UWOL#26- The rise of the Caledonides, Mikael Ewald

[Mikael Ewald]

My first attempt to participate in this great challenge.
A very long story told in a very short time. Filmed at Lofoten, Norway when we where up visiting our youngest son.
I hope you all get the message and please tell me what you think :)

The rise of the Caledonides on Vimeo

[Catherine Russell]

Mikael:

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! :)

Amazing how less than 2 minutes of film can bring tears to my eyes. This is a beautiful little entry and uses the the theme perfectly well. I loved the music and the focus play from near to far. Nicely done, and welcome to this forum! Our country is so different here, I loved to see snow when it is so hot and dry now where we live in Colorado.

Mikael, you have produced a nice film, especially being on the road and on the move. I would love to have seen the moving ocean instead of the beautifully captured still (and of course others may disagree with me here!). Or perhaps moving clouds in place of a beautifully captured shot. But these are minor details to a well made entry.

What is so much fun is that here in Colorado, I still have 1.5 hours before the entry deadline and when I can even put up my feedback thread. You and I were the first to submit, and we had so long to wait and I was so thirsty to review these films. Thanks for allowing me to soak up the first entry before I'm even allowed to do so! :)

Mikael, you have plenty of talent to pursue. Keep it up!

Cat

[Mikael Ewald]

Catherine, thank you very much for those nice words. I really appreciate it.

I had to do the edit between all activities up there.

The ocean is actually moving, it was just a very calm day :) But i agree with you that it would add some more life if it was a bit more movement.

I´m going on another trip again tomorrow so I can't see the videos in a week or so, but I will look as soon as i get back.

Thank you very much and i really look forward to see all other videos :)

/Mikael

[Trond Saetre]

Hi Mikael,
Again, welcome to the uwol family!

I really enjoyed your film. Nice images to back up the story.
Sometimes I have just used text myself, but I would have preferred a voice over in your film.

Well done, and I look forward to see more of your films.
Stay with us! :)

[Mikael Ewald]

Hi, Trond and thanks again for the welcome.

I really wanted to do a voiceover but since I never done one I thought I might practice a bit first, it´s not that easy to speak to the camera in a foreign language even if some of you guys are very good at it :)
But I will keep practicing and try some vo when i get the chance, I promise :)

I found this very fun and inspiring so I´ll stay for sure.

Thanks for your feedback, really appreciated.

/Mikael

[Steve Siegel]

Mikael,

Welcome again to UWOL. This was a lovely piece, and your photography made the mountains look as old and mysterious as your narrative described them. Sometimes written narrative is better than voice, especially when history is the subject. I liked the effect.

[Paul Wood]

Hi Mikael,

I add another welcome - and what an introduction to UWOL!

I loved your film - an excellent choice of music to support your images, and a simple story, well told.
I also would have liked a commentary, but completely understand how hard it is - I had never tried one until my last film either.

Very good work, and Im looking forward to see more of your work!

[Mikael Ewald]

Steve and Paul, thanks!

I´m glad that it seems that i didn't fail completely in my first attempt.
This is a perfect way of learning, reading your feedback and watch all the other films.

I am now gonna do my vote be course then I´m going away for the rest of the week and i look forward to see the results when i get back.

/Mikael

[Kevin Railsback]

Mikael,

Very nice and informative film.
Your choice of music really helped with the feeling of your film.

Like Trond said, a voice over would have taken the film to another level. Evern if you did the voiceover in Swedish and kept the english subtitles, I think it would have added another layer of awesomeness to your film.
If you are unsure about doing one, you can get voicevoers done at Fiverr.com for only $5. US.

I hire people from there all the time to do voicemail greetings, narrations for some relaxation films I've done etc.

Great job, hope to see more of your work in the future!

[Geir Inge]

Hi Michael and welcome to Uwol, an awesome start if I may say so.

We're neighbors (our countries Sweden and Norway), so for me this was known landscape.
When the earth plates moving, affecting the landscape and creates change.
Although the mountains are old, this is also innovation and determines how the earth looks like. You have used the theme, "Impact", in an excellent way.
Informative and good flow of the story, along with well-adapted music, you have created a good piece of work.
Do not be afraid to add in Swedish comment, it would be excellent along with your English subtitle.
The editing is good, focus and change of focus likewise.
Your video gives me a good feeling, it is warm and entertaining and at the same time enlightening and informative.

Thanks for sharing, and I hope to see more films from you in the future.

[Andrew Hood]

Hi Mikael, I can't offer much that others haven't said. I agree with Kevin, you can get someone else to do the voiceover in English if you're not confident. I'll do one for you if you want - for me that's the easy part, actually coming up with a good idea and filming it obviously isn't - I've failed to finish many times.

One thought I had - whilst I like the tranquility of the film, I wonder if a more violent beginning might match the collision / impact idea. For instance; simulate the ground shaking (with the camera - small side to side movement, or maybe in post) and have a few rocks tumbling down a hill/cliff. Possibly in slow motion. But that would require someone to assist, and could be a real technical challenge to look right. And I can't say if that would make it 'better', or just different - just a thought I had re-watching it.

I quite like the shot at 1:10 with the contrast of the cliffs against the ocean. I think a timelapse could make that shot even more powerful. But you got some beautiful shots, and achieved a lot more than I did. Well done

[Mikael Ewald]

Kevin, Geir Inge and Andy!

Thank you all for great feedback and a lot of tips that I´ll take with me for the future.
I will experiment with some voiceover ant try my way forward and see were it leads. And Andy, thanks for the offer to help me do the VO.. I might use that, some day :)

It was very fun and inspiring to participate and I´m looking forward to the next challenge.

Thanks all!

/Mikael

[LeRoy Gunderson]

I really enjoyed your film. Very nice work. I also only have one film here under my belt, but I learned so much with just that short experience. If you need a voice-over, I would be willing to help if needed.

Again, great job!

[Mikael Ewald]

Thank you very much, LeRoy!
And thanks for the offer to help me out doing VO :) As I said, I´m gonna do some testing myself and see where it goes.
I Also learned a lot from this challenge and I look forward to the next one.

(Mikael