logical workflow and results
 

I don't mean workflow in the technical sense - codec's etc

I've just dumped my 2nd wedding and finishing the edit of my first and I'd like to check the way I'm doing it all to see if there's any newbie mistakes in there.

I'm capturing all the footage and dividing it into sections - preparation, ceremony, reception

I then put all the reasonable footage into a timline and do some quick CC and add some audio. for the Prep I've ended up with 8 minutes - ceremony 15 min

I've then done a 'highlights' of prep to an audio track - 3 min and I'll do the same for ceremony etc

so it looks like I'll end up with

prep - 8 min, prep highlights - 3 min
ceremony 15min - ceremony highlights - 3 min
reception 10 min - reception highlights - 3 min
overall highlights - 3 min

It just seemed a logical way to becomd familiar and work with the footage, gradually refining the finished product.

I know there has been some discussion about length of finished product but not so much the contents

anyone got any thoughts on this? - am I way off track - too much, too little?

Really depends on the day - I've had a couple that would have been a "long" edit, but I try to shoot for around an hour plus or minus, with guest interviews and such. Others have spoken of 2-3 disc final deliveries, and that seems painfully long...

For short ceremony/receptions, you might be stretching to get half an hour of usable material if you edit the slow spots too much... other days are so full of great shot ops that you can't choose what hits the floor in the edit.

While I'm capturing, I keep a log of and jot down a brief description as well as a rating (2-5 stars)of each clip. I do this in lieu of throwing everything on the timeline and then hunting for the good stuff. I also use the Marker feature in Vegas to ID points in clip for quick reference later. Otherwise I use pretty much the same workflow. In addition to the sections ( ceremony, toast, reception, etc) I also segregate clips by Cam1 and Cam 2.