The All Brevis Wedding // What an experience
 

We just got back from Mexico where we shot, what we believe to be, the first all brevis wedding. We had one rig on a steadicam and two hand held rigs. We brought along some top secret gear soon to be released and shot the ceremony with a couple 70-200s.

You can see a full write-up on our blog here as well as the highlights clip:

StillMotionBlog.com Dear 5D MK11: Start Your Engines // Training too?

We are considering flying Dennis from Cinevate down to Toronto and doing a round table discussion about the impetus for the shoot, the challenges we came across, how this will change our work moving forward, and how other can implement these techniques. We would then cut this in with some behind the scenes footage and make more of an educational piece out of it. I would love to know who would be interested in seeing something like this as it would be quite of time invested, but if we get enough interest we will certainly put it together.

Comments, questions, critique about the shoot are certainly welcome as well.

P.

Hi Patrick,

I religiously follow your work and Jmags you guys are both outstanding but in my humble opinion, I would not rank this among your best SDEs, could it be the learning curve attached with shooting Brevis all the way, could be. Somehow I feel that something is holding you back in the shoot.

Im no expert heck I don't even know how to shoot with Brevis, great work as usual but I still find your Japan trailer to be top notch among your work.

Wow some fantastic images from Stillmotion again. Again, Cinema production coming to the wedding video business.

Having shot a few weddings many years back, I can appreciate the work that goes into shooting a wedding. And now being involve in some narative filming, I can appreciate what that takes. Mixing the two successfully is quite an undertaking.

So with that said, question begged is when all is said and done, are the clients, in 10 years going to be happy with their investment. Would they be happier to have had the common shots of Aunt Jane, and ring bearer nephew Scott, rather than the cinematic shot of a rake in the sand, or the gluing in place of an eyelash ? Without giving away trade secrets, I am curious whether Stillmotion ever gets back that kind of negative reaction or does Stillmotion provide both, perhaps in the form of a long form edit ?

Noel,

Thanks for your feedback. This wasn't an SDE, it was a highlights we produced after. We also wanted it to look different from anything else we had done and we wanted it to be more filmic. That meant more real moments, less sizzling shots just because (you'll notice no detail shots) and the vision of pulling you more into the story and giving it a more filmic feel throughout.

The look of the footage on our theatre in the studio is definitely something else. But your right, this was a learning experience for us and there are certain things we couldn't or didn't want to do, one of them being the crazy steadicam shots. Thanks again for the comments.

P.

The thing that really impresses me about the clip is the use of sound as much as the visuals. The images are beautiful but the waves from the water, or the footsteps at :57 make it feel like a feature film to me, as much as the Brevis does. The audio certainly emphasizes the story aspect that you write about and is a fresh change from cutting to the music, which most of us tend to do and winds up feeling like a music video.

The piece is put together superbly and the editing is top notch. Anyone with the time and gear could recreate the look through trial and error but it takes real skill to put the footage together in a way that tells a story as strongly as you have here. I also certainly appreciate the "less sizzling shots" as you put it. The location seemed to require a more subdued edit.

Great work as always.

Awesome question Chris. We haven't gotten anything but positive feedback from our couples, but we certainly aren't right for everybody, and we make sure to tell all of our couples that to ensure that they know what we offer and that they feel it is right for them. Our main features, which we don't put online, are 25 minutes in length and show much more of the common details your mentioning. Now, in doing so we still try to shoot those creatively, but I don't think that was your point as much.

We are hoping to cover our approach and how we fit everything together and market it in great detail for our workshop.

P.

Thanks for your response and the insight. A 25 minute cut sounds ideal, in my limited experience.

Matthew,

Thanks so much for pointing that out. We were thinking the same thing and that was part of the design, but I didn't want to say anything and see if anybody picked up on that and felt a real difference from our old work.

P.

I couldn't disagree more! After watching everything Patrick puts out and something's Patrick doesn't put out I think that this is vintage Moreau. If you haven't known Patrick since the vx2100 and no steadicam days you won't know what I mean but this is pure storytelling at it's finest. He has gone back to his roots and tapped the inner emotion that he uses to craft a beautiful story in a matter of minutes without the need of sizzle shots or crazy steadicam shots, it is all about the feel and story. I take my hat off to you as I think this is your best work thus far. I even put a phone call in today to confirm I was right on who edited the piece. Kudos P I will see you in January.

