Uwol #25 - Pioneers - Marj Atkins

[Marj Atkins]

[quote=Geir Inge;1788837]
Finally, you brought penguins to Uwol.
An excellent movie with a good story, where the birds expand their horizons.
I am an avid supporter of Discovery, National Geograpfic and Animal Planet (TV channels), where Animal Planet has shown a program about just these penguins.
QUOTE]

Thanks for your very comprehensive feedback, Geir, I really appreciate it.

I was not aware of that film on the African Penguin Geir – I will look out for it. Will be interesting to watch after having done this one!

Originally Posted by Geir Inge

Why pick at something that is almost perfect?
Well, maybe the music is somewhat high in relation to the comments some places,
but that's a minor issue. ..
I thank you and bows for fine delivery in line with the theme and the spirit of Uwol.

I am a little puzzled by this comment Geir. I have gone over my video and cannot find any place where the music is too loud in relation to my voice. I am aware of the glitsch in the sound when I start speaking after my titles. I know the reason for that but picked it up too late to fix. Just wondering how you would have picked that up.

[Marj Atkins]

Originally Posted by Mike Sims

Howdy, Marj! I’m glad you got in this round. As Geir Inge mentioned, about a year ago I watched an hour long program about Black-footed Penguins which specifically covered this colony. I honestly think you did a much better job of it in three minutes than they did in ten times that. I know you worry about information overload but you hit upon the perfect mix this time. Penguins seem to be everywhere lately and almost everyone falls into the trap of treating them as little Charlie Chaplins dressed for dinner. I’m not a big fan of anthropomorphism. It is so refreshing to see a fact based treatment. My hat’s off to you, ma’am.

Thanks for the compliment, Mike. I have not seen the film you are referring to but as I said to Geir I will look out for it. I do agree with you about anthropomorphism used in animal movies.

[Marj Atkins]

Originally Posted by Bill Thesken

Marj,
Very informative, and nice images to go along with the graceful narration.
I had a tough time with one part and had to listen a few times. Is it 'Guano scraping and egg collection'?

Thanks for your feedback Bill.

Yes. I tried to enunciate that as clearly as I could because I realized the term would be unfamiliar to most viewers.

I had to cut out the extraordinary story about ‘Guano-scraping’ and ‘egg collecting’ which originally formed part of my film. Guano, an important ingredient for fertilizer at the time, was the ‘white gold’ of the 1840’s and every island around the world that had any form of breeding bird colony on it suddenly became prime property. Governments appropriated them and ship-loads of fortune hunters particularly from Britain, Europe and USA descend on them. One island off the Namibian coast called Ichaboe (pronounced Icha-boo) was covered with penguin guano (bird droppings) roughly 25 meters deep (a veritable mountain!) In the 1840’s apparently 450 ships were anchored around the tiny island while miners fought each other for a patch of real estate. They leveled the island in two years! Utter destruction of the entire bird and penguin habitat! Similar scenes from the islands off Peru have been illustrated.
Egg collecting was just as destructive because collectors would take all the eggs they could find at the start of the penguin breeding season and destroy them (because the eggs weren't fresh!) and wait for the second batch to be laid. They would remove all the fresh eggs and sell them and the birds would then be forced to rear a third clutch, which was often laid too late in the season for survival.

Originally Posted by Bill Thesken

Marj,

I learned about an 'indicator species', when I had only known about a 'keystone species' before.

Now I have just learned the term ‘keystone species’. They are different of course.
Incidentally frogs are also indicator species - they are exceptionally sensitive to air and water pollution. (They have permeable skins and can breathe through their skins.) The disappearance of so many frog species should be sounding alarm bells because ultimately pollution will affect our health too if we don’t do something to stop it.


Thank you all for your positive feedback on my film. Much appreciated.

