UWOL #3 "Hound" by Oliver Reik

[Gabriel Yeager]

Very nice video Oliver! I enjoyed it!

I personally think the WB made it look cooler... But then again, I like strange colors...

Beautiful dog... I love labs... :)

Very nice editing. I did notice a few things in the audio though... But its not a big deal...

Keep up the great work!
~Gabriel

[Per Johan Naesje]

Oliver,
a very nice and informative video. Technically very good. Not sure if it's within the theme though.
The combined german/english narrating was professionally done.
Keep up your good work!

[Dale Guthormsen]

Oliver,

I enjoyed the training video!!!

A hunting dog is a rather wild creature, and much like wild kids, they need to be trained or no one likes them!! In this sense it is kind of on topic/

good job!!

[Jeff Hendricks]

Nicely edited, framed, and shot. Seems like you could sell this type of film to the right market, dog training videos. Who knows?


Thank you for the piece,

Jeff

[Catherine Russell]

Hi Oliver:

I confess a bit of a retraction from what I said earlier about being a bit off-topic. I reviewed your film quite early on after seeing films that were very much within the scope of the traditional wild. So yours seemed really off-topic then. But since then, after reviewing all of the films, there is such a diverse contribution to the wild that yours falls well within this extended bracket of wild interpretation! In fact, I think anyone can argue that anything could be interpreted as the wild and was probably Mereyem's reason for selecting it. So I apologize, and you stick to your guns. Thanks for the contribution and for your interpretation of the wild! Besides, the filming was awesome!

Cat

[Vidar Vedaa]

I have seen your film in Uwol hound and the film from Australia on
Videocommunuty.Realy nice film,like your work.

best regards
vidar vedaa

[Meryem Ersoz]

regarding what catherine said about on/off-topic....i would say that a large portion of my experiences in "the wild" or the wilderness have been colored by having a beautiful yellow dog to share those experiences with. at least in the U.S., wherever outdoorsy folks gather, you can bet there's a pack of hounds. especially of the lab persuasion. i have spent a lot of time "out there" with my good dog, violet. more so than with any other individual being.

granted, a training video is a little loosely attached...but i think an inherent part of our attraction to these hunting breeds, in particular, is driven by that most wild of all instincts....

[Oliver Reik]

Hello

and thank you very much for all the criticism on my little film - the positive as well as the negative. Both helps me to understand what I have to stick to and what I have to change. Simply: how to get better.

What I have to improve or at least to think about:

- sound --> definately
- colours --> hmm... I did a manual white balance before each single shot, but added some "warm tones" to generate the feeling of a warm, relaxing, summer day. Obviously not all of you liked it. ;-)
- the theme --> another hmmm... a dog is a wild creature by its nature. Men is kind of wild too, especially a hunter who at least partly unleashes the 'wild thing' that sleeps in all of us. So - both go together hunting and bundle their wild skills to be even more succesfull by working together. The video also wasn't meant to be a pure training video - it was also supposed to show the teamwork between dog and men.

Well - this was my idea and my thinking... :-) Since I received the first answers regarding that I have missed the theme, I am wondering if I or the others have misunderstood Meryem's announcement, that underlines the 'wide open to interpretation':

Originally Posted by Meryem Ersoz

[...] THE WILD

yes, that's it! whatever means you can think of to depict this concept--whether animal, mineral, or vegetable. (Or even human, for those of you who didn't get enough of our previous theme.) We're looking for the entry which best explores this mysterious, ineffable thing which summons us into nature and the outdoors.

It's very wide open to interpretation in terms of content, but your very challenging job is to try to approach the essence. [...]

I am going to create a new version of the video when I get back to Germany with improved sound and less 'warm tones'.

Thanks again for your comments - they are very appreciated! :-D

Regards, Oliver

[Meryem Ersoz]

hey oliver: just thinking about your mini-controversy regarding the theme a bit...there will always be movies that fit the film "more" and films that fit the theme "less"--representing the theme is, after all, a large part of the Challenge.

i think in choosing dogs as your topic, it moves your movie "more" in the direction of THE WILD....but i think that presenting a training video moves it towards the "less"--in other words, i don't think it's the topic you've selected as much as the genre you've selected which is confusing your audience regarding it's appropriateness to the theme. training videos are about controlling and harnessing THE WILD, rather than representing what is wild.

i'm offering this up to you, because i think as video producers, one of the trickiest things is getting clear about who are audience is and how they will receive what we do. your production values and content are excellent. and i personally have no problem with a dog video! in fact, it's my favorite video topic of them all! would you like to hear me rhapsodize about my favorite yellow lab, violet, the best dog in the world???? (sorry, misty...). i think what is confusing a few of your viewers is not the topic but the genre selection.

just trying to help out here....