu about the surrounding area of the Capital of Norway, Oslo.
A couple of persons will be involved "as actors" and of course the wildlife you'll find in the forest and parks in this area.

The story I’m working on involves a lone Turkey Vulture that leaves her normal territory and flies to the other side of the mountain to forage. Along the way she passes over several different habitats as the altitude changes. The vulture is a means to “look down” into the lives of various other animals in each habitat as she passes over. I think this is called the “chocolate box” approach. I won’t know what other animals are involved until I see what I can find. It makes it difficult to write. I hadn’t thought about actors. I could probably incorporate an encounter with campers… Hmmm. I can’t wait to hear what everyone else is planning.

So far I've seen through all my uwol videos, to get an idea.
I think the first phase has to be: planning the case.
What am I to choose?
Habitat, birds and animals in a habitat?
One bird, one animal, make a wildlife fiction?

Well, I have decided the working title of my uwol Long Form video, and that is:
"Wild on the shore", based on my uwol#3, 4 and 9 video's.
I will try to focus on the great skua, there are only 50 couples in Norway, and I think it is a fasinating bird. I know where to find an White Taled Eagle's nest, so maybe I'll try to put'em in. I have to visit Runde island, I have to make some trip's to the sea, and I have to take many hikes in the mountains to get the right cutaways etc,etc

Don't know, but if some of you need a free prg for planning/storyboarding, here's one for free downloading, link: celtx - Integrated Media Pre-Production

Good luck - or should I say: "Break a leg"

Geir Inge

I'm still searching for the angle for mine.
I'd like to expand on my river film since shooting water has become kinda my thang. :)

As for me, I'm heading out of here. Got places to go, video to shoot and a challenge to enter. My next international wildlife destination is........... Take care, Bob

Hey Per, don't you have a birthday coming up in March? If I recall this is a BIG one. Best to you in advance. Bob

Good evening,

Ahhh. "the plans of Mice and Men".

Good news, I received my xlh1 two days ago and will be shooting with the hd version of my xl2, lots to learn along the way. Per Johan, any outdoor preset you fancy??

Today I spent 7 hours driving my number one son to the S>E> corn of the province to undertake a new Oil oriented Job, Laborious.

However I spent a fair amount of time on my handy digital recorder hashing over plans for the Video.

1.) the video will be broken into three 26 minute sections.

part 1) In pursiut of a falcon
part 2) The nurturing of a hunter (may be Falcon or Gamehawk)
part 3) The Hunter and the Hunted
Part 4) The meeting (may not to be included) Alberta & Saskatchewan falconers field meets, possibily included in part 3 if time permits

Part 1

This will be broken into to two juxtaposed posibilities:
a) combing the countryside looking for wild nesting falcons
this should give images of a few different environs that falcons use.
Making the climb and legally taking a falcon from the wild
b) the domestic propagation of falcons in captivity
this will show some courting and food transfers and such.
c) documentation of two individuals and why they chose to follow their
rationale for taking a wild or domestic raptor

D) will show the taking of the young falcon and bringing it to its new home.

Part 2 The Nurturing of a Hunter.
a) raising the falcon in the home
b) allowing the young falcon to develop in a natural fashion
c) social Development and needs
d) discussion and documentation of the imprinting process
e) First elements

Part 3 The Hunter and the Hunted

the game
The falcons
Hunting dynamics
The dogs the game and the falcon relationships.

the falcons will be shown in the beginning learning on waterfowl
Fall Upland hunting
Winter hunting.

the Bond between man and wildlife, to be demonstrated through all three parts, summarized here.

closing shot of outragous sunset sillouetting a falcon falconer and dog!!


Well, that is it in a nut shell!! A rather big undertaking, but it is my mission for 2009!!!

I headed out tomarrow for a six day shoot for much of the winter part of the film.

Mike - This sounds like a great piece. Exactly the sort of intimate wildlife programs I love. I am intrigued by one thing however. Do you plan to takcle the vultures POV...because your story seems to be based on just that and would not work to well without it. Is there a microlight/glider session planned ? come on tell us what youre up to ? :-)

Dale - OMG - Not happy with one episode, your going for 3x26. Reaching for the skies in more way than one huh ! Fair play to you, I'm still scard by the prospect of doing one 26 minute piece!

