24P Wedding, client hates it...

[J.J. Kim]

I am exporting right now, so I can't try that at the moment, but before I try that, I gotta ask you:
I have 3 video tracks and 5 audio tracks. when the timeline gets exported, do they get to be made into one tracks each so I can move them around easier? or no?
It might involve tons of work to adjust the opacity of each clips...

[Noa Put]

The preset: PRESET02.CPF "AC PREF1" which is described as Alister Chapman's prefered general setup at this link: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-xh-...rary-copy.html

I tried several presets but found that many did not display red accurately, above preset together with the panalook preset did give according to what I saw the best results, eventhough both make your image a bit darker they resemble my dvx100 image which I really liked.

For low light I didn't use any preset, I noticed that all lowlight presets produce ghosting and working with untouched footage gives you the best possibilities in post.

In premiere I edit in the hdv1080p25 preset because from what I heared it's allways better to edit in HD and do the downconverting in your editing program.

[J.J. Kim]

Noa: I just downloaded the preset and red does look good though it gives up the brightness on dark area. I don't like the ghosting on the low light preset, either, and I have been sticking with no preset, too. Because my 2nd camera was unmanned (which mostly don't happen), I edited in DV, but captured the 2nd cam footage in HDV so I can move around (zoom in out, pan, etc), but maybe I should start editing HDV footage in HDV setup instead of SD. Does it take up more hard drive space, I assume?

JJ

[Ger Griffin]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

In premiere I edit in the hdv1080p25 preset because from what I heared it's allways better to edit in HD and do the downconverting in your editing program.

Noa, I have tested this extensively.
In my experience (pal XHA1 and PPcs3) if your final output is to DVD, shoot in SD.
There is an incredible amount of loss in downconverting footage within the camera. And even downconverting any other way is inferior to shooting/editing and outputting in SD for DVD.
Bottom line- if your client has no interest in HD and it hasn't been mentioned at all prior to the shoot, then SD all the way. PP3 settings- SD DVwidescreen with fields set to none. This is all especially true if shooting in frame mode. A downconversion is even worse (more strobelike) if its shot in frame mode.

I've been playing with tampering with presets for making them optimum for 25f in SD.
Definately the HDTfreq and the one under it (DHT I think) needs to be played with to soften that jaggie/interlace flicker appearance to thin white line and areas of high detail in the footage, especially on CRT screens. These settings appear to soften everything enough to eliminate that appearance but doesn't seem to soften things so much that it takes from the quality (remember I am talking SD here).

[Tripp Woelfel]

I believe the AE effect you want is called Time Warp. I'm a little fuzzy on the nomenclature but you don't want the frame blend option. That will look pretty much the same as it does in PP. You want the option that interpolates frames. It can give you some very stunning slow motion when it works. It has tripped over some footage for me... moving river water... but in the few other times I've used it it's great.

Don't be concerned that it takes a very long time to render. It's doing an awful lot of work to make those new frames.

[Ross Herewini]

"I am exporting right now, so I can't try that at the moment, but before I try that, I gotta ask you:
I have 3 video tracks and 5 audio tracks. when the timeline gets exported, do they get to be made into one tracks each so I can move them around easier? or no?
It might involve tons of work to adjust the opacity of each clips... "

Yes they are made into one track video+audio. you then import that clip and put video on v1 audio on a1. You only need the video from the clip to go to v2 and follow previous instructions.

What are you editing with?

[J.J. Kim]

Adobe Premiere CS3

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Wes Coughlin

I wouldn't take it to heart, you are the expert in the this field, not the client. The client trusted you to do your job and you did it. If the client is unhappy with your work then you should make the changes requested, but you are not going to get a better looking framerate without re-capturing without the 2:4:4:2 pulldown or whatever the pull down is (but it will still probably look weird becuase of duplicated frames). Because you are happy with the results, and everyone else appears to agree, then you should tell the client that you will try to re-capture and re-edit the video but it will cost extra.

PARDON ME?

J.J., I quite like what you've done with your footage but the sooner "professionals" realize that our job is to give the client what they are looking for and not foisting our "wants" on them, the better for them professionally. In future, now that you have a 24P example, you may want to show clients examples of "normal" and 24P footage and allow them to choose the look they want for THEIR memories of the event.

Wes, just because a bunch of people with a vested interest say it's ok, doesn't mean it is ESPECIALLY on something as personal as a wedding. Because the VIDEOGRAPHER is happy it's the couple's tough luck? Don't take up corporate work! Or broadcast if that truly is your belief of what is right and wrong.

