Communion? Some input.
 

This is the situation. The bride was not traditional at all, infact she was fun and very creative. Different style of wedding. When she did communion she had a song play through the system. No one up front except for them. How would you edit this? Keep the entire song? Use half till their communion is over then fade out? Pretty much they just waited for the song to end. Ceremony was apporx 35min long. It was straight to the point. Thanks for your input.

Monay

were tehy the only ones doing communion?

what i do is usually run the song in the background, up until a major chord change then bring the track in as a closer to that particular scene, other times, if communion goes for a little longer, id run that track during communion. If theyr were jsut standing there and the song was playing and nothign was hapening, this is a good time to use cutaways of the family etc..
theres lots u can do

This is a quandry many face. One solution is to do "2" edits:

Short: 10-15 minutes. All the lulls and original music are hacked out. Only the important dialog along with an instrumental track is kept in.

Long: Pretty much the raw footage of the entire ceremony with some minor editing. Includes all the couple's songs they picked, the gospel, homily, readings, etc.

The "Short" edit can go on the main DVD with the other edited pieces of the day. The long ceremony then goes onto a 2nd DVD.

Call me crazy, and yes I may be, ok the meds help. But you might fill in, if it's possible with some close ups in slow mo, if you have the footage. I just keep thinking of soap operas, when they do the weddings there's always this misty look. I've done the entire song during communion. Typically we have font faces on them with a secondary camera so I'll flip between the cameras to keep the eyes attention going. I'm still a fan of filming what happens and I've not done a 'short' edit yet for a wedding, so that's where my opinion comes from. That's just my two cents, feel free to exchange it for the dollar from Peter or Rick. :}

Based on years of unscientific research (talking with family members, friends, and occasionally a previous client when our paths cross) I usually go with the long edit.

What I found is that even after seeing & experiencing the entire event live, most couples, parents and some relatives initially want to view the whole thing all over again on their tv. Sometimes over and over and over again.

By maybe the third or fouth viewing, they start getting selective, like just wanting to look at dad's kiss, the vows, one of the speeches at the reception that was funny, the father/daughter dance, whatever....

That's why I was so glad when VHS died. With a DVD you can make up to 99 scene selections, and altho I've never hit that number, I've come close.

So, with Monday's example, I would keep in the entire communion song, with a marker at the start and another at the end. I have no doubt the bride will initially want to watch the whole thing, but eventually will want to skip it entirely.

Of course, I provide a scene selection guide with each DVD, which occasionally is a bit of a pain to come up with just the right couple of words to describe each scene, but it's still less time consuming than making different DVD versions of the same event.

I haven't had any complaints yet. However, a few months ago, I did get a request from the dad of the groom if I could make another DVD for him with only a couple of specific scenes. I said I could do it, but it would be quicker if I just burned him a duplicate. He said no, that was the problem -- he didn't want to spend all that time fast-forwarding to those scenes.

Over the phone, I talked him through how to use the remote to pick specific scenes. He was doing it as I was explaining, and he was amazed to find that just tapping on 36 brought up exactly the scene he wanted.

So, there are still people out there who don't have a clue what all those buttons on the remote are for.

Thanks for the input Peter, Rick, Steve, and Tom. I am giving her a full edit, which is only going to be 30mins it was a quick one. The problem I have is that when they finish their communion, they are joking with the Pastor, talking, asking what's next, making funny faces, laughing during what is seen as a sacred time. I don't think that's what they want to see, especially their parents in the final edit, maybe a bloopers section (don't know). So I was wondering of a way around it. Peter and Steve, you hit it on the head. Looking through my guys footage now. Thanks for the input again. Take Care

Monday

Oh yeah I missed your question Peter. They were the only ones taking communion.

Aaaah, you didn't mention this in your starter discussion. I would consider this more of a problem than deciding on a short/long version of the song. They probably thought acting up was cute at the time, but might not when they grow up a bit more.

It did happen, but it wasn't part of the ceremony per se. My instinct would be to include it on the disk, but, as you write, park it in a separate section along with other deleted scenes.

That sounds good Tom, I'll definitely do that. Well I looked through my guys video and I'm sad to say, he didn't get crowd shots during the ceremony, he left the camcorder framed on them and me in the background recording them. I told him in the beginning before the ceremony started to get crowd dhots during the communion. He didn't listen. The other tough part is the crowd shots I got were reactions to the songs played the kisses etc... Won't fit in with the communion. I'm bummed out and a little agitated at my guy. Anyway to recover this communion not having proper cut aways? Thanks

Monday

Monday-

If there is any pause between when the minister stopped speaking and the playing of the music, I would back the audio up so that the music fades in under his last few words...this will gain you a few seconds and if you want to gain a few more, fade the song in about halfway through it. If you need, you can fade the song out when they start getting playful and bring the minister back in on top of it with a fade to the minister speaking from a different angle than you had in the previous frame...that is about the way I have done it in circumstances like that...let the wedding season roll on!

Thanks Seth. I like that idea, but it won't work. She had another song play before that, which was done for those who lost loved ones this year. They all lit their candles from the unity candle. This was not traditional at all. So I'm really stuck. Not sure what to do. My friend who lives out on the west coast did tell me that's why you pay for good help. I hired my friend cause we played in a band together. He played drums and me the bass. He liked videography and took classes in highschool. I told him I'd use him for alot of events. He's only caused me headaches since then. We've done 8 events together. I gave him my training resources I bought from on-line, and he didn't watch them to improve at all. He only practiced on the job, cause I went over key shots I was looking for and saw he didn't understand me at all. Thanks all for your input. I'ma go and see what I can do with this.

Take Care
Monday