New Love Story- Critiques Please
 

I just finished this Love Story for my niece's wedding. I orininally wanted something to show at the reception (the day after tomorrow) but couldn't get a projector lined up so this will just go on the DVD. I know the camera work is a bit shakey. Everything was either handheld or using a Merlin. Any feedback appreciated.

Also - I shot this with my XH-A1 in 24F. You'll notice some ghosting or blur (not sure of proper term) wherever there is motion. Does this look like a post issue or camera setting issue. Im guessing that maybe my shutter speed is too low. I believe I shot this in Aperture Priority mode so maybe I need to shoot manual and set the shutter to 48.


http://vargaproductions.com/Lovestory.html

Art,
I couldn't get the video to load on my Mac.
I'm gonna take a shot in the dark on your 24f ghosting problem and say that it's not in camera. Total guess since I haven't seen your stuff yet, but most 24p(f, whatever) problems I've seen are introduced in capture or in output.

BTW, what kinda file was that supposed to be?

Did you create this piece using Premiere Pro?

There is a problem after adding the cross fade transition. For the last few frames within the transition, the camera moves away so it looks very odd. You will need to trim a few more frames earlier before applying the cross fade transition.

I like some of the "flying" shot. Pretty cool! Most other times, it was too shaky. I would use a tripod.

If you shot in 24F mode, you should work on a 24p project timeline. Best use the wide screen aspect ratio too. Then export to 24fps video. Better than exporting in 15fps. Or you should also shoot some scenes in 60i and do 50% slow motion. 60i slomo looks wonderful.

Exporting to WMV favors PC users. For most Mac user or Firefox users, they will need the Windows Media Player plugin in order to see your video. You can try export to Flash Video format (.flv) then grab a free player to plug to your web page. It's very easy. I'm using the FlowPlayer (flowplayer.org)

Oh! For love story, I will also try to include some interview scene.. you know, the object is on the left third of the screen talking to the camera but looking to the right of the camera.

Compared to 24p slowmo, I'd agree. Compared to overcranked 60p, not even close.

I have Windows Media Player for Mac and Flip4Mac and nether seem to know what to do with your file. All I get here in Mac land is a missing plugin icon thingie. What version of WMV did you encode to?

I know over-cranking is the best but the poster stated he's using an XH-A1 which doesn't support over-cranking. Just to suggest what's the best with what he already has.

Taky,
No offense intended, just putting it out there.

Ethan, none taken.. just try to make it real.

I encoded to a wmv. file using Window Media 11. I did encode at 15fps to keep the file size down but I think my issues go beyond that. I edited in Vegas 7 on on 24p timeline. I've heard the term overcranked 60p on this forum but don't know what it means. I was thinking of shooting the wedding tomorrow in 30F. Will that help much in terms of smoother slow-mo vs 24f?

Thanks for the tips on the transitions I'll be more careful to keep a stable image on my crossfades. This was an Impromptu shoot. I kinda talked my niece into letting me do this so we just jumped in the car and I forgot my tripod! I agree that would have made a big difference.

I would prefer to use flash on my site but don't have an encoder. Any recommendations?

Art,
Don't be confused about my overcranked 60p talk. Your camera can't do it as someone else pointed out earlier. The HVX200, EX1, and HD250 are the only prosumerish cameras out there that can do this naively. Overcranking is an old film term describing the process of shooting at a higher frame rate (frames per second) than your intended playback speed. In the film world, the standard is/was 24 frames per second (fps), but if you shoot 60 fps and play those back at 24 fps you get in essence a 1/3 normal speed "true" slow motion.

None of the earlier stuff helps you much as your camera will only shoot 60i, 24p, or 30p.

Native 24p footage generally does not make for very pretty slowmo because it tends to stutter a bit when slowed. This is actually the reason I haven't gone to 24p for my wedding videography. I love the 24p look, but my style is to slowmo almost everything in post, and thus true 24p isn't for me. If you want to shoot progressive and you know you may slow some footage down in post, then I'd go with 30p. It should give you much better results for the purposes of slowing things down a bit.

Sorry for introducing the earlier confusion, hope this clears things up a bit.

30p will give you better slomo results than in 24p. Also, there'll be less stuttering during pans too.

So from what you can get best from the camcorder, 60i will deliver the best slomo results. I recently created a video shot in 60i then put in 50% speed.

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=110686

Hi Art,
Overall I thought your love story was good. I really liked the music. Concerning the flying or moving camera shots you have a few scenes where the camera is not moving and then starts moving towards the couple. Also there are maybe two scenes where the camera is moving towards the center of the couple but as you transition the camera moves to the left. Try to complete your transitions before that happens. Also you may want to get more variety in your scene selections. Close up, medium, and long shots. The moving camera shots are very cool but if you use them too much I think you will lose the effect you are trying to achieve.

Jerome
www.jterryvideography.com