New Video forum: Video of the month!

[Jonathan Bird]

Hey Everyone,
I have decided that I would like to have a "video of the month" hosted here on the site and it would be available for one month for everyone to view. Since it can't be posted in the discussion forum, I will create a seperate webpage for it. Because of storage sizes, we may only be able to host it for a month and then it will have to go away and be replaced with a new one.

So two things to announce....

1. The official first video will be a really nice video that Clay Coleman did about the Flower Gardens in the Gulf of Mexico. When I get the page finished, I'll provide a link. Then Clay can tell you more about it.

2. I will be looking for the next video for the next month (April)! What I would like to suggest is that if you want to submit a video, please post it on YouTube and provide a link for people to watch. We'll then select it and host here in much higher quality than YouTube supports. I would only ask that you keep the total file size for the video below 200 MB. You can do a nice quality video at that size unless it's really long.

Anyone that gets picked to have the video hosted here, I can help you with quicktime settings to get a nice looking finished product at a reasonable bandwidth.

This is not a contest, just doing them one at a time to allow people to truly enjoy your video. Of course, the ones we host here first will be the better ones. The only rule is that it must be mostly an underwater subject. More "finished" productions (narration, etc.) are preferred, but simpler musical montages are okay too.

Stand by for the first video!!!

Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

Ok people, here it is...the first VIDEO OF THE MONTH. I'm sure Clay will give us a nice introduction here, but here is the link to the video....


http://www.uwphotochat.com/video.htm

All Videos of the month will use this link.

Clay...a little intro?

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Well, ok. First, I'd like to thank all the little people who made this film possible, yada, yada, yada, ad nauseam (just kidding).

The video is from two seasons of trips to the Flower Gardens off the Louisiana coast (hence the common referral to the "Texas" Flower Gardens--what's up with that?). The actual footage was shot in the late '90's with a little Sony Hi-8 camera. Dr. Walter Starck, one of the real pioneers in scuba, began a discussion on the old majordomo uwphoto mail list about the possibility of starting a new CD Rom electronic magazine called Golden Dolphin, and he solicited material. So, I contacted Walter, put the video together in a matter of a few days, and sent it to him. The video originally appeared on the first edition of the Golden Dolphin product in the summer of 2001 (I think). Chat member Tim Rock also contributed to that edition. Am I right about the date, Tim? Anyway, Golden Dolphin was produced for a few years but never really caught on as we had hoped. It was a good product, and I think copies from its entire run are still available from the Golden Dolphin web site.

The video pretty much speaks for itself (actually, that's my voice on there and it grates on me!) Some of the information is out of date. I think researchers have now identified over 300 species of fish at the site. Also, The Sea Searcher II (one of the boats mentioned in the video) has been returned to the oil field work for which she was originally designed. Still, it's an accurate portrayal of what the area looks like. Hope you like it and feel free to ask questions. -Clay

[sorvju-f]

Well, ok. First, I'd like to thank all the little people who made this film possible, yada, yada, yada, ad nauseam (just kidding).

The video is from two seasons of trips to the Flower Gardens off the Louisiana coast (hence the common referral to the "Texas" Flower Gardens--what's up with that?). The actual footage was shot in the late '90's with a little Sony Hi-8 camera. Dr. Walter Stark, one of the real pioneers in scuba, began a discussion on the old majordomo uwphoto mail list about the possibility of starting a new CD Rom electronic magazine called Golden Dolphin, and he solicited material. So, I contacted Walter, put the video together in a matter of a few days, and sent it to him. The video originally appeared on the first edition of the Golden Dolphin product in the summer of 2001 (I think). Chat member Tim Rock also contributed to that edition. Am I right about the date, Tim? Anyway, Golden Dolphin was produced for a few years but never really caught on as we had hoped. It was a good product, and I think copies from its entire run are still available from the Golden Dolphin web site.

The video pretty much speaks for itself (actually, that's my voice on there and it grates on me!) Some of the information is out of date. I think researchers have now identified over 300 species of fish at the site. Also, The Sea Searcher II (one of the boats mentioned in the video) has been returned to the oil field work for which she was originally designed. Still, it's an accurate portrayal of what the area looks like. Hope you like it and feel free to ask questions. -Clay

First I have to say that your voice is great to compaign to video.

Lenght is right to look it trough with great interest.

One thing I, who never visited USA, was missing, how the area and beach was looking above water.

Underwater shots were great, specially manta shots. It has been filmed long time ago and WEB-quality is off course influencing little .

I liked also the attacking end but my wife didn't.

Great thanks

PS maybe the level now of future entries is too high, but maybe some day I will try.

Jukka

[Clay Coleman]

One thing I, who never visited USA, was missing, how the area and peach was looking above water.
Jukka

Thanks, Jukka. There is no beach near where the dive footage was taken. The reef is 110 miles offshore in the middle of nowhere in the Gulf of Mexico. The only topside scenery is a few oil rigs in the area (which also make great dives). -Clay

[sorvju-f]

The reef is 110 miles offshore in the middle of nowhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

OK I undestand, there is no telezoom to do it today ( maybe Google earth )

[Ken Hawk]

I enjoyed it too, Thanks , can't wait for the next episode;)
Ken

[Daniel]

Ok people, here it is...the first VIDEO OF THE MONTH. I'm sure Clay will give us a nice introduction here, but here is the link to the video....


http://www.uwphotochat.com/video.htm

All Videos of the month will use this link.

