UWOL#4 - aquacosms

Rob Evans · July 23rd, 2007, 04:37 AM

So, really struggled to pull a thread together on this - I thought of lots of close up ideas, and actually spent a lot of time in the back garden ( again ;-) ) shooting things spinning in water, rainbow effects and bubbles.... nearly all of which didn't make it into the film!! I then started to concentrate on shooting reflections, but again I found it really hard trying to pull a thread that would fit. I then came up with the idea for aquacosm - roughly translated as "world of water" ( not a kevin costner epic, thankfully! ) and then set about finding different "worlds" where water was the main component - I randomly stumbled accross a working medieval mill in winchester, which was so active and powerful! The following day I found two other sites more locally, an old brick pit which has been converted into a nature reserve, and a gravel pit.

OK, so armed with my footage, how do i edit it? Well, my first action was actually to write a load of poetry that described each scene - after an hour I had enough "reasonable" lines to set half of the film to - so I voiced it and tried it on the timeline, and it just didn't work :-( I decided to play around with some music, and with combination of sony cinescore and a friend's track, I had something with plenty of mood that I was happy to cut to...
And thats it really - It's been quite a rollercoaster ride, as I really struggled with the theme - there were three or four sibjects I would have liked to have covered, but "water" would have not fitted with them. Next time, I'll try to carry no pre-conceptions ;-)

Did I have fun? Oh, YES.

Cheers,

Rob

Rob Evans · July 24th, 2007, 07:19 AM

OK, here's the link:

http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen..._aquacosms.mov

I'll post a HD version later, and hopefully get round to putting together some of the "making of" footage.......

Good Luck all ;-)

Catherine Russell · July 24th, 2007, 08:40 AM

Nicely done Rob:

Excellent editing. Everything fluid (no pun intended!), and nice interplay between water as is and water put to work. Great music selections and timing. You are so tallented! The dragonfly was excellent camera work. Thanks for another great entry.

Cat Russell

Dale Guthormsen · July 24th, 2007, 10:38 AM

rob,

this was an awesome Job!! I really liked the Dragon fly!!! I like the split pespective!!! Good music to match.

Marco Wagner · July 24th, 2007, 08:19 PM

OMG! The follow control on the dragonfly was totally amazing!!!! The watermill was wonderful, I thought as a whole your project was incredibly well put together!

Please tell me how you got the dragonfly, oh please please!!!

Brian McKay · July 25th, 2007, 06:57 AM

right on rob!!!!!

excellent, i enjoyed each and every second. your choice of music and the flow were perfect.

thanks for sharing.

brian

Rob Evans · July 25th, 2007, 08:57 AM

Thankyou all, those words mean a lot ;-)

Marco - the dragonfly was pretty hard to get - I found a stretch of water where a single 'fly clearly had it's territory - it was doing 20 yard "racetracks" and only breaking out of this to defend it's territory from other 'flys. As such it was kinda easy-ish to predict it's flight, but saying that I was stood there shooting handheld for about 20 minutes, rolling throughout, and I ended up with about 3 seconds of usable footage. It was worth it ;-)

Cheers,

Rob

Marco Wagner · July 25th, 2007, 09:45 AM

Wow, that's beautiful.

Jeff Hendricks · July 25th, 2007, 09:47 AM

Rob,

A superb stand-out piece of work...I have watched it twice and shown my wife as well. What terrific color, pacing and beauty you have captured in this piece.

The dragonfly was great but I was captivated by the waterwheels and rushing water. I cant wait to show my son as he will be enthralled by the music and the wheels turning.

I love the bubble at the end too...

Fantastic as usual

Jeff

Geir Inge · July 26th, 2007, 07:33 AM

Hi Rob.
Great film.
Loved the dragonfly, the waterwheels and the great colors in your film.
Keep on videoing :)

Geir Inge

Mat Thompson · July 26th, 2007, 11:31 AM

Hey Rob

You have a great eye for detail and that dragonfly pan....wow ! The waterwheel shots were nicely composed and built up an interesting picture overall picture.

I was suprised by your first 2 shots...both of which were quite low contrast and not overly exciting and I have to say after such a strong premise in your last film I kind of missed it in this one. I know you had mentioned this and boy I know how you feel. I think its a difficult thing to give enough to make things understood and interesting but not start being obvious and spoonfeeding.

Still think 'Kites in the rain' would have been cool ;-) !

