UWOL27 - Nature's transition - by Trond Saetre

[Trond Saetre]

During a short period of just a few weeks, the colors of the nature changes from the summer's green to the fall's brown. This is when the view is the most spectacular up in the mountains, and the nature has all kind of colors.

As many times before, I went to the mountain plateu Hardangervidden, Norway, hoping to get there in time to film the colorful scenery.
One weekend was available, and the best part of that time, mother nature gave me plenty of the wet element. So that left me with only a few hours to capture what I needed.

Should have had more B-roll footage to improve the visuals, but ran out of time.

Some parts were intentionally a bit shaky, maybe to much? The goal was to kind of let the audience take part of the walk in the woods.

Enjoy, and I look forward to the feedback.

Nature's transition on Vimeo

Nature's transition - YouTube

(Please activate HD for best quality, default on both youtube and vimeo is SD)

[Bryce Comer]

Hey Trond,
Lovely colours you have captured in your video. The weather certainly didn't look the best, but you came through with some beautiful footage. Very interesting about the river being diverted outside of the tourist season! I am heading off for a couple of days but will watch your film again when I am back & comment further then.
Thanks,
Bryce

[Steve Siegel]

Trond,

The muted colors of your northern autumn really say that winter is coming in a hurry. I liked your dolly shot at ground level at the beginning with a zoom out to the hillsides. It gave a lonely feel to the landscape. Good work.

[Woody Sanford]

Nice work!

[Tim Lewis]

So interesting to see the autumn colours of Norway. The scale of the view was a little hard to work out at first, but seeing the houses down in the valley made me realise it was bigger than i had assumed. Nice work.

[Trond Saetre]

Bryce,
Thank you for the comments. The river in this film is the one that leads to the waterfall I filmed in the UWOL 26. And that waterfall must have at least 12000 liter water / second during tourist season. The rest of the year, the waterfall (and river) is just a shadow of itself with maybe 1000 liters/second at the most.

Steve,
Thank you. Everything except for the birds was filmed handheld. No dolly was used, but I tried to simulate dolly. Good to know it worked.

Woody,
Thank you for the comment.

Tim,
Yes, the valley is pretty big. The dam you can see at around 0:50 is 1100 meters long. Feels like it takes forever to walk over there. And the piece of road you see there, rises from around 800 to almost 1000 meter above the sea level.

[Bryce Comer]

Hey Trond,
Well I came back a day earlier than expected so I was able to start watching all the films again & yours is the first!
I have to say I do like what you were trying to achieve with the "walk through the landscape" effect. Just one thing I would like to see would be a little smoother & perhaps slower movements in those same shots. Maybe you could just move a little slower, or maybe even slow things down in post to smooth things out. I have found myself trying to achieve the same thing hand held but it has never worked out, always being too jerky & fast. Yours was certainly better than my efforts, but could perhaps just be a little smoother & slower still.
Thanks for taking me on your journey through that lovely landscape!
Regards,
Bryce

[Paul Wood]

Hej Trond!

I like the overall colours and theme in your film, and the locations are excellent - and the story carries well.

I agree with Bryce that some of the hand held is a bit too shaky - I just watched again in HD on my 27¨iMac, and it is a bit more pronounced - especially at 2' 16¨- perhaps filming at 50p and slowing down in post would help.

I do like the fall in Scandinavia - (but not the cold weather), and your film showed that nicely, as well as a lot of information about the area.

Thanks!

[Trond Saetre]

Bryce,
Thanks again! :)

Paul,
Thank you for the feedback. I see what both you and Bryce mean about the shaky footage, and I agree it could have been a bit more smooth, and still accomplished, probably even better, what I wanted to achieve.
I'll keep it in mind for next time.
In post, I actually played a little with slow motion, but I couldn't get it to feel like "natural movement".

[Bryce Comer]

Yes it is certainly hard to go back & make things right in post, most of the time it simply doesn't work out with motion. One thing I tried that worked very well on a hiking trip this summer, was walking with my camera on the tripod, but holding the whole thing from the end of the legs of the tripod with the camera almost touching the ground. With a little bit of slo-motion applied in post & of course spinning the footage 180 degrees to make it right side up, the footage actually came out very well. Could be something to try. I really like the motion in the shots, & making it smoother will really polish it up.
Regards,
Bryce

[Trond Saetre]

I'll check out your technique, Bryce. Always good to try new things.

[Paul Wood]

Trond,

I did try this technique, but the other (normal) way up - holding the tripod at the head, with the legs closed, and it does help with stability - its not a Steady-cam, but it does work with practice.

[Trond Saetre]

Good to know, Paul.
A steadycam system could be useful for me, but can't afford the prize tag at the moment.
(And maybe not practical to bring a full rig into the wild)

[Gordon Hoffman]

Hi Trond
I always like the videos from Norway, lovely country. About the only thing I would of commented on has already been mentioned which is some of the hand held shots being a little to shaky. But as you know you can only carry so much gear.

Gordon

[Trond Saetre]

Thank you, Gordon!
I appreciate your feedback.