JB

Will you be moving towards this style now? Also, how will this new style effect the upcoming workshop?

Awesome video but I'm just curious as to what impact this will have on what will be taught in Jan. I've always been curious to see a whole wedding shot in 35mm adapters so

Thanks

Hey Patrick, loved it... the subtle touches with the sound worked well. I noticed all Ex1's for this one, has that become the norm for you or are you still using A1's also? Out of curiosity what kind of 70-200's were you shooting with? Thanks

With movies this good, who needs still photos? Seriously, this is beautiful and touching work that goes beyond the music-video highlight genre. It all flows together without the need for extraneous effects; which is the hallmark of a well-produced piece (IMHO).
Kudos!
Now, about that light used during toasts/dancing...was it battery operated or did you have access to AC power?

You guys are now shooting with the Sony EX-1, correct? Why the switch from Canon?

Hi Randy,

We are covering a ton of things in Jan, and 35mm adapters was always part of that. Our goal was never to teach you how to shoot in our style, as we want each person to find their own style, but we will be covering a lot of the philosophy on how we got to where we were before this shoot, and why we took this on as well. The techniques and concepts we are going over are also very malleable so you can take them back and make them work for you. With three of us there leading the workshop (Konrad, Michael, and myself) your looking at a 4-1 ratio, so your going to have lots of access for any questions or concepts you want to specifically work on or talk about.

P.

The gear was provided by one of our sponsors, Cinevate, and he set us up with 3 EX1s. The only cam I brought was an A1. Dennis set us up with A1s mainly because of the record review feature, so we could stay on top of where we are at, and it was much easier to back things up on site.

We still love our A1s and I absolutely believe they are the best value bar none.

We had the Canon 70-200s.

P.

My buddy Jason, you are too kind. And you wonder why John says the things he does- you need to stop giving him the ammo :)

It will be great to have you down in Jan.

P.

Oren,

Thanks so much for the comments. What your describing is exactly what we were going for. We wanted something that felt more like a film, something where the movement was more subtle and very story driven, and something that would pull you in and make you forget about the cinematography all together.

P.

Patrick - I've nothing but respect for you, your company, and your work. Please don't take this the wrong way, but the timing of this shoot doesn't seem to be a coincidence to me.

With the DSLR's capturing the collective imaginations of our industry as a possible way to avoid the inherent hassles of shooting with 35mm adapters it seems that Cinevate has fired their own salvo back across the bows of the DSLR's by teaming one of the most respected names in the industry with their products... and lending you guys some primo gear to shoot with as to maximize results. Good marketing on Cinevate's end if that's what they are up to here.

You guys did great work as usual.

So coming from the XHA1's, how did you like shooting the EX1's? I'd like to hear how you did with a card based camera when you're not use to that workflow. It would also be interesting to hear how much time they gave you with their gear before the shoot. I'd feel slightly uncomfortable going into battle with all new stuff.

Last question. You mention using a 70 - 200 during the ceremony. What's the speed of that lens?

Ethan,

It certainly is interesting isn't it. But, and I can explain the whole thing in detail if you want to give me a quick call at the studio tomorrow, the timing was 100% a coincidence. I don't think your on VU, but last year I posted on there saying I wanted to do an all brevis wedding. I was told by several people it couldn't be done, and if it was, it certainly wouldn't be worthwhile. We have been talking with Dennis and tossing the idea around since then. We are sponsored by Cinevate, so we chat around once weekly about what they are up to and vice versa.

We have slowly implemented more and more brevis throughout the year, and honestly I didn't think we would get this shoot done in '08. When Laura called with a last minute wedding and she just wanted a TTD, I thought it was too good to be true. We had the perfect backdrop, we had an amazing couple who loved our work, and as they couldn't fit wedding coverage into their budget, giving us the chance to try something completely new at their wedding with whatever we come up with in return was an opportunity they were very excited about.

From there I spoke to Dennis and we started putting things in place. As we are mainly A1 based and he has more EX1s and tons of lenses, he set us up with everything we needed. We loved the idea of being able to review our shots in the field, especially with some more complicated setups. Though we shoot with the A1s mostly while here, we know our way around the EX1 quite well and our studio does also own one (though it wasn't at this shoot). The slider, FF, and cage were rather novel since they were just released or not yet released.

So, in the end, the impetus for the shoot was entirely on us and Dennis was more than happy to help when we called. It is something we have wanted to do for a long time. I can say though that all the hype around the 5D certainly added some sweetness to the timing for us, but that is something I went into detail on in the blog post.

