New highlight clip to share
 

We were fortunate to get a beautiful balmy day for a December 29th wedding in NJ. Gave us the opportunity for lots of outdoor shooting overlooking NYC skyline. I haven't forwarded to B&G yet so please critique.

http://vargaproductions.com/lizandchris.html


Art

Hey Art,
You know I really do like that song. When she gets it right she really does. I really liked your highlight here, but I have a few comments. Nothing lifechanging but here's what I noticed. The first thing that stood out to me was the stabilizer flybys. I thought a few things here. 1, they're a bit overused, and 2, there's too much headroom usually, or they're not framed well. #3 they're still a bit wobbly. They threw off the momentum abit. I also thought there was probably too much photo session, etc. This is a long song, and alot to fill, but it seemd a bit lopsided. I don't remember seeing any of your work before, and I am very impressed with what you have here. I know it is probably a very tough market where you are, but great work really. Oh what was your comression here, I viewed it full screen, and it looked pretty good. What cameras etc.?
Bill Grant

Bill -thanks for the feedback. I agree with you on the stabilizer shots. I really like the effect but I know I'm overzealous with it's use. I do need a lot more practice too ( wobble) I used a combo of the XH-A1 and HV20 for this wedding with a Merlin attached to the A1. The clip was exported from Vegas with WMV V9 Quality VBR mode. The file size (78MB) is kind of big so I hope the load time wasn't too bad. Oh and I shot in 30F on the A1 and 24p with the HV20.

Art

Nice one
 

Hi Art

Having viewed it I like it. There's plenty going on and while there are a few newcomer errors (I have made the same) you show a good talent.

On the file size thing - grab yourself a copy oof Sorenson Squeeze and use an flv 512 or 768 setting with an output screen size of the same value as you have and you'll have great fun making videos that load very quickly and suffer very little (relatively) at the hands of compression.

On the whole - thumbs up...
Cheers
Dave

I also think you did a nice job.

I thought you had a nice look going at the beginning with the really warm punched up color, but lost it as the video progressed into the middle of the photo session. The saturation level on several of the shots dropped. Maybe it is the difference between the A1 and HV20?

Thanks Matt - I had great natural lighting for the bride prep shots so I used no filters or correction. I started adding filters later in the clip but may have misused some. They looked good in my editing bay but can now see the drop off in saturation looking at it on other monitors. Thanks again for the feedback.

Art

I like the video it is very creative.

How do you handle getting sync rights to popular music? I have been looking everywhere and I can’t find a place that will licence it. I know there has to be a way to legally use popular music.

Great stuff!
Did you have to set up some of the shots or did you shoot what naturally happens.
I have noticed that on a lot of the really good videos (like yours) there are shots that seemed like you would need to set them up and have the B&G cooperate with you. A few years ago I tried setting up a shot that I thought would look real nice (just having them walk back into the church and come back out again) They just looked at me with a blank stare, so ever since I've been shooting just what happens, nothing more ,nothing less.
Mark G

Mark - the photographer for this wedding was very good. She had everyone in motion all the time which set up some great shots for me. So no, I really didn't need to ask the B&G to do any special setup for me, Occasionally I asked the party to keep doing what they were already doing a bit longer but for the most part I just shadowed the photographer.

Art