2nd Try: First Wedding Highlight Video + Promo

My previous post has been lost down the page, and besides, I now have everything up on Vimeo, so there isn't any long wait for a DL.

First up is my first ever wedding highlight edit, a music video form edit of an entire wedding day, but to the bride's favorite song. I cut this together the night before my first ever wedding show in a total of about 8 hours editing. Also first use of glidecam4k at a wedding with my GL2 on top, as opposed to being balanced for my Panny GS320.

Secondly is my first company promo cut together over a few weeks worth of work. Cut to a very different style to stand out, get attention, and highlight all the things a boring single cam wedding shoot is not. Used clips from lots of previous weddings, even a shot from my first ever wedding video (feel free to guess which one it is).

As usual, any and all comments welcome.

[Ken Diewert]

Jason,

I know I should be spending more time working on my stuff than looking at other peoples work, but I think that there is real value in watching what other people are doing, and what works and what doesn't.

I really like the glides past the B & G solo and together. And the groom clowning with the groomsmen. One small thing is I think the shots may have been a little better if you'd locked off the exposure, and over-exposed the sky a little to pick up more detail in the foreground and mountains, but maybe that's just a combo of vimeo and my monitor.

The first shot of the flower girl getting her hair done is great, but the second one of her standing with the ceiling in behind is not doing much. The other is one of the two flower girls in the aisle shot on one their backing up, in the next they're going forward.

Your other highlight reel looks great. I like the PinP, but i think you don't need 30 seconds of it. The shot at 1:05 isn't that great because of the post. Then it's great shots from there on in.

I also would have liked to see a few more vfx in the reel. There's alot of stuff in V8 that 'your typical wedding videos' don't have access to.

I hope your recent investments pay off. Don't give up on it.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

Jason,

I know I should be spending more time working on my stuff than looking at other peoples work, but I think that there is real value in watching what other people are doing, and what works and what doesn't.

I really like the glides past the B & G solo and together. And the groom clowning with the groomsmen. One small thing is I think the shots may have been a little better if you'd locked off the exposure, and over-exposed the sky a little to pick up more detail in the foreground and mountains, but maybe that's just a combo of vimeo and my monitor.

The first shot of the flower girl getting her hair done is great, but the second one of her standing with the ceiling in behind is not doing much. The other is one of the two flower girls in the aisle shot on one their backing up, in the next they're going forward.

Your other highlight reel looks great. I like the PinP, but i think you don't need 30 seconds of it. The shot at 1:05 isn't that great because of the post. Then it's great shots from there on in.

I also would have liked to see a few more vfx in the reel. There's alot of stuff in V8 that 'your typical wedding videos' don't have access to.

I hope your recent investments pay off. Don't give up on it.

For the outdoor shots, I was kicking myself for not over exposing a bit like you mentioned. The B&G are flat, but the colors in the background are nice.

The flower girls actually went down twice. First they went up, grabbed a roll of paper, then unrolled the paper from front to back, then they walked down the paper spreading flower petals. it was a bit confusing to me at the ceremony itself since the location wedding didn't permit us to attend the rehearsal. :-)

What sort of vfx could I do with out it being "here is something fancy in post!" I suppose a good color pass or desaturation to B&W then re-saturate shot is what I would do, if I were going to spice up a shot. Besides brides seem to always go gah-gah over a well done color pass / BW to Color fades (one of my photo movies has a great BW to color fade).

Good call on the flower girl with the ceiling in the BG. she also is a bit on the verge of throwing a fit, so I should ax that shot and get a better one.

For the shot at 1:05, do you mean the promo, or the highlight? The Promo at 1:05 has a shot looking down at the aisle as a bride walks down it. I did pump the colors a bit there. or may be it was the shot(s) before that with the groomsmen jumping or the fly-by of the groomsmen sitting. Both had a lot of chromic aberrations due to either the fish-eye on the first (and I pumped the blues a bit for the sky but possibly too much), or the fast movement on the second (I tried to de-interlace a bit in case that helped).

Thanks a bunch for the feedback. Now that I'm on Vimeo Plus, I'll be able to upload a bunch of times till I'm satisfied, and not loose my view stats. :-)

[Ken Diewert]

Jason,

The 1:05 shot was on the Promo reel where the couple (i think it was father and bride) is walking forward and a post obscures creeps into the shot. No big deal.

The vfx I was thinking were subtle things like you mentioned, a nice color wash, or slight desat, somewhere, (though i found the colors in general to be a little flat, but I'm on my work monitor, which is bad).a little glow on some scenes or one I kind of like sometimes is a slow move to B&W or up from B&W to color, that kind of thing.

[Tom Sessions]

I like the use of the Fifth Element soundtrack...I've been saving it for something but, never knew for what. Now I know. Did you use the Glide for the sparkler gauntlet run? Seemed a bit shakey.
Overall, nice work.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Tom Sessions

I like the use of the Fifth Element soundtrack...I've been saving it for something but, never knew for what. Now I know. Did you use the Glide for the sparkler gauntlet run? Seemed a bit shakey.
Overall, nice work.

No the sparkler run was MultiRig. I never seem to have enough warning when they want to do the grand exit to yank the cam off the multirig and put it on the glidecam4k. I also have all the audio perfectly adjusted through the beachtek for using the AT1820 UHF receiver and my AT897 shotgun on the cam.

I'm still a bit concerned about using on camera mics for those sort of shots where people are yelling and there could be peaking. I like the Beachtek's limiting to help avoid that problem.

But yes, I saw that footage and was thinking, dang.... that would have been way smoother with the glidecam4k.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

Jason,

The 1:05 shot was on the Promo reel where the couple (i think it was father and bride) is walking forward and a post obscures creeps into the shot. No big deal.

The vfx I was thinking were subtle things like you mentioned, a nice color wash, or slight desat, somewhere, (though i found the colors in general to be a little flat, but I'm on my work monitor, which is bad).a little glow on some scenes or one I kind of like sometimes is a slow move to B&W or up from B&W to color, that kind of thing.

Ahh... see I was tryign to be fancy and use the space between people standing to show the bride & father, and then the back of the guys shoulders as it came into view to do a timed linear wipe. I did it for both the bride's processional and the B&G's recessional.

So if it stood out as awkward, then that means I may need to work on that transition.

Edit Ok... now I got you. I was thinking of the wrong scene. Right, the outdoor wedding with the dark green post. I fought over at least three different takes for that one. Either the shots were a little wobbly (stupid XL1s lens sucked at the tall end of zoom), the post was the main feature, or she wasn't smiling. If there is one thing the shot has to have, it is a happy looking bride.

I agree. one of the weaker shots in the promo. I'll see about replacing it with a different wedding's processional.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

(though i found the colors in general to be a little flat, but I'm on my work monitor, which is bad)

I have overall been dissatisfied with Canon's colors. I've shot with an XL1, XL1s, and the GL2 and they all are just nothing like the Sony HDR-FX1 that I first shot with (granted the FX1 is an HD cam). I don't know, may be instead of A1 cams I'll be looking into something Sony makes.

I pumped the colors a fair amount on almost all the shots. Some of the ones with the groomsmen I forgot to pump (just checked my timeline) so I'll hit that clip and re-render over the weekend.