First 2 wedding clips!
 

I'd really appreciate critiques any of you might have for those. I'm getting ready to shoot a third wedding soon and want to know if i'm headed in the right direction or if something i'm doing should be radically changed. Keep in mind as you watch those that the 1st was a traditional wedding here in Utah and the second was a mormon "Temple wedding", meaning i was not allowed inside the temple to shoot the "ceremony" there. That's why it's missing.

1st wedding
http://memories.tinycomet.com/film/w...hangie_wed.wmv

2nd wedding
http://memories.tinycomet.com/film/w...ddison_wed.wmv

Thanks for looking and rip those apart!

Raji

Clip One

Over all pretty good!!

Didn't like the first five or six cuts. The flowers are all colorful but when we get to the people they are black and white. The flowers were kind of ugly anyway with too much bark showing. That didn't work for me. In a lot of peoples clips the color to b & W often doesn't work well.

Music starts a little late.

Sound could be better.

Didn't like the fade to blacks near the end. One or two would have been ok but too many.

I liked the sort of jump cuts down the stairway.

Mike

Clip 2


Near the begining there was a shot of the little girl brides maid. That clip was too short. It was a good shot but you cut away too soon for me to "get it".

In the very begining you showed Church, Trees, Church. I don't think that worked too well.

Over all Very Good!!

Mike

thanks Mike! I appreciate the comments and i'll definitely watch out for those things next time around.

Any other comments and critiques are welcome of course

Hi Raji,

I tend to use slo mo and B&W very sparingly. Both can be very effective when used with the right scenes. IMO, none of the B&W in either clip was effective, and much of the slo mo could've run at full speed.

I didn't care for all those fades to black around the 3-min mark in clip 1. At the first one I thought it was the end of the video. Then there was another, and another... Very distracting. A long cross dissolve (like 2-seconds or so) instead of black would work better for continuity, I think.

Not all, but almost all of the scenes were at a fixed focal length. You don't want to overdo zooming, but the lack of much variety in your camera work and the amount of static shots made portions each clip seem more like a photo shoot than a video.

I of course have no idea what your limitations were, but at the location of that first clip there was that great stairway and balcony. Some elevated video shots from the stairs and/or balcony could've added a little pizzazz & variety.

Audio is considered by some to be the most important part of a video. If you're using only the on-camera mike, you might want to look into getting a good wireless setup for future jobs.

Finally, I would put the couple's name at the front end of the video (along with location & date as you did). I wouldn't put "Congratulations ... " anywhere, particularly at the end. Who is congratulating them? You? When the end is coming up, I slow fade the video to black starting 20 or more frames back, I keep the music running or change to a different tune, the credits roll, my logo is last, and the audio/video fades out. No personal well wishes.

Hi again Raji -- I just looked at the wedding highlight clip posted by Dan Shallenberger ("Highlight clip for critique"). The way he moved around with the camera, the closeups, and so on are good techniques to practice before a job and try to work into your style. I'd recommend downloading the file & looking at it if you haven't already.

There are certain times when everyone has to stand still -- like during a ceremony. But generally, I think if the subject isn't moving, then the camera and the cameraman need to be moving around, going toward, or moving away from the subject -- not to the point of making the viewer motion sick, but to simply give the viewer something to look at other than having a camera in one place filming people standing still in one place.

If you read the comments, he also took several hits for using B&W footage.

Raji! Nice to see another local. =) I only watched the "temple" clip, as I don't have much time at the moment. I thought it was pretty well done. Understanding the limitations posed by the circumstances (it's basically a photo shoot on the temple steps and grounds) I think you did well. I liked some of the slow motion, like when you kind of steadicamed it around them as they were standing by the side of the temple. The last shot of them walking away under the trees was nice. I thought the establishing shots at the beginning were nice too. The grounds are really pretty in the spring.

Things I didn't like. Some of the shots were really static. As though they were picture poses except that you were taping them. I shy away from this, but some of them looked really nice. Just not really video-ish. My feeling is that there should be some sort of motion, something to see happening. Otherwise you could tell the whole thing with photos. The straight cuts from shot to shot worked sometimes, but a lot of times it kind of jarred me out of the mood that I think you were trying to establish. This was more at the beginning of the video. I'd recommend at least a bit of a crossfade to soften the cuts.

Anyway, I liked it. Having been there shooting similar things many times, it's always a challenge to make something like different than the "standard" video. Not saying that yours is standard, just saying that it's hard to do that. Best of luck with things. Post up more footage when you get a chance. =)

BTW: I'm up in Ogden now, having recently moved. There are far fewer videographers up north here.

Thanks everyone for all your responses!

Tom, i do have a wireless G2 100 setup, and i did use it for that first video, but they decided that the preacher was going to be using a mic of his own. I saw my audio levels go completely nuts and decided to just turn off the wireless and switch back to the onboard mic. The preacher later told me the mic fell into his shirt anyway (he was wearing it on his black suit)... so the audio there would have been useless no matter what happened. Oh well...