About Filosofisk Film

These pages present a number of ongoing documentary sound & picture projects – some serious, some just for fun. The first and the two last of the film projects have been pursued in cooperation with the University of Gothenburg.

Many early movie clips were filmed with a tape-based Canon HV-20, HV-40, XH-A1s or XL-H1A camera. For birds, I often added a Canon FD(L) 100-300 zoom lens to the XL-H1A, which gives it an equivalent focal length of up to some 2.100 mm. Many thanks to Toshikazu Muramatsu, Nagoya, Japan, for finding this excellent lens! In 2015, I started filming with a micro 4/3 DSLR camera, the Panasonic GH4. For birding purposes, an Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50-200 lens with a 2x teleadapter was added, resulting in an equivalent focal length of up to 1.600 mm. Again, my friend Toshikazu found this one. A Panasonic GH5 was later added to the equipment together with two high quality Panasonic-Leica zoom lenses. Since 2021 I also use the fixed-focus Olympus M. Zuiko Digital 300/4,0 IS Pro with an Olympus MC-20 2x teleconverter, giving an equivalent focal length of 2.400 mm.

The sounds of the Mastersingers were (if not otherwise stated) captured using a Telinga Pro 5W with a stereo DAT microphone, and some of them were recorded on a Sony mini-disk or Zoom H2 (now H2n) digital recorder. The Telinga device has also been used together with the XL-H1A, XH-A1s, GH4 and GH5 with the sound recorded directly on the HDV tape/on the memory card. Ingvar Johansson at JOPRO, Alafors helped me construct and build a special tripod mount that can host several devices, for example two cameras, an external monitor and (in calm weather) the parabolic mic. I have received continuous technical support by Klas and Jon Strandberg at Telinga, thank you for that! The stereo DAT mic was recently renovated and is now like new.

For video editing, I still mainly use Final Cut Pro Classic, i.e. FCP7, today on a 2011 iMac with an SSD disc and OSX 10.12.6. On FCP7 editing today, go here (text in English; Swedish version forthcoming).

All sounds on the Mastersingers page are coded using the HTML5 <audio> command. Take care that the Mastersingers page is fully loaded before you run any of the pure sound files. Else, the browser may become confused.

– The embedded Vimeo movies do not work with Safari 5.1.10 under MacOSX 10.6.8. Regrettably, this problem cannot be fixed. However, the Mastersinger sounds work.
– Everything, both audio and video links, works with Firefox 44+ under MacOSX 10.6.8, but the Quicktime 7.5 (or later) plugin may have to be installed and activated.
– The same seems to hold for Firefox under Windows 7.

Newer Mac systems:

– Everything seems to work fine with Safari and Firefox (latest possible version) under Mac OSX 10.10.5 and higher.

For both browsers you may have to check that there is an active Quicktime plugin.

I do not know what works and what doesn't with other newer browsers and/or operative systems, and am happy for any feedback about this.

Lars Karlsson kindly gave my many good beginner's advices. Without the generous help, criticism and support that Torgny Nordin has provided and continues to provide, most of my work would just not have been possible. Since early 2013 I am an associate member of Naturfilmarna, something that of course is of great help in my projects. Among Naturfilmarna, Björn Obenius has contributed a lot of constructive criticism. Several other people have given invaluable advice, also concerning birdsong where I especially want to mention Ulf Elman and the late Patrik Åberg. Larry Jordan's advice on video editing has been very helpful. Finally, Daniel Ruhe's computer-related technical comments and tips have often saved my day, and I am very grateful for them.

/The Captain

About Filosofisk Film/Philosophical Films