Mat- Spot on! I think the vulture’s POV is essential. I’m approaching that problem in four ways:
1) Microlights are discouraged in the area I’ll be working. There’s a lot of smuggling there using them. When they are detected the Air Force flies F-16s within 100 feet and tries to knock them down with the jet wash. I’ve seen it happen- not pretty. The next mountain range to the north has similar habitats and topography and there’s a private airfield nearby. I’ll try to work a deal for a ride up there.
2) NASA’s WorldWind program (public domain) is easy to animate. I was thinking of using a WorldWind animation in the background and using Lightwave 3D to animate a vulture in the foreground to illustrate how thermals work. Perhaps animation could pick up some of the Vulture POV heavy lifting as well. Perhaps not.
3) I just got a cheap Chinese-made no-name-brand AVCHD camera. It uses cell phone batteries and records to flash memory. It only weighs a few ounces. I’m busy now mounting it to a model glider. If it works, more on that later.
4) In the past, to simulate a “bird’s eye view” I have mounted a camera to a 20 foot pole projecting out the passenger’s side window of a vehicle. With the camera angled slightly away you slowly drive down a mountain road with a shear drop off into a valley. If you set up the shot carefully it can be very convincing- especially on an inside curve.

Dale- Congratulations on the new camera. I hope she gets a good work out on your trip!

Still working on the story...pre writing phase. Notes like crazy, index cards....stuff everywhere but no footage yet.

You guys are lucky... I don´t even have a story yet.
Well, I have one rough/basic idea, but that would be impossible to shoot now during winter time. So I guess I will have to come up with something else instead.

I have made a pilot fore my project ,whit old cut from the area I will
make my film.The old cut is handheld but the retake will be nicer.
Do we send in the first view at 8-11 feb or 16-18 feb a bit confused?
My retake will start in mid April and end in 25 okt.


All Best
VJV.


_______________

Yes - Long-form rules #5 and 7 have diffferent dates for Feb - presumably rule #5 is correct as all other dates for submission throughout the year are given there.

Rule #7 date is fixed, y'all - changed to Feb. 16-18...the old dates applied to when we were brainstorming the rules. Feb. 16-18 is the actual. Sorry for the mix-up.

Glacier National Park Turns 100
 

My plan is an "outdoor" documentary about the 100th anniversary of a place very special to me, Glacier National Park in the US state of Montana (and Waterton Park where it enters Canada). I literally grew up near there and spent a lot of time there in my childhood and it holds a special place in my heart. It has a rare and unique beauty of a pristine glaciated overthrust fault mountain range, something occurring to my knowledge only in Montana and Canada (think Banff - all part of the same Lewis Overthrust fault so it all looks the same) and also in China. I stand to be corrected if there are more. I will show you billion year old seabeds sitting in broken blocks at 7000 feet elevation, and also the first life on earth - fossilized stromatalites (algae colonies - the only fossils in the park due to the age of the rocks). Also share some beautiful glacial erratics and striated blocks that were dragged along by the glaciers in their retreat, I will take you onto disappearing glaciers that will vanish, at present rates, in another 30 years.

The early part will of necessity be a "Ken Burns like" treatment of historical photographs, selected in concert with the Park's archivist and historians, and I am trying to set up those connections early. The Park itself opens on Memorial Day and the pass through the Park later than that usually assuming a good winter. Backcountry hiking trails often do not open until mid July due to snows.

This is true wilderness and home to one of only a few remaining (and apparently sustaining) Grizzly bear populations in the lower 48 - my definition of "wild". (Grizzlies are the "Canaries in the Mine" for our wild places.)

I will do my field shooting in the summer and fall.

I am still not sure what I will be able to post in February. That is troubling me.

Chris Swanberg

This sounds great Chris. Your certainly going to take us back for some natural history with those stromatalites fossils....can't go back much further than that :-) - I certainly liked reading your little pitch above and can't wait to see how this evolves! Great stuff

Hey Chris - sounds really interesting. Quite an ambitious plan to accomplish all that!

As for your Feb submission - perhaps you could submit 3 minutes of maps, showing routes, topography etc or showing us close-ups of the different areas where your movie will be taking place. Who knows - maybe you will be able to use them and even if you don't use them in your final movie, at least we will be the wiser for the intro.

Geir thanks for the link to the storyboard program. I usually use mind-maps for all my planning but as I am working with my son Gary this round I have come to realize that a storyboard is essential as well. I really like the idea of being able to play the storyboard like a movie!

Hi everyone:

Looks like ideas are brewing. Chris, I too have a National Park in my backyard... Rocky Mountain National Park. So I think I'm going to be mucking around there for this challenge. I'm still background reading and have not formulated an angle.

At first I was interested in the Buffalo and wanted to follow a theme that highlighted this animal through the eyes of our Native American Indians ... but I got a bit overwhelmed by the thought of producing enough film material to do the subject justice.

