My latest - back with 4 minute short form

Sometime in the last year I got back on the short form (4-8 minute) bandwagon. Now we deliver short form, medium (15-20 minute highlight for online) that we call a wedding film, and the full length documentary style.

Here is our latest trailer or short form. Feedback wanted.

Morgan and Dawson's wedding trailer on Vimeo

[Chris Harding]

That neatly done Rob and seems to cover from prep and ceremony quite comprehensively! I like to watch out for windows giving you backlight issues with exposure and I see the photog had the right idea with her back to the big windows but you were shooting into the window rather than from it!

I liked it otherwise and glad you used live audio on the vows bit ..that's important! Didn't like the white flash transition you used but that's just me ..viewed on a TV it tends to be a bit harsh!!

I would call this a short form ceremony and not a trailer as a trailer (IMO anyway) covers bits and pieces of the whole wedding as a teaser and that's usually no more than 2 minutes.

Nice job! the bride should be delighted!

[Robert Benda]

I'm glad to hear my biased eyes are too rose colored. Thank you, Chris. I've been frustrated by our mistakes that we keep making and this is the first one this year I've been pretty happy with.

If I don't have to, I wouldn't use the backlit shots at all, but, *boom*, there was the bride hugging grandma and then mom while I had been standing there doing nothing... oh well.

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For audio, we are huge on it. Like most of the guys I see posts from on here. You can see my matchstick microphone on the groom, actually, just before the first look.

I've had several people tell me they hired us BECAUSE our videos feature the audio and no one else in our area does... which is just bizarre to me. I'm similarly baffled by the companies that ONLY provide a 5 minute highlight and nothing longer.

[Chris Harding]

Hey Rob

I do understand that if you get a moment and you are on the wrong side of the light then the shot is way more important than the exposure ...if you had run around to the window you simply would have missed the shot and that would have been a disaster! It's always in my mind because when I still had 2nd shooters I got so frustrated that they kept shooting into the light when they could have quite easily moved position and avoided it!!

Yeah the highlight market is weird ..if I was a bride I would love a highlight video up to 10 minutes so I could show all my friends (We supply our highlight on USB but also on our LCD video book and brides take them everywhere!) However asking say $2000 for just a 5 minute video makes it expensive in the bride's eyes and to actually make it you still need to shoot most of the wedding so I really don't see the point of not putting together a long form since you already have the footage??

[Robert Benda]

Its even stranger than that, Chris. I've been the DJ at a two weddings with the same video guy. He only shoots for the highlights he told me.

So, for instance, at the first wedding he wasn't filming the bride's dad's toast at all. Or the groomsman, when he busted out a beat box and had all 300 guests on their feet, cheering.

Bizarre stuff to me.

[Noa Put]

I thought it looked great and you managed to get the important moments which can be over before you blink your eyes :) and that makes the difference. I did find it a bit funny seeing you run to the sides on that gopro shot from the balcony but that is something you might be able to fix, I have managed to hide myself from a locked off camera many time by overlaying the same shot where I was not in it and then use the mask tool to cut me out, it only works on camera's that are on a tripod and where the frame doesn't change. On that gopro shot of your I"m sure I could make you disappear as well without anyone noticing it.
I only have one remark on the part where they first meet, there is quite a difference between the "look" of the 2 camera's, one seems to have much less contrast and saturation, where it 2 different brands of camera's used at that moment? It did notice and I think you might be able to correct that camera to match more with the more colorful one.

I do understand that if you get a moment and you are on the wrong side of the light then the shot is way more important than the exposure

It's true that the shot is all that matters but your position should not be used as an excuse for underexposed footage, I could shoot that same shot of the bride hugging grandma from the same position and have them exposed much better, the window would be totally overexposed with no detail and it would even create a glow around the subject but that's ok because the details outside that window are not important at all. Shooting against windows is always more challenging but with fast changing environments you often don't get to choose where to to stand so you need to learn to expose right and quick and not rely on the camera's auto exposure.

About doing highlights only, I have worked as a second shooter for a guy that only did the highlights, no speeches at all, he didn't even bother with audio, just a lot of steadicam shots of the keymoments of the day and a 5 minute MTV like music clip as result, I think he mainly sold that together as a combo with his photopackages as that was his main business. His clips looked fun to watch but did not give a real impression of the weddingday at all. It was like a christmas tree ball, shiny on the outside and hollow inside :)

[Noa Put]

Wanted to say another thing about the underexposed shots from the bridesmaids when the first see the bride in her dress, more specifically the closeups you did, this is also something you can correct in post, in Edius I use the yuv curve or a keyer called "screen" where I duplicate the layer, then add the "screen" so I can adjust exposure, it's not a replacement tool to handle exposure but it can lift underexposed shots to match better with good exposed ones.

[Robert Benda]

Noa, a lot of those I had done *some* correcting on. I simply didn't do enough. Thanks to your notes, I just did some more correcting. I may have to do some more, once I see it on the big screen, but pushed the gamma/lifted the brightness a bit more in those shots.

Oh, and I never use auto settings. Especially in a place like this with all the winddows... too unreliable. For the grandma and mom hug moment, which if I'd had a better grandma shot, of course I'd have used that, but I didn't, somehow. Photog and I were waiting in the hall for the bride to head out for the 1st look and I got caught standing on the wrong side of the action. I still wanted to get as many of the family members in as I could.

That first look footage I not only pulled back the over saturated/contrasty footage, but pushed the other footage to be more saturated. Gets it closer to a match. I haven't put it into DaVinci and may need to since I'm having trouble getting it right.

Mostly that part ticks me off that I have to fix that at all. I have no idea how one of my cameras was in "portrait" or whatever mode instead of shooting flat. Really causing some headaches because its the same issue during vows and such.
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Thanks for the notes, Noa and Chris.

[Al Wong]

Hey Robert,

Just something I've been meaning to ask you for awhile now. Is there any reason why you're shooting with a higher shutter speed? The footage ends up looking really choppy. I can see that kind of effect working on action sequences in movies, but for a wedding edit, it becomes really distracting.

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Al Wong

Hey Robert,

Just something I've been meaning to ask you for awhile now. Is there any reason why you're shooting with a higher shutter speed? The footage ends up looking really choppy. I can see that kind of effect working on action sequences in movies, but for a wedding edit, it becomes really distracting.

We're shooting 24 fps and 48 shutter speed (thank you, Magic Lantern). Maybe its something in my render? I'll check the settings tomorrow. Maybe I made a mistake somewhere.

[Steven Shea]

That's definitely not a shutter thing, looks like a render issue or a vimeo issue. It looks like the video is playing back at like 12-15fps.

[Robert Benda]

Here is the template I'd been using:

And other than when my wife accidentally rolls her shutter speed up higher... or maybe in a VERY bright spot when I'll go up to shutter 100.. we shoot 24 fps and 50 shutter speed.

Suggestions?

[Robert Benda]

As a P.S. to this... here is the longer highlight video we deliver. The client gets the short, this longer one, and the full ceremony/speeches/special dances.

Dawson and Morgan's wedding film on Vimeo

[David Barnett]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

Here is the template I'd been using:

And other than when my wife accidentally rolls her shutter speed up higher... or maybe in a VERY bright spot when I'll go up to shutter 100.. we shoot 24 fps and 50 shutter speed.

Suggestions?

One thought might be to uncheck "Allow source to adjust frame rate".

[Peter Rush]

Robert I think I can see you scuttling out of the way after the processional from the balcony camera ;) I am always getting caught in the shots from my static cams - unavoidable sometimes

What is your main camera of choice?

Nice work BTW!