UWOL #4 Left Behind

[Steve Siegel]

Meryem gave me the idea for this entry when she suggested exploring the mysteries of water. I got out my microscope and little Canon ZR40 and did some "microdigiscoping" with local samples of fresh and salt water. Hadn't looked at these little guys since I was a kid.
It's still fun. Since it's hurricane season around here, there was no shortage of big clouds, thermals, and heavy rain in the late afternoon either.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Steven,

Great micro/macro footage!!! Nice Pelican, good footage and good editing!!

At present you are in my top four!!

[Kevin Railsback]

Steve,

Nice way to weave a story and come full circle with it.
The micro footage was killer! Awesome job!

You kept me engaged the whole time.

A little shakey on the birds but I know how hard it is to track them! :)

[Marco Wagner]

Those are some great micro shots, wow, I love the vacuum cleaner.

[Geir Inge]

Hi Steve.
Great film and great micro shots.
You show a good knowledge to this little creatures.
Did you film through a microscope?
The music works fine to your video.

Geir Inge

[Jeff Hendricks]

This could be used in middle school science classes as a basic intro to the water cycle. Well put together, good story and an interesting use of microscopic filming…how did you do that by the way?

I really enjoyed this piece, I even showed my wife and she liked it as well. Cool transition from the bird’s dripping tale to the grass/leaf dripping water to the pond and back full cycle.

Good job, captivating film

Jeff

[Catherine Russell]

Hi Steve:

That was cool, WAY COOL. I think it's one of my favorites so far. I'm thrilled to have viewed this.

Cat Russell

[Steve Siegel]

Thanks for all the encouraging comments. I filmed the protozoa through the eyepiece of my microscope. Birders have been doing this for years. It's called digiscoping. You take a little point and shoot camera put it up to the eyepiece of a spotting scope and get amazing quality photos. I have tried it with video, and it doesn't work well because the birds move and you have to move the scope, and the camcorder gets out of alignment, etc. Not a problem with a microscope. Everything is pretty stationary. I used a little consumer-grade Canon ZR40, whose objective lens matches a microscope eyepiece in size. The main problem is that the depth of field is measured in microns, and keeping the subject in focus is a challenge.

[David Gemmell]

Hi Steve,
This was one of my favourites.
The way you took us through the water cycle from those microscopic "things" up to the clouds and back was done very nicely. The whole documentary style worked wonderfully, with some nice effects (water drop from dove's tale, etc). I thought your control of the camera with the pelicans in flight was terrific and also the beautiful sun rise.
Very nice entry indeed.
Well done Steve.

[Trond Saetre]

Your film is one of my top5, Steven!

As the others have said already, the micro shots were awesome.
And you have proved that you don't need top notch equipment to make top notch film! Well done!

[Per Johan Naesje]

Steve, stunning film you got there, loved the macro-shoots.
Good work!

[Mat Thompson]

Finally I've managed to download another film....and what a good choice ! Hey UWOL goes Micro.....you gotta love that :-)

Steve I thought this was a great little piece and as the others have said your micro work was just fab, interesting, informative and I loved the names and features you picked out giving them little personalities...great stuff. I think your film may have been slightly better suited to 4-5mins or maybe just not holding at things like the soaring birds, nice but a couple of seconds may have been enough to move things along. A found a couple of the narration sequences a bit 'kids doc' but thats not a bad thing.

Overall great concept, lovely micro work, nice moved along. Top 3 so far !

[Ruth Happel]

This was amazing footage. I loved the details of the microscopic animals. And you did a great job bringing the theme in full circle.

Ruth

[D.J. Zupancic]

Steve,

I really enjoyed this piece. As with everyone else, I loved that you started with the microscopic. I loved being introduced to the critters. Overall this video worked for me. The thing that I would like to see refined is your script. In general your audience might want to be told what the microscopic world is doing and who the players are. I don't want to be told that rain is falling, I can see that. I would say, either find something equally as interesting to tell me about the rain falling as you are telling me about the microscopic world or leave the narration out and play with the natural sound in the macro world.

And this is off in left field. But it would also be interesting to play with different effects to make the microscopic appear in your macro shots- like constellations in the clouds or pools of water. Tell a different story than the cycle of water. Maybe something entirely made up.

Thanks for sharing your work. Like I said, I really liked your take.

[D.J. Zupancic]

Sorry, I think I am using the terms wrong. Let me be elementary for my own sake. Natural sound in the world visible to the eye. Images of the microscopic world in world visible to the eye, as in constellations. Sorry again- Some time me not so smart with big words.