All the best to your project efforts,

Cat

Hi Chris- What a great project. I like that you’re using pan-and -scan. Videomaker has two articles about it in this issue. Have you thought about trying the 2 ½ D effect? Here is a tutorial that I found very helpful. It’s for After Effects, but even if you don’t use that software all the free tutorials on this site are great.

VideoCopilot.net Video Tutorials & Post Production

Thank you all for your kind words of support. I hope (and on some level have little niggling worries) that I may be biting off a lot on this one. Succeed or fail it will strengthen my skills and take me somewhere I love to be.

Marj I think I may put togther a little overview... almost like a trailer... for the Feb submission.It is going to be tight timewise to do so, and who knows, maybe that will be my first failing - I certainly hope not.

Mike thanks for the link.... I'll say one thing for HDV... it makes a software consumer out of you! Great tutorials though.... as for 3D... well we'll see how my time goes, I can already see some places it might be a really cool effect.... however, crawl before walk, walk before run...

Chris

ps. Cat I would be happy to host you to visit the Moise National Bison Range near my family home in Montana this summer if you stick with the Bison story idea.

This is my first post for the long form and I am looking forward to it. I have entered the short form a couple of times and have never finished because of work.

But this one has really got me moving.

I depart in a few days to shoot Trumpter Swan, on the ice flows of a river north of my home, which is a part of this Doc. If I am successful I will post some clips next week.

I wish you all good luck, and if I can assist any of you please let me know.


Have a great day.

This is a nice sentiment, Mike...I think it will be the key to the success of these projects, helping each other out in every way that we can.

It's great to see all the momentum for these projects already forming.

Also, keep in mind that whatever you post in February doesn't necessary have to make it in the final project, with that in mind, a trailer is a great idea for anyone struggling with the February deadline. It can help you with formulating and get you out there shooting.

Hi guys.

Well my strongest concept so far is something very 'close to home' for all of us. I would like any opinions/critiques on it before I decide it is the way I go.

'Gardens' and there ever increasing importance to wildlife. Because of the way many overly 'preened' gardens are these days. Without the compost heaps, rotting logs and mixed beds of plants, weeds and wild flowers of even 20 years ago many once common wildlife species are suffering. The cumulative habitat of a row of 20-30 gardens can form important areas for wildlife and for the humans who share them to meet that wildlife and introduce it to there children. So my idea is to get this message across and try to educate people to consider their gardens in this way and not sterilise them into minimalist, lifeless outdoor rooms.

So......???

I like it Mat. I think you have an interesting program and a timely message. Sounds like it might lend itself to a lot of macro work and close-ups of smaller organisms. Lots of folks notice when the hares and hedgehogs are gone. Precious few even consider things like slugs, millipedes and voles as wildlife, much less worry about extirpating them.

The guiding theme for my project will be the 19th Century. For a long time, I thought that the days of seeing large numbers of birds, like the flight of billions of Passenger Pigeons, were gone. In studying to prove the point I realized that it wasn't true. You can still see these things (well not billions, but certainly thousands). I will film at a couple of likely locations, and also do something with Audubon, and the market hunters of the decades after the Civil War. Should be fun.

Mat... an interesting theme. In a way more so because when I think of the "perfect" manicured garden, I think of English gardens. I'll be very interested to know what you come up with as you move forward.

Steve.. while I am perfectly happy to live in the age I do and enjoy many of its comforts, such as the one we communicate on right now, I often wish I could take a trip back 100 or so years and see the world of nature as it was then. Yours shouldin some ways embody my idea of my fantasy time travel trip, on film. I'm anxious to see how your project matures.

Ok, yesterday I had my first trip doing some research into the fjords.
Nice weather and I did manage to get a few cutaways.
Now, suddenly, I'm not sure how to make this Long Form video.
Do I make a video based on one or maybe a few creatures in a local area, or shall I make a video from the whole area, Sunnmore? The last idea is for sure not easy, but I'm very tempted :) We'll see.
OK, here's some shots from yesterdays shooting.
It's from one our fjords, "Hjorundfjorden" and the big mountain is called, "Slogen".
Some mallards relaxing on the fjord.

Hi Geir

I have the same problem - deciding on the scale of the area to be covered. I've decided to go for the smaller practical area - some lakes that are part of a nature reserve - and follow the annual cycle of whatever goes on there. If I can do that, I'll be happy. Covering the whole nature reserve would be a full time job. Those guys that have a story from the point of view of one species - they must have a lot more time available than I have.