David Gemmell · July 27th, 2007, 12:03 AM

Hi Rob,
Congrats on UWOL #3 - fantastic!
I enjoyed watching your film, primarily marveling at the technical excellence.
The dragonfly shot was a real winner and yes, I can imagine the difficulty in getting this shot.
I enjoyed the diversity you presented initially but felt the water wheel sort of stopped the story short?
I am already learning a lot from the approaches you take to your movies and look forward to seeing more of your work.

Vidar Vedaa · July 27th, 2007, 05:31 AM

Rob,
I must say you uk people have a wonderful way to cut film together.
For my eay this was a realy god peace of a film.You have a realy smoot
way to cut the film.And the story was good.

Rob Evans · July 27th, 2007, 09:25 AM

Thanks all for your feedback ;-)

@Mat - quite agree on the low contrast intro, looking at it now I can see exactly what you mean. I played with all the three pieces and it kinda just "came first", and I guess I hadn't thought over the implications of the opening shots - thanks for highlighting it, it's amazing how blind you can become to things sometimes ;-)
Found a place where they're feeding kites, you can get to within 20 feet of them ;-)

@David - yeah, I think TBH i could have shot the whole three minutes on the mill If i'd have thought enough about it - it really was quite a magical place...
I'm very pleased and honoured that you're learning stuff from what I do :-)
Please feel free to check out any of my videos in my online folder http://www.treborsnave.com/video/ - but there's some pretty old and random stuff in there though!!!!

Per Johan Naesje · July 28th, 2007, 01:45 AM

Rob, amazing film as always! You have a really good eye for details and you are also able to show it to your audience.
Most have been commented by the others, the dragonfly pan was nicely done, I have been struggeling with the same some time without any luck!!

July 23rd, 2007, 04:37 AM	#1
Rob Evans Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Berkshire, UK Posts: 390	UWOL#4 - aquacosms - By Rob Evans So, really struggled to pull a thread together on this - I thought of lots of close up ideas, and actually spent a lot of time in the back garden ( again ;-) ) shooting things spinning in water, rainbow effects and bubbles.... nearly all of which didn't make it into the film!! I then started to concentrate on shooting reflections, but again I found it really hard trying to pull a thread that would fit. I then came up with the idea for aquacosm - roughly translated as "world of water" ( not a kevin costner epic, thankfully! ) and then set about finding different "worlds" where water was the main component - I randomly stumbled accross a working medieval mill in winchester, which was so active and powerful! The following day I found two other sites more locally, an old brick pit which has been converted into a nature reserve, and a gravel pit. OK, so armed with my footage, how do i edit it? Well, my first action was actually to write a load of poetry that described each scene - after an hour I had enough "reasonable" lines to set half of the film to - so I voiced it and tried it on the timeline, and it just didn't work :-( I decided to play around with some music, and with combination of sony cinescore and a friend's track, I had something with plenty of mood that I was happy to cut to... And thats it really - It's been quite a rollercoaster ride, as I really struggled with the theme - there were three or four sibjects I would have liked to have covered, but "water" would have not fitted with them. Next time, I'll try to carry no pre-conceptions ;-) Did I have fun? Oh, YES. Cheers, Rob

July 24th, 2007, 08:19 PM	#5
Marco Wagner Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Saint Cloud, Florida Posts: 1,043	OMG! The follow control on the dragonfly was totally amazing!!!! The watermill was wonderful, I thought as a whole your project was incredibly well put together! Please tell me how you got the dragonfly, oh please please!!! __________________ www.facebook.com/projectspecto

July 25th, 2007, 09:45 AM	#8
Marco Wagner Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Saint Cloud, Florida Posts: 1,043	Wow, that's beautiful. __________________ www.facebook.com/projectspecto

July 25th, 2007, 09:47 AM	#9
Jeff Hendricks Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: The Carson Valley, Nevada Posts: 248	Rob, A superb stand-out piece of work...I have watched it twice and shown my wife as well. What terrific color, pacing and beauty you have captured in this piece. The dragonfly was great but I was captivated by the waterwheels and rushing water. I cant wait to show my son as he will be enthralled by the music and the wheels turning. I love the bubble at the end too... Fantastic as usual Jeff __________________ www.tahoestarr.com