Clay...a little intro?

Jonathan

Great idea Jonathan and great job on the video and voice over Clay!

Cheers!
Daniel :)

[Jonathan Bird]

Hey!! Someone needs to submit a new video! David, how about a Tiger shark thing!?

Jonathan

[David White]

Jonathan,

The only video that I have completed from the Tiger Shark trip is the one posted at: http://stage6.divx.com/OceanView-HD/video/1168857/Majesty-in-Motion. Unfortunately my father suffered a stroke the day after my return and so a lot of time has been spent going back and forth to the hospital and not a lot of time has been spent editing.

[Jonathan Bird]

Hey Dave,
I hope your dad is doing better soon.
Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

I would like to introduce our second video of the month, by Jukka Sorvisto! Check it out!

http://www.uwphotochat.com/video.htm

Post questions here and I'm sure Jukka will be happy to answer them!

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Very nicely done, Jukka! I was captivated and intrigued. What kind of permit do you need to dive near Alexandria? -Clay

[sorvju-f]

Very nicely done, Jukka! I was captivated and intrigued. What kind of permit do you need to dive near Alexandria? -Clay

Thaks Clay!

I have an Egyptian divefriend, with whom I have dived in Red Sea for 10 times, who followed me 2 years ago to Finland and now living permanently here. He arranged everything there. I think that certain amount of USD or EUR is the permit anyhow to dive there.

Camera equipment might be more expensive or even totally forbidden. Anyhow my friend arranged everything.

The newest underwater discovery there is the temple of Herakleion about 4 km from the Pharos lighthouse. The sea was too rough to us to enter there...maybe next time.

We made only one dive to Pharos Lighthouse site, so the material to make a video was rather limitted. The site is in Mediterranean sea so the water was green and visibility limited.

Anyhow the dive was full of "magig and spirit" and it was different dive between the coral dives.

As a nonpro and doing everything myself I am rather satisfied to final result.

Jukka

[sorvju-f]

I would like to introduce our second video of the month, by Jukka Sorvisto! Check it out!

http://www.uwphotochat.com/video.htm

Post questions here and I'm sure Jukka will be happy to answer them!

Jonathan


We all have heard "Seven wonders of the ancient world". Do you know what the rest six off them are?

Jukka

[sorvju-f]

We all have heard "Seven wonders of the ancient world". Do you know what the rest six off them are?

Jukka

So here they are:

http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/list.html

There have been about 1600 loadings after publishing " Pharos lighthouse "
in UW-photochat, I hope everybody enjoyed.

Jukka

[Jonathan Bird]

There have been about 1600 loadings after publishing " Pharos lighthouse "
in UW-photochat, I hope everybody enjoyed.



Aint the internet great?????

[Jonathan Bird]

David White's Dolphin Experience is the new Video of the Month!

(see URL in next post!)

Works best if you download it THEN watch it.

Jonathan

[David White]

Try: http://stage6.divx.com/OceanView-HD/video/1329279/Translucent-Dream. Hit the play button and you will get a message "connecting", followed by a message "buffering". When the video starts to play hit the pause button, move the play marker to the beginning of the video and allow the video to buffer completely to your computer before pressing the play button. Otherwise the audio and video lose synchronization. Stage6 is apparently optimized for Mozilla Firefox whatever that means. You will also need the DivX player available free here: http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/ for windows machines and here: http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/ for those of you who are not PC enthusiasts.

[Papa Bear]

Here is one I just finished: A Tiger Shark in Beqa Lagoon named Princess!
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=24964219
or at the web at http://twotankedproductions.com/videoclips/tigarsharkvideo.html

[sorvju-f]

Here is one I just finished: A Tiger Shark in Beqa Lagoon named Princess!
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=24964219
or at the web at http://twotankedproductions.com/videoclips/tigarsharkvideo.html

Great Papa Bear!

It was huge...and that amount of fishes...there were really so much of fishes that they partly prevented to see the Princess...is there so much marine life everywhere?

Loading of this file took about 20 minutes.

Maybe I have looked so many footage UW with music that speaking after the dive was really refreshing...I mean that often narration would give much more content to video productions...anyhowe great work!

Jukka

[Papa Bear]

Juka, as Jonathan has stated in another thread, sound is the hardest, and you need a good narrator and even a script that works! Production cost go up fast! But thank for your kind words and I hope the 20 minutes was worth it!????

[Neptune7]

We were shooting standups for a night dive with Tiger sharks in Bahamas last year. It was for all of us a first and we were all tense. Suddenly Carl did this monologue out of nowhere. It was great.:D
Just for laugh.
Pierre
http://homepage.mac.com/pierre_seguin/iMovieTheater6.html

[sorvju-f]

We were shooting standups for a night dive with Tiger sharks in Bahamas last year. It was for all of us a first and we were all tense. Suddenly Carl did this monologue out of nowhere. It was great.:D
Just for laugh.
Pierre
http://homepage.mac.com/pierre_seguin/iMovieTheater6.html

Great clip...starring tongue...moments like this to get to film are unique!

Jukka

[Jonathan Bird]

Warning! That clip is not suitable for a young viewer!