[J.J. Kim]

Shaun: Even though I was happy with my edit and shots, my client wasn't. That was the first and foremost reason I started this thread to find the solution to make it look good enough for my clients. Even my website states that I put client's satisfaction before anything, I mean ANYTHING. Yeh, I liked 24P and people liked the film look, and my client didn't. I know since it's kinda favor, less of hiring me, we didn't sign any contract or showing him bunch of my weddings. Well, kinda to put this thread to end, I moved my timeline to DV 60i then burned it to DVD and it looked noticeably better. I am delivering the DVD next monday, and I am pretty sure they will be happy with outcome. I will update the footage sometime this week, but it's all good, and thank you all so very much for help/advice.

cheers,
JJ

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Ger Griffin

Noa, I have tested this extensively.
In my experience (pal XHA1 and PPcs3) if your final output is to DVD, shoot in SD.

HD is giving me a headache, when I worked with SD life was real easy and final output was always as good as my 4:3 SD cam allowed it to be. Thing is, no-one is requesting HD or blu-ray delivery so far but what I like about working in HD is the detail you have to start with, also outputting a demo for the internet is superior in quality.
I will try to do a SD test recording as you suggested though, ask you said, if HD is not requested and if shooting in SD gives better quality, why not? The wedding season is over now and the following months I have more time to figure out the best workflow for HD to dvd with premiere CS3.

[Tripp Woelfel]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

HD is giving me a headache... I will try to do a SD test recording as you suggested though, ask you said, if HD is not requested and if shooting in SD gives better quality, why not?

This seems to be one of those things that keeps coming back like a bad check. Conventional wisdom and my own experience indicate that you will get better SD video if you shoot in HDV and downconvert in the camera. But even if quality was no better it would still make sense to shoot in HD. As time goes by would you rather have an archive library of video in SD or HD?

[Ryan Postel]

J.J. - I agree with everone on this: Great job on the edit. Very professional and complete, almost too good for a "favor". Many people the couple would've hired would not have done as good of a job.

I also agree to always put the client's wants first. And weddings may have the craziest clients. (that's why I moved to corporate vids)

But after doing weddings for many years you see that there are lots of people out there that are never 100% pleased no matter what and you can spend a lifetime learning to deal with these people. Maybe the mistake was made to take 24p and make it slow-mo, but it was quite small, and you will run into too many ungrateful people in the future to let this experience bring you down.

[Edward Phillips]

One of the tough things of wedding videography is that most of the time you have two clients (bride & groom) and need two approvals instead of one. Reading your post, the bride seemed happy and she's probably the one most likely to replay this for friends and family. I would try your best to fix it once and then let it go if the groom continues to complain. I would bet since his bride liked it he's going to drop it anyway.

I know customer satisfaction is key to the business but there are people out there who cannot give a compliment or acknolwedge satisfaction to save their life. These are the people would would win the lottery and then complain that the large novelty check is too glossy.

Do your best but keep from getting heartbroken about it.

[Shaun Roemich]

JJ: Thanks for this open and honest discussion of a topic that we ALL face at points in our careers. Look on the bright side, like I mentioned earlier, now you have a 24P wedding to show off to those potential clients that do like the look. Good luck and continued success!

[Ger Griffin]

I have it in my contract that creative aspects such as shooting and editing style are at our discretion.
Shaun, I agree to an extent, the customer should be accomodated to help make them happy but unlike corporate gigs, weddings must be approached with a different ideology if one is to survive.
We must target a high volume of clients to make it work. The product must be up to a certain (high) standard, and then that is where we must draw the line.

On the other topic, yea a very bad check. But it is in MY OPINION that Im better off to shoot/edit & output in SD.
I have been told on this site by some serious technical experts that when shooting SD with a HD cam the signal passes through the same sensor(s) so exposure is the same as when shooting HD. A downcoversion actually takes place in the camera before writing to tape. This down coversion is obviously better as it is taking place before it becomes a highlighy compressed mpeg. Whether this is the case or not, to my eye the finished product is sharper.
Not to mention other advantages like editing and applying filters, more tolerable dropouts on the tape etc.
Not to mention PPCS3 crap ability to keep audio in sync with video with HDV clips (has this been fixed yet?)
Noa will you please let us know (in this thread) what you think after testing, even if it is a long time from now.