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You are invited to a party in the pond.

(please use headphones or decent speakers, in full screen mode)


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  • Marcus Held 2 months ago
    Hello Richard, seems you are a lucky guy with so many frogs!
    The footage is of very good quality. I like it very much. What kind of camara did you used for this and how did you managed the underwaterparts?

    I hope to see more from you.
  • Richard Gooderick 2 months ago
    Hi Marcus
    Thanks for looking.
    It's got cold and the frogs have all gone into hiding now.
    I used two cameras. A Canon XH A1 and a Sony A1E.
    The A1E was good for the underwater shots using a sports housing that I picked up secondhand. It was also good for the close up shots using the tele macro facility.
    best wishes
    Richard
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  • Marcus Held 2 months ago
    Sounds like you are quiet well equipped. Telemacro sounds really good how much workingdistance do you get with this? we have a A1E in the academy where i study too, so i need to get my fingers on it sometime.
    The sound was recordes seperately, am i right? for planes passing by it seems really quiet there.
    I like the composition too, by the way. Its good to have a natural history clip without music.
    greetings,

    marcus
  • Richard Gooderick 2 months ago
    The sound was recorded using two DPA 4061 mics taped to a coathanger (for stereo) playing into a Fostex FR2 LE recorder.

    You can get pretty close in using the telemacro on the Sony A1E. I can't remember just how close.

    However it was particularly useful in this instance because I could focus on subjects that the were too close for the Canon XH A1 to focus onto when zoomed in. I had to zoom in. The frogs would hide if the camera got too close.

    I cheated a bit with the sound track. Most of the splashes are real but some of them are made in my bath. There's one point in the pond where there was a lot of activity but not much splashing. It sounded a bit odd compared to more tranquil scenes that had quite a bit of real splashing. It seems like honest cheating - if that makes sense.

    The bird song at the beginning was pinched from somewhere else in the recording. I think it helps to set the scene and creates more impact when it stops as you see the first frog.

    I moved some of the sound around too eg bird song and frogs croaking. Most of it however is one single recording.

    Thank you for the compliments.

    The equipment is expensive. I have been getting quite a bit of paying work over the last 18 months. Most of the money has been spent on kit.
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  • Jay Boy's Random Cutz 2 months ago
    That's Great! Love it!
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  • Richard Gooderick 2 months ago
    Thanks Jay Boy.
    And thanks too for adding it to your likes list :-)
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  • Arnold Kopff 1 month ago
    Richard: congratulations on an absolutely superb piece of work. Bravo!
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  • Richard Gooderick 1 month ago
    Wow. Thanks for the comments guys. It's great to get such positive feedback.
    :-)
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  • kirstie 1 month ago
    great clip would like to use this in my class at school talking about frogs next term having alittle trouble down loading it though x kind regards kirstie
  • Richard Gooderick 1 month ago
    Kirstie
    If you are still having trouble please email me at: my first name at my last name dot com
  • kirstie 1 month ago
    yes im still having trouble im not very comp friendly it downs loads then said it coundnt play itfor some reason im really wanting to show the class if i do manage too download it ive then got to figure out how to get it on to disc .
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  • Steve Sherron 1 month ago
    Wow, that was great. The quality was outstanding even at full screen. Can you share the settings you used to convert the movie for uploading?
  • Richard Gooderick 1 month ago
    Thanks Kirstie and Steve for your kind comments.
    I'm not very technical but here goes.
    Both cameras were set at 50i and 50 frames per second (I'm in the UK, using PAL not NTSC).
    I edited the films in Avid Liquid and output using their presets for Window Media.
    At first I tried the HDV 1080/50i 1440 x 1080 preset. I don't know if it was my imagination, but the aspect ratio didn't look right (too portrait).
    So I tried exporting it as 720/25p 1280 x 720 and this looked better. Actually I think it makes it too landscape, but that was preferable.
    Does any of this make sense to you Steve?
    :-)
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  • This comment has been deleted.


  • Richard Gooderick 1 month ago
    No problem. I'll do that now.
    R
    (I deleted Kirstie's comment because it contained her email address. I didn't want any spambots to pick it up)
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  • Jason Brooks 1 month ago
    Hey Richard,

    Thanks for your appreciative comments on the music vid: you're right that a lot of work went into it (around 2months shooting, editing, shooting, editing) - but no budget whatsoever! Dancers were part of the group, and interior shooting was courtesy of a friend who's in the process of making a studio in his wharehouse...

    This film is excellent - your work on the soundscaping really adds to the wide variety of footage. I love the half 'n' half shots on the surface - great stuff!

    One possible technical recommendation - try to do a recompression with keyframes every 2 frames. I will make for a longer compression time, but should iron out the slight stutters that I'm sure must be compression artifacts rather than part of the original footage.

    Real nice - can't wait to see your next piece!

    peas,

    jason
  • Richard Gooderick 1 month ago
    Hi Jason
    Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work too!
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  • Jason Brooks 1 month ago
    Hey,

    Scratch that last comment - I just watched it again and didn't get any stutters - must've been the file I'm compressing in the background messing with my CPU.

    Peas and beans,

    jason
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  • KG 22 days ago
    Looking for stuff for my pre-schooler who's doing frogs this week - absolutely great video - thanks!
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  • Richard Gooderick 21 days ago
    Thanks KG!
    I just love the idea of young children watching and enjoying this. It's not in the same league but I feel just a little bit like Kenneth Grahame must have felt when he wrote Wind in the Willows.
    :-)
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  • Linda Kint 15 days ago
    We have a small man made pond in our front yard. Is there anyway to safely remove the jellylike egg sacs . We were going to clean out the pond and redesign it.
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  • Richard Gooderick 14 days ago
    Hi Linda
    I'm really not an expert in ponds except that I have had one for a long time and it seems to be be a happy little pond.
    There shouldn't be any problem if you put the spawn into a bucket of water with some weed whilst you redesign the pond.
    The main things you might consider when redesigning your pond are:
    - try to make sure that the pond gets plenty of sunlight eg don't let bushes or trees shade it too much.
    - introduce oxygenating weed
    - introduce some kind of weed or lilies that will cover part of the surface of the water
    All the above together should ensure that the water stays clear.
    It shouldn't need any maintenance except for pulling out some of the surplus weed every once in a while.
    For wildlife you might also want to:
    - collect some water from a local pond and put it into your pond. That will contain water fleas, snails, boatmen, beetles etc that will colonise your pond and bring it to life.
    Once the pond life is established you should be able to put a couple of goldfish into it and they won't need any feeding
    - try to provide some rotten wood, piles of stones, undergrowth for animals like frogs to live in
    - provide a shallow area or a stone so that birds can drink from the pond and wash themselves
    By the way, I understand that frogs return to the pond they were born in so if you want to you should be able to build up a family of frogs over the years
    And when you have done that you could post a film of your perfect pond on Vimeo!
    Good luck :-)
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  • Nowawes 13 days ago
    Excellent Audio und Video!!!
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  • Richard Gooderick 12 days ago
    You are very kind :-)
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  • Shazbot 10 days ago
    wow. nice video, FANTASTIC audio. Loved it
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  • Richard Gooderick 10 days ago
    Hey, thank you!
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