[Geir Inge]

Hi Marj.
Sorry if I have said anything wrong, it was not my intention.
As I said, this is a film I think is almost perfect ;)
"Almost", because I am of the opinion that everyone can have something to strive for, even in the perfect sense.
That said, I must say and I certainly have mentioned many times before, that my English is far from perfect and for me a major handicap, especially in Uwol context where we have English subtitles or voice.
It is 40 years since I learned of the tiny english I can, at school and since then I have mostly practiced minimal.
Hope you do not laugh at me, but I use the google translator and I know that at times can come out wrong. In addition, I have my oldest daughter who sometimes helps me, she's much better in the English language than her father ;) But I'm not blaming her, this time I was completely on my own, haha.
In addition to having some hearing loss, sound is some of what I have in mind in our Uwol films.
The music you have chosen for your penguin movie is a fast pace and can, to me, be a bit distracting compared to commentators, especially in the beginning as you mention.
On the other hand, the music is very fitting to the penguin's movement. I'm probably a little contradictory on this point.
But like I said, this is minimal and the only thing I could find to strive for.
On small films like Uwol contributions are, music can sometimes get in the way of commentary.
Our feedback is also personal, so I think others may have a completely different opinion than me :)
I think that's a good thing about Uwol.
I rarely say this in my feedback threads, you are one of my favorites this round.

All the best.
Geir Inge

[Marj Atkins]

Hi Geir
Ah -Thanks for your explanation - now I uderstand your meaning - 'loud' - not as in volume but in suitability - and there I do agree with everything you have said as it bugged me too. I wanted something light but after hours and hours of listening to music this was the only one that came anywhere near to what I wanted.
The whole purpose of UWOL is to give considered feedback and I appreciate every minute of time people spend on doing that especially when someone points out something I did not think of or notice. Your detailed feedback certainly helped me to know where I was on the right track and where I got it wrong. Thanks Geir!- absolutely had no issue at all - was just a bit puzzled when I could not find a volume issue!

[Bill Thesken]

Originally Posted by Marj Atkins

Thanks for your feedback Bill.

Now I have just learned the term ‘keystone species’. They are different of course.

Hi Marj, I actually made a video of a Keystone Species for UWOL # 21 and it's my favorite one that I have made to date for UWOL (although I was muscled out of the winners circle by the talent of Inge, Sims and Wood for that round...)

The Hawaiian Gregory on Vimeo

[Marj Atkins]

Hey Bill

Thanks for posting this - I forgot that you made this gem of a film on a keystone species a while back so it is a good to see this compared with the indicator species.

[Lorinda Norton]

Marj, I loved this film! You hooked us with the first shot; who doesn't perk up when penguins appear? And the long intro worked very, very well.

Did you write the narration before filming, or did you gather so much footage that you were able to sift through and find the perfect images to match? Time after time you gave my eyes exactly what they hoped to see, which helped make this piece so satisfying. Thanks for touching on the problem of oil-soaked feathers without actually showing it, by the way. I don't have to see it to know how awful it is, and I found the close-up of the feathers, sans oil, quite interesting.

You provided us with an excellent example of how a contracting horizon necessitates expanding it. Well done!

[Marj Atkins]

Thanks Lorinda – I found your feedback very helpful! (I tried to give the viewer as much additional info as I could in my shots so I did not have to describe a lot of it in words. That long intro was intended to show in a relaxed way the clumsiness (and cuteness!) of the penguins on land and their incredible speed, agility and grace in the water.)

To answer your question regarding my narrative – I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do (weather permitting) before I left for Cape Town so I knew approximately what shots would be needed to put together a story on penguins to fit the theme. Because I only had four short days in Cape Town, and because I did not want to find myself in a position back home again where I had a story that I could not support with footage I had to make a shot list that would cover all eventualities. Funnily enough I got almost all my shots and ended up with relatively little footage to have to sift through - I edited this in record time. (Lesson learned). The Kelp Gull stealing the egg was an unplanned bonus shot, but it is a regular occurrence as I saw two thieves in as many days.

Once again thank you for your time in giving us feedback Lorinda - it's really appreciated.