My New Favorite Highlights Montage
 

Sometimes you just get a wedding that is awesome! The couple, the venue, the weather and everything else is just perfect. They get the right package and you can really give it all you got! Well I had this couple back in May. I posted there Trailer a month or so ago( http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/wedding-e...g-trailer.html )

I just love the way everything came out! I really put my heart and soul into this edit, working hard on the storytelling and making sure the music really moved the piece. Let me know what you guys think.

Joe Simon Productions- Cinematic HD & Vintage Super 8 Wedding Films for the Stylish Bride.: Keely & Kyle's HD Wedding Highlights

Shot on the XH-A1, Brevis 35 adaptor,50/1.4 lens, Glidecam 2000 handheld, Kessler 8ft crane. HVX-200 for time-lapses.

Nice work. Hooray... no black and white shots randomly interspersed amongst the footage!
With the use of the 35mm adaptor, do you find it difficult getting long sections of useable footage with the manual focus issues?

That was a new twist on a highlights video, considering how much audio you used. I thought you did a good job of picking clips to go with the audio. I really felt the emotion between the two. Coloring and pacing was nice and consistent.

Personally I felt like there was too much actual audio used, but that's just based on my expectations for a highlights video. From the couple's perspective, I'm sure it was awesome.

Amazing work Joe!

Stunning location, great colour work, and excellent visual storytelling!

Great work with the Brevis as well. Do you step down the 50mm at all, or do you shoot wide open at 1.4?

Luke

Joe - I like the look of your stuff. Very polished, very pro. Great setting with the hills in the background, and wonderfully written vows. Can't go wrong with that... and daylight to shoot in.

Joe - very nice!!! The crane shots really added something. What sort of lighting did you use for the reception scenes? Do you shoot with two A1s or do you move one on and off the adaptor?

Art

Joe,
You did a really good job with this edit. I'm very impressed. Good colors and fantastic use of the crane. You really used it effectively in this highlight. The one thing I thought you could have mixed better was when the instrumental track ended and you restarted it again. It wasn't mixed properly and that drove me nuts. Then again I was a musician for 5 years. The bride and groom won't even notice it and probably not many people at all. Again everything else was very well put together. Good use of the vows as well. Thanks for sharing.

Monday

In my opinion...
it's perfect.
If I was a groom (or bride), I would be the happiest one in the world...

WOW, great work.

Do you use the 35mm handheld? If so, what equipment do you use to do that?

Great clip Joe. I like your shot composition and color grading. Saturated to the right amount and the skin tone is very pleasant to watch. Keep up the good work.

Absolutely amazing piece! The jibs! Oh how I want to extend into the 4th dimension of filming (3rd being glidecam; 4th being vertical booming)

Fantastic closeups, reveals, gliding, I loved the bridal reveal where she taps him on the shoulder. Great time lapse. And he even did a dip on the kiss, classy!

Thanks everyone for the nice compliments!

This wedding was shot with 3 A1s. Two clean and one with the adaptor on(No adaptor during the ceremony though). I use the Brevis setup on both a tripod as well as a quick-release mono-pod. The mono-pod is great for getting shots on the fly. I have an assistant with me that will carry whatever camera I'm not using. He shadows me all day so I can trade out when I need. I also have a 2nd shooter that will be out getting his shots.

I use an 8" Ikan HD monitor for the Brevis camera so I can make sure I have good focus, I shoot with the lens at around 2.8..... I will bump it up if I have to but I want to keep it as sharp as possible(2.0,1.4 you can see it soften up). I've been shooting with this set up for a while so I'm pretty good at pulling focus with moving subjects.

Travis - I really wanted to use a lot of live audio, something different then I normally do. I really wanted the story to shine and to give the highlights a whole different feel.

Art - For the Reception I use the Sony 10/20w lights with a diffuser on the cameras, I also have an Arri 650w on a 13' stand. I really close down the barns on the Arri and black wrap it to create a thin strip of light to throw down highlights and contrast on the dance floor. I also have a dimmer on the Arri which I use to slowly bring up the light throughout the evening.

Monday - I'm going to have to go back through and watch it for that audio slip. I'm really strict with my audio mixing so I'm not sure how something like that would get by. Thanks for your comments.

Thanks again for checking it out. I appreciate all the feed back, it helps us to see what's good and bad with the work we are doing here!