July 26th, 2007, 07:33 AM	#10
Geir Inge Trustee Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Larsnes, Norway Posts: 1,343	Hi Rob. Great film. Loved the dragonfly, the waterwheels and the great colors in your film. Keep on videoing :) Geir Inge __________________ Geir Inge B. Brekke Visit me at: https://vimeo.com/gibbfilm

July 24th, 2007, 07:19 AM	#2
Rob Evans Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Berkshire, UK Posts: 390	OK, here's the link: http://www.uwolchallenge.com/challen..._aquacosms.mov I'll post a HD version later, and hopefully get round to putting together some of the "making of" footage....... Good Luck all ;-)

July 24th, 2007, 08:40 AM	#3
Catherine Russell Trustee Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Lyons, Colorado Posts: 1,224	Nicely done Rob: Excellent editing. Everything fluid (no pun intended!), and nice interplay between water as is and water put to work. Great music selections and timing. You are so tallented! The dragonfly was excellent camera work. Thanks for another great entry. Cat Russell

July 24th, 2007, 10:38 AM	#4
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	rob, this was an awesome Job!! I really liked the Dragon fly!!! I like the split pespective!!! Good music to match. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

July 25th, 2007, 06:57 AM	#6
Brian McKay Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Rankin Inlet, Nunavut Canada Posts: 289	right on rob!!!!! excellent, i enjoyed each and every second. your choice of music and the flow were perfect. thanks for sharing. brian

July 25th, 2007, 08:57 AM	#7
Rob Evans Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Berkshire, UK Posts: 390	Thankyou all, those words mean a lot ;-) Marco - the dragonfly was pretty hard to get - I found a stretch of water where a single 'fly clearly had it's territory - it was doing 20 yard "racetracks" and only breaking out of this to defend it's territory from other 'flys. As such it was kinda easy-ish to predict it's flight, but saying that I was stood there shooting handheld for about 20 minutes, rolling throughout, and I ended up with about 3 seconds of usable footage. It was worth it ;-) Cheers, Rob

July 26th, 2007, 11:31 AM	#11
Mat Thompson Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Kent UK Posts: 1,397	Hey Rob You have a great eye for detail and that dragonfly pan....wow ! The waterwheel shots were nicely composed and built up an interesting picture overall picture. I was suprised by your first 2 shots...both of which were quite low contrast and not overly exciting and I have to say after such a strong premise in your last film I kind of missed it in this one. I know you had mentioned this and boy I know how you feel. I think its a difficult thing to give enough to make things understood and interesting but not start being obvious and spoonfeeding. Still think 'Kites in the rain' would have been cool ;-) !

July 27th, 2007, 12:03 AM	#12
David Gemmell Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Bendigo, Australia Posts: 234	Hi Rob, Congrats on UWOL #3 - fantastic! I enjoyed watching your film, primarily marveling at the technical excellence. The dragonfly shot was a real winner and yes, I can imagine the difficulty in getting this shot. I enjoyed the diversity you presented initially but felt the water wheel sort of stopped the story short? I am already learning a lot from the approaches you take to your movies and look forward to seeing more of your work.

July 27th, 2007, 05:31 AM	#13
Vidar Vedaa Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: bergen norway Posts: 235	Rob, I must say you uk people have a wonderful way to cut film together. For my eay this was a realy god peace of a film.You have a realy smoot way to cut the film.And the story was good.

July 27th, 2007, 09:25 AM	#14
Rob Evans Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Berkshire, UK Posts: 390	Thanks all for your feedback ;-) @Mat - quite agree on the low contrast intro, looking at it now I can see exactly what you mean. I played with all the three pieces and it kinda just "came first", and I guess I hadn't thought over the implications of the opening shots - thanks for highlighting it, it's amazing how blind you can become to things sometimes ;-) Found a place where they're feeding kites, you can get to within 20 feet of them ;-) @David - yeah, I think TBH i could have shot the whole three minutes on the mill If i'd have thought enough about it - it really was quite a magical place... I'm very pleased and honoured that you're learning stuff from what I do :-) Please feel free to check out any of my videos in my online folder http://www.treborsnave.com/video/ - but there's some pretty old and random stuff in there though!!!!

July 28th, 2007, 01:45 AM	#15
Per Johan Naesje Trustee Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Akershus, Norway Posts: 1,413	Rob, amazing film as always! You have a really good eye for details and you are also able to show it to your audience. Most have been commented by the others, the dragonfly pan was nicely done, I have been struggeling with the same some time without any luck!! __________________ - Per Johan