UWOL 18 THE LIVING GROUND by Finn-Erik Faale

[Finn-Erik Faale]

My video is looking down to the ground, a wet and cold day in November.
It is all shot in my neighborhood, the forests around the the town where I live.
The macro footage is shot with an EOS 550 XLR camera. It is used without any form of extra equipment, just the tripod.
Some shots are made by my HDV as well. I have to work a lot with the XLR to become familiar with its possibilities and insufficiencies as a video camera.
I appreciate the regularity of the UWOL Challenge for practicing the next months.

The living ground on Vimeo

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hei Finn-Erik,
nice video with good details in the macroshoots! To shoot macro with the tiny DOF, sometimes only a few mm is very hard and I think you did well. Maybe a few shoots a tad out of focus but overall good.

You are lucky to be able to make your own music. The music fit the footage well.

Your editing is in a good phase, overall a very good piece!

[Markus Nord]

Nice macro work there Finn-Erik... Good job!
It is so nice to se that more and more trying out the DSLR cameras (I guess that's what you meen with XLR camera). nice VO too...
maybe you could try to shot more than one angle one the insects that don't move, just to get some more shots to cut in...


Markus

[Trond Saetre]

Hei Finn-Erik

I love your macro work! Maybe I should try my Canon 40D for filming sometime.
Cool to see how we both used water in our films.

You made your own music? It fits very well to the visuals.
Thank you for sharing.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Good Morning,

Wow, what terrific macro shots!!!! And to dig up all those subjects with such poor weather!!!!!

Now, did you play that Harmonica?? You just do not hear harmonicas very often and I really liked that!!

Seemed to me you might have had some kind of naration at the end or something linking back to the opening statements.

really nicely done!!!!

[Finn-Erik Faale]

Per Johan, Marcus, Trond, Dale:

Thank you all so much for comments and good suggestions for improvement.
These moving insects gave me some pain. It was not easy to hold the focus manually at the camera display with an insect running in front of the lens.
Maybe repeated practice makes the master ????
I am glad you liked the music
Dale: It is me who is maltreating the harmonica.

[Mike Sims]

Hello Finn-Erik! I am glad to see another video from you. I am also glad to see you are shooting some with the 550D because I am too! I have trouble focusing because I don’t have a viewfinder. I have to use the button to magnify the screen then focus then back out to compose. I miss a lot of action that way. How are you working? I like your low angle macro shots. You also use other camera angles. I often forget to do that. One thing- between the end of the water sound and the beginning of the music it is noticeable that there is no other sound but the voice over. I think some ambient sound would smooth this over. Good job finding so many critters this time of year. I look forward to another video from you next time!

[Chris Barcellos]

Into the mud and under the rocks... this is well in keeping with the intimate detail theme.

Great close up shots.

[Rich Ryan]

Nice macro work on the insects! I was hoping for a few more insect macros in my video but did not have as much luck as you did. It's hard to manage the DOF of macro with some of the larger species. What lens did you use for your macro shots? Did you used to 550 for only the macro shots?

The opening seemed a bit slow to me. Things picked up after your over turned the rock.

As usual you have produced an excellent musical score to match your video.

Overall an excellent video.

[Finn-Erik Faale]

Thanks again for comments.
Mike,
It looks like we have most of the same experiences with the 550D.
Normally I use the button to magnify the screen like you do. Most of the shots are static.

Rick,
I did use a Canon 100 mm macro lens for the insects. The streaming water and the over turning rock is HDV.

[Bill Thesken]

Yeah Finn, some great close ups. Wow I've never seen a worm so close, like an elephants trunk. I did not like the centipedes however. Over here they have a painful bite and can show up very unexpected, like when you are sleeping and roll over on one...
This macro filming I'm finding out is an art and technique of it's own.

[Mat Thompson]

Hi Finn-Erik

Another nice piece of work from you. Your work always has a nice wholesome feel to it and I enjoyed this film.

I thought your lead into the story was interesting. Raising the interesting topic of the more more constant underworld habitat and looking at some of it's inhabitants when you got there. However I thought after introducing your film well you provided no meat to the story. (Apart from your images of course which were very nice). I felt you should/could have explained about the more consistant world below that is shielded from the seasonal changes happening above and maybe dropped a few facts in. I think this would have made your piece feel more finished. I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Thanks for sharing and I'm loving the Centipedes and Millipedes :)

Mat

[Marj Atkins]

Hi Finn-Eric
I always enjoy your films and this one is no exception. This is, as usual, a very neat, well constructed film and a joy to watch. I was really interested to see that even in November you managed to find a good selection of invertebrates, still active, simply by turning over rocks! Some stunning shots in there too – I love the shot of the slug. Very nice framing.

Your music is always so clean and sounds really professional and I was wondering how you record that – do you do that in a studio or at home or what?

A beautiful film.

[Catherine Russell]

Hey Finn-Erik:

Your contributions always give me the sense of how talented and classically trained the Faale family is. Bilingual, musician and artist. Phew! A bit humbling I would say, but a treat for us!

Nice entry Finn-Erik. You never disappoint. I'm impressed with how you were able to muscle out so much detail in the cold and frozen Norwegian November. I thought the black and white footage in the beginning and end shots of the landscapes with low cloud-bank worked well against the color footage of everything else. A nice detail in itself. I also liked your transition to your macro work when the rock was lifted up to reveal the myriad of life underneath. That was cleverly done. On a personal note, my favorite part (detail) was the caterpillar going through the motions of bunching itself up in order to raise itself up off the ground. I could have watched more of that to see what it finally ended up doing.

I too would have preferred a little something in the audio when there was a laps between water and narration, and some narration towards the end to wrap it all up. These comments have already been offered up so I won't labor the point here.

A very enjoyable watch!

All the best Finn-Erik!

Cat

[Annie Haycock]

Some wonderful macro shots that I really enjoyed, especially towards the end when the clips were longer. Some of the transitions at the beginning were not as smooth as they could have been - or perhaps I just expect everyone else to be able to do it much better than I can.