Joe

Awesome work Joe. I have really enjoyed seeing the progression of your work. This clip has a very sincere feeling to it that I really enjoyed. I loved your use of audio and I thought the pacing was rock solid.

The only thing I would point out would be that the blue grad filter on the sky stood out a bit to me as being overly processed, which didn't seem to match the clip as much.

Awesome, awesome work.

P.

I'd like to echo all comments....absolutely superb and mesmerising to watch...and u're clearly a pro with the dof adaptor!

I was surprised no-one had picked up on the blue gradient prior to Patrick - it was the only thing that looked out of place and perhaps a different shade of blue could have been used.
But of course this was incredibly minor, and the rest of it was just brilliant.

Great Work!
 

Great Work Joe, really enjoyed it very much. I especially really liked the colour work and myself being very new to this videography business and still at a very long learning curve, I for one cannot critique it to pin point the things that may not be correct, but I can guarantee that the bride and groom would never notice the blue grad filter, although I did notice it and went back to check it again but for some reason I thought it looked nice so I am sure it wont be a big deal the the B&G maybe to the more experienced videographers here on the forums such as Patrick and Richard who pointed it out. Anyways, let me end this long run on sentence and once again great work.

One question please if you dont mind, regarding the shot where the B&G kissed and you used the circling shot to go in circles few times while they were kissing, how was that done? Sorry I dont know the term that is used for that particular shot but I have been trying to do the same only handheld with the A1 and it doesnt come close to anything like your shot. If you dont mind sharing and helping me out, how exactly was that done?

Thank you.

Patrick - Thanks for your compliments. I'm glad we are slowing progressing and getting better at what we do over here! I have to agree with you that the gradient is a bit much. When I originally did it I thought it was awesome, but after going back and watching it I could see it was over done. Can't wait to meet you at ReFrame.

Richard - Thanks!

Karim - The circle kiss shot was done with the Glidecam 2000 pro(using it handheld). The Glidecam is one of many camera stabilization tools you can buy. Other popular models are - Glidecam 4000 pro, Steadicam Merlin and the Steadicam Flyer. It takes lots of practice to master these tools, but once you do you get amazing results! Good luck.

Oops didn't realize there was a second page.

re
 

what do use to compress to dvd your quality looks amazing ??

re
 

i realize this is not dvd

re
 

sorry for all the questions just really liked this piece, amazing


what did u use to color grade, do u have any tips ??
and also what mics were you using cause your audio was so crisp????

Hey Joe, after reading all the responses to your video, I kept this thread open all week just waiting for a decent internet connection so I could stream it. Just checked it out and I think it's beautiful piece of work. You weren't kidding about the great weather.

Your couple is very lucky!

Amazing works - both trailer and highlights!

Wow great job the pacing, color, & compostion rocked. Great story telling and I have to admit the vows brought a well of emotion while watching. You should be proud and I am sure they loved it!

Thanks guys.

Luke - I encode my web content with QuickTime Pro with the H.264 codec. I used Magic Bullet Looks to CC my work. The best advice I could give you is practice. With all methods of color correction it takes time and practice to achieve the looks you want.

Raymond, Serge, Curtis - Thanks for checking it out! I really loved the way this came out. The couple's vows were really powerful and that just helped pull the story along.

Darn Joe, I've been trying to load this vid for a couple of weeks now but I really have problems with exposure room.

Any chance this is in Vimeo?

Merry Christmas Joe!

What's up Jason! Merry Christmas!

Here's the Vimeo link - Keely & Kyle HD Highlights Montage on Vimeo

Here's the quicktime link - Wedding Photographer Austin TX Wedding Photography Dallas Texas Wedding Websites Houston TX

Hope things are going well with you. See you in Austin in a few months!

Joe

I'm so glad I was able to watch it.

What do you know? It's MY favorite highlights now.

Above all else, the editing, the shots, the pace, I LOVE LOVE your colors man!

Thanks for sharing!

Hey Joe - at the risk of being repetitive, I thought the clip was really well done as well. I liked the change in pacing with the introduction of the new song about 1/2 way through the piece and thought that the amount of nat. audio was perfect.

I agree with a few others that the "over-blue" and "yellow-ish" tints to some of the shots (particularly in the sky) seemed a little too much but it's a small thing. I also didn't notice the Brevis shots in the piece until I read your post and saw you mentioned it. What lens/lenses were you using?

Again though, great job and thanks for sharing!