Geir - My advice is don't consider one species or one area but do some digging for a interesting local story and see what characters you can then use to tell that story. Thinking this way will give you a lot more milage, create a better story and probably take you in a direction you'd never thought of ! :-)

That's a good advice Mat.
My main challenge for this Uwol LF is in fact, to get myself enough time :)
As I'm working 80%, family to take care of and studying part time, I really don't have any time left to spend on Uwol, but I just have to :)
I also keep an eye on our dear friend, Kevin (lucky chap) who's in Africa for the moment.
Just looked at his first photo from Africa (facebook).
Just wish I was... :)

Wow....I didn't know he'd left yet. I thought he'd been a little quiet on the email for a while! Yep what a lucky chap....I'm sure the results will be fabulous to say the least!


I'm hearing you on the whole time thing. I've got a number of projects on the go and finding the time to write a 20min + film is a challenge.....BUT as you say its in the blood huh ;-) !

Good Afternoon,

Matt, I really like your idea of gardens for wildlife!!! So much can be done to encourage life into your yard it is quite amazing, Brillant idea!!!


Chris, My uncle was a market hunter on the misouri river in the great depression (of the 30's) It was interesting listening to him talk of the "good old Days" a matter of perspective for sure.

I could show you groups of hundreds of thousands to a million or more birds while setting in one spot!!

I look forward to everyones endevors and learning along the way!!

First Shoot
 

Well,

I spent 6 days out on a shoot. For a change the weather was perfect for winter weather!! No wind the entire time. This was about as good as it gets, it only dropped down to about 10 degress Farenheit and warmed up to the low twenties. At Tronde's suggestion I purchased a polar bear but it is not hear as of yet. All the shots were off the shoulder action shots. We shot three hours of tape and I am thinking I have about 6 minutes of good footage, not bad for what we were shooting.

I am kind of working backwards getting winter follow up footage for the spring to fall sequences.

I can post a couple sequences on vimeo, but wonder if we are supposed to wait till next month?

I am thinking about making a documentary about an important place in the history of Norway. Aging a few thousand years back, through the time of Norway's first king in the late 800's, the viking age... until now.

My problem so far is finding enough (and most important, accurate) information about everything.
Still struggling with building a story around it all. Crossing my fingers.
Much work, combined with traveling every 2nd week doesn't make it easier. So basically TIME is my biggest challenge for the February deadline.
One way or another, I will make the video... within the uwol, (or hopefully not outside the challenge).

This will be the challenge of the challenges!
Good luck to everyone!

Hey all!

Nice reading all of your plans, looks like everyone has a busy year in store! Mat, funnily enough I had exactly this idea too on the "garden over the year" thing, I can just sit for ever and film great tits and robins, not to mention the macro possibilities that lurk in every corner. But, I decided I'm gonna do a year in the making of on a little bigger scale, a stately home and grounds called Cliveden, which comprises of chalk beech woodland, formal gardens, amazing scenery and a 2 mile stretch of the river thames. Got quite a few stories and species to start working on, fingers crossed I'll have time to fit it in alongside being a dad. Surprisingly the off road pram makes for a great dolly ;-)

Here's a quick shoot i did there last spring, testing out the letus. Hopefully I'll get there at the same time this year.

YouTube - Cliveden in spring HD

Also have just started tinkering with R/C gliders with maybe the idea of getting some aerial footage. All good fun!!!

Cheers!

UWOLers are the only folks who can say stuff like this and not get moderated into oblivion!

(ok, someone hadda say it...)

really enjoying listening to everyone's struggles...that's what we're here for!

Thank you Meryem. (whew) I thought I was gonna burst.

LOL, that was an honest inclusion ;-)

I had thought about the garden theme too, how ours is going to recover from the drastic effects of the building project - renovation and extension - to the house. But the building work still isn't finished, the shed is still sitting in the middle of the lawn, and I can't work up any enthusiasm for the garden at present. But . . who knows . . . in another few weeks . . . . .

Meanwhile, I have at last managed to fight my way into the shed, to the peanut bin, and filled up the feeders, which are now regularly visited by tits again.

Rob/Annie - Just to clarify a bit, my idea certainly isn't about following my own garden (which is great since I've moved!) throughout a year.

Its to explore what gardens in general mean for wildlife and how in recent years the tendency towards paving/decking gardens over, putting all your plants in pots and generally being too tidy has a detrimental effect on garden wildlife.

I'll be visiting many different gardens and looking at the positive and negative impacts of how people keep them and the different species that they attract. Also a key part would be the interaction of young kids with wildlife. If our gardens loose their butterfly's, bubble bees and song birds then children will grow up never having important first connections with some amazing wildlife and be further dis-connected from the natural world. This of course has much wider connotations...