UWOL 45 "They Come Calling" by Gordon Hoffman

[Gordon Hoffman]

So my hunch was right as I think I've got it figured out. My first upload was a failure but the second was there. I believe it was what I selected for the privacy setting that was the problem. Not sure if it was worth the hassle as time just running out on me so it was a rush job just to get something together to upload. I had plenty of footage to work with for once but had to drop some of my plan, which was pretty weak as it was, or I wouldn't have been able to get anything together. Anyway I had fun shooting the footage I got and I hope it doesn't bore you to much watching it. On the positive side it is fairly short.

UWOL45 - They Come Calling by Gordon Hoffman on Vimeo

Gordon

[Bryce Comer]

Hey Gordon,
Super glad you managed to get things sorted out! Gee you had some really lovely shots in your film. I especially like the shot where the buck's shadow comes into view on the hay bale, then the buck itself. Are you using a new camera? The picture quality is really nice, & all the shots were lovely & stable.
Were you using any ND filters on your camera? I noticed there were a few shots where you could see dust on the glass or sensor. This happens to me quite a bit, especially when i am shooting into such bright conditions & need to close the iris down.
Thanks for working to sort out the issues so we could see your film!!
Regards,
Bryce

[Bob Safay]

Gordon, Great video. The opening shots of the geese coming in were beautiful. Just the right amount of slow motion. The deer were beautiful. Do you usually get that many? Do any of the farmers consider them a pest because they are eating the cattle feed? My favorite shots were of the deer jumping the fence, they made it look so easy. I think you could have used a long fade between the opening shot of the wind generators and the geese flying over. You and Per must have a special blood type to film in that cold! I really enjoyed your entry. Bob

[Gordon Hoffman]

Bryce - It doesn't look like much gets by you. Yes I broke down and picked up a GH5. Yes there was something stuck on the sensor. I noticed it when I looked at the first footage on the computer and what ever it was it was stuck on good. I've had dust before but what ever this was just smeared when I tried removing it. I didn't have a sensor cleaner so I lived with it until I got some sensor swabs. I don't have any ND filters to fit the lens I was using.
Thanks for watching.

Bob - Thanks for the comments. The geese were shot at 60fps and played back at 30fps.
I've had deer before but not for this long. Usually they come for a while when the weather is bad then when things open up they leave. I suspect because we had such a hot dry summer and fall there is not as much for them to forage on this winter. Also because it was so hot and dry what hay I have is really good quality. They can be a problem in hay yards but at least not as bad as a herd of elk.
I know with my short legs I've put a lot of patches on my blue jeans over the years when it comes to barb wire fences so yes they make it look easy!
Yes a dissolve would help but I don't know if the sunrise shots really work but they looked nice.

Gordon

[Per Johan Naesje]

Liked your film very well Gordon!
Filming deer and elk was my plan B, but could not get any reasonable footage due to the deep snow and cold we have here right now. Did not want to disturb the animals going into the woods after them
I liked the way you come so close to them, did you sit there waiting or are the animals not afraid for humans when they approach the area?
Beautiful light in the opening scene. Your way of edit the film was nice too. Glad you manage to get the film online

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Gordon,

Lovely film and some great deer footage, thought you captured the essence of the theme well. I won't go over on what others have commented on other than to say you deer footage was great, capturing some really interesting behavior.

Hope you don't mind me commenting on the sound track because if you refine a couple of elements it will make all the difference. At the start if you have the sound coming in before the pictures it makes all the difference! In this case the honking geese sounds before fading up to the pictures and titles etc. Secondly cross fade the sound between different clips as well as altering the sound levels of each clip to balance the sound out between the clips.

Nevertheless I think this is a great entry, well done.

Mick

[Gordon Hoffman]

Per Johan - Being farmland deer they are habituated to farming activity so they are fairly tolerant but then they are also a hunted population so they are alert to a human moving around. The hunting season has been over for a couple months now but they are, especially the bigger bucks, still pretty cautious. But then this was all shot in my yard so I have a few buildings that I can sneak around to set up. I was also using a 150 to 600 lens so that helped. Only one afternoon I set up and waited for things to happen and boy did they. I shot over an hour and a half of video of different things that round. Thanks for commenting.

Mick - No I don't mind any comment made. For me that's part of what the challenge was about, to show off some nice footage or what a person thinks is nice and get other peoples opinion of what you've done or should have done with it. I was surprised no body had commented on the audio yet. It's very seldom I get usable audio with my footage either because it so windy or to far away so I'm always having to add audio I've got using an audio recorder or just throwing music over it. I know audio can really make or break a video but I literally just threw the audio in this round and let it go. Any comments you make are much appreciated. Thanks.

Gordon

[Trond Saetre]

Hi Gordon,

I'm so glad you finally got your film up and running.
Nice to see you were able to use some natural audio too. Seems like both you and I often struggle with wind and distance.
As Mick said, the audio could been polished a little, but all in all, your audio added to the film.

The colors of the opening shot: Amazing! I see the fence were no match for the deers, jumping so easily over it.

Well done, Gordon!

[Vishal Jadhav]

The footage of the deer is so cool i even loved the geese footage used, it gives the thing that wildlife keeps adapting to any given circumstances so rightly put in. If we give them space they will find a way to survive.
Over all a great video.

[Gordon Hoffman]

Trond - Thanks for the comments. I had recorded some audio late one evening when the wind wasn't as strong so I'd have some to use. Yes that was a nice sunrise.

Vishal - A lot of wildlife is remarkably adaptive. Like you said as long as they have some space. Thanks for watching.

Gordon

[Andrew Hood]

Gordon, as the others have said there is some nice footage of the deer and geese. I particularly liked that you built around a fairly simple idea for the story, and included things that served that. Shorter is fine, and it works well when the narrative and images are inline with one key idea - animals looking for food during winter. I also liked the contrast between a clear field, and snowed over, it highlighted the plight of the animals.
Thanks for sharing.

[Gordon Hoffman]

Andrew - Thanks for the feed back. I like simple. I had planned a longer video. I had enough footage to do it but ran out of time to finish it so I cut out a fair amount of it and posted what I ended up with. Thanks again.

Gordon