UWOL 54 - "A Walk in the Park" by Bob Safay

[Bob Safay]

This is a lot different than most of my entries. It depicts me talking a walk through Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. Also, I decided not to break the spell by adding any narration. It was filmed with the Canon XF705. I hope you enjoy it and please comment. Bob

UWOL54 - A Walk in the Park by Bob Safay on Vimeo

[Doug Jensen]

Bob, I'm out of the country for the next 7 days and can't stream. I look forward to taking look when I get back.

[Bob Safay]

Doug, safe travels. Bob

[Trond Saetre]

Hi Bob,

That was a nice walk in the park. Not often we see each other in front of the camera, so that was cool!

How do you like the new XF705 compared to the XF300?

The bird taking off at 0:50 was a great shot!
I like that you have the sounds of bird songs throughout the film, and combined with the low volume of your music, it turned out great.

Well done!

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Bob.

As you say Bob, quite different from your normal style. Enjoyed watching and although no VO the selection of clips coupled with your choice of music does take the viewer, and keep them with you, on that walk through the park. Very difficult to achieve that when editing.

When you are sitting on the rocks watching the birds in the stream are some of them waxwings? We only get them here in winter months and only when very cold. Haven't seen any this winter so far.

Well done.

Mick

[Phil Murray]

Great work, Bob! The first thing that really hit me and made me wish I had added more was the sound of the birds. In a couple of seconds I was reminded that the outdoors is a lot more than what you see. The sounds that go along with being outside is just as important. (Until we really have Smell-o-Vision, making sure to include the appropriate sounds shouldn't be forgotten as part of the experience.)

(A funny little note: When the your film ended, there were some birds singing outside my window and for a second I thought something was wrong because I could still hear birds in your video even though it was over! Your sounds and the real ones outside here blended perfectly and caught me off guard for a moment!)

I was blown away with the colors. Even in the winter, it was so beautiful. You really did a great job with color on this.

I loved the scene around 2:00 where you look through your binoculars then cut away to the birds at the water before returning to a shot of you lowering the glasses. (Same thing on the bench by the lake, but I liked the first scene better.)

[Gordon Hoffman]

Hi Bob That's the one thing I kind of missed was your narration as you have a great voice and usually come up with some neat stories. A nice relaxing well cut video and with all the natural audio and music it worked really well. Natural audio is something I've got to work on. The one thing that seemed a little off to me was the water sound when the bird was taking a bath. Thanks for sharing.

Gordon

[Bob Safay]

Thank you all for your comments.

Gorgon, for some reason after I did the final render and watched it without any narration I decided that not all videos need narration. To me this was one of them. I wanted the visuals and audio tell the story. I agree, the splashing was a little off. Mia culpa.

Phil and Mick, thanks. I lucked out. The clip of the cider waxwings and robins was actually filmed in my backyard, about 1/4 of a block from Piedmont Park. Every year, for about 3-4 days I get literally hundreds of waxwings, American robins and redwing black birds come through, usually at the same time. My yard looks like the old Hitchcock movie "The Birds" Interesting, I never see the waxwings feeding, they always just go for the pond and my birdbaths. It can be so beautiful watching hundreds of birds in my yard...and then having to wash all that poop off of my two white cars!

Trond, it has taken me awhile to finally love the XF705. I was so used to my XF300. But, after 7 years of really rough use I decided to upgrade. The 705 produces incredible color. All I did in DaVinci was to kick the Lift down to -2 and the saturation from the default of 50.00 to 54.00 That was it. Also, the H.265 works great with DaVinci Study. Slow motion is at 1920x1080 at 120 fps. Sometimes I miss the ability to do time laps, but then I look back over 7 years and realize I may have used that feature about 5 times. But now that I have had it for almost a year I must say it is a very impressive camcorder.

[Trond Saetre]

Good to hear your new camera was a good investment.
I'm still very happy with the XF300, and no plans to upgrade yet.

For time lapse, I just do a regular recording for a while, and speed up during editing.
I see your XF705 is better at slow motion.

For now, I am unable to use H265, so I'm using H264. I guess Premiere Pro CS6 is just too old to handle that codec.

[Bob Safay]

Trond. I loved my XF300, it produced incredibly sharp and colorful footage. The main reason I decided to upgrade is that I do a lot of international travel, sometimes for several weeks at a time to all parts of Africa, the Pantanal in Brazil, Chili, Argentina as well as other places in North and South America. I figured that after all the hundreds of hours of filming with the XF300 I did not want to take the chance of a malfunction in the middle of nowhere. For all I know the new owner of my 300 is still getting plenty of use out of it, at least I hope so. Bob

[Doug Jensen]

Bob, very nice. I agree with the previous comments about the mix of music and nat sound, it is the perfect ratio. Makes me want to go take a walk tomorrow!

[Bob Safay]

Doug, thanks for the compliment. I am very lucky as I live practically across the street from Piedmont Park in Atlanta. Question, which drone did you get?

[Doug Jensen]

I got the Mavic 2 Pro with the dedicated controller. Love it. Just wish I had more time to fly.

[Bob Safay]

Doug, thanks. I was looking at the Mavic mini just to play around with and watched a lot of utubes about it. I will be doing a couple of road trips next month and was thinking of getting one gust for fun.