As for the 70-200, those were all f2.8. In fact, that was our slowest lens of the day.

P.

Sounds great (and it was the answer I was hoping for). Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm a little surprised we didn't get any comments on the soundtrack as I think it was such a fitting song that is quite unique. Interestingly enough, Amy was very happy to give us permission to use her song and all we had to do was show her what we were up to and ask.

P.

After having played around with my wife's D90 at our last wedding, I can say that if Nikon or Canon will ever sort out the manual control issues and poor audio implementation in the DSLR's that the 35mm adapter might be in big big trouble.
Caveats of the current DSLR's aside, I loved shooting it and could easily see the next generation of those cameras being great video cams. I'd be a little worried if I were Letus, or Cinevate right now. More so for Letus since Cinevate has other products to sell besides a 35mm adapter.

Maybe I need to read your blog posting to see what you're saying over there.

Oh, and I think anyone saying that an all 35mm adapter wedding isn't feasable is being a little short sighted and not using any imagination. It would be expensive to get all the gear and lenses needed for 3 35mm setups, but once you have all the stuff I don't see how it would be that much different, except maybe the stedicam. I'm guessing you'd need some type of remote FF for that, and then you're talking about even more $$.

Actually I did notice that little blurb about getting her permission. Did you guys draw up some type of legal document for that?

And are you planning on asking more artists in the future for their permission or was this a special case cause maybe you know her or something.

Ethan I have to disagree with you. I don't think any of the 35mm adapter companies have anything to worry about as I don't believe that a wedding could be filmed with the 5DMK
II. It is one thing to do a couple staged shots and quite another to be able to grab everything you need with a camera. Then there is the penis envy and the perception that you are filming with a DSLR camera, then why can't I do it with my point and shoot camera with video recording. This is a gimmick and while i've seen the mini movie as a promo It was well thought out and well rehearsed with lighting and storytelling. I don't think anyone is seriously threatened by this at all. It is another tool in the arsenal but not a video killer.

You missed my point. It's the next generation of DSLR's that will do it, not the current crop. Surely Canon or Nikon has to see the huge potential they stumbled upon here and will improve things next go round.

I fully understand your point yet I don't think that it will turn the industry on it's head. I believe that while the camera offers good quality HD It will never replace the video camera. Even after many generations. It may however raise the bar with prosumer camcorders with interchangeable lenses at an affordable price. I believe that it could be used again as a tool but not as a main cam.

re
 

amazing work , shot and cut to perfection. how much did u pay for your brevis set ups excluding lenses??


luke

Thanks Luke.

A full Brevis setup with rails, flip, etc is just under $1500CDN new. A nice FD lens set is under $200. EOS glass or Zeiss or Nikon is much much more. The Zeiss macro we have is $1500 alone.

Jason and Ethan,

I think another question is- what does Canon do with its video line? Certainly they can't continue indefinitely with the photo side having something that can produce imagery so much better out of the box. Imagine the internal conflict that must be going on between departments when pushing the 5D could potentially mean less sales for the A1.

P.

Beautiful piece. The pacing felt slower than usual (partly that was the song I'm sure) for you guys, and you seemed to incorporate more natural audio than usual as well. I liked it, though. It felt very consistent in terms of shot type and coloring and editing.

It's cool that you did an all 35mm wedding, but I can't say it looked better or worse than any of your other work. It just looked different. I sure wish I was able to come to the workshop in January and hang out with you guys.

What is an "all brevis wedding"? What is a brevis?

Stelios

What is a brevis?
 

Cinevate Inc | 72-1LE-FL-MP1 Brevis35 Imaging | 72-1LE-FL-MP1

The Brevis...

Hi Pat,
How are you guys color correcting or grading your footage?, it looks really good.

Patrick,

Nice work as usual. Very cool.

I have shot two weddings with Red Ones just to see what I could do with it. It was very challenging but you can get some amazing results. Unfortunately I wasn't able to fly the camera, and the videos won't have that fluidity and style that your videos have. Weddings with 35mm depth of field do stand out from the rest.

Steve

Hey Patrick,

Very nice work!

Just had sort of an off topic question....I am going to Mexico in a couple months, and was wondering if you had to do anything special as far as getting through customs with all that equipment?

Thanks in advance
Paul

We do many different things to color grade the footage. Generally it is a three step process though, with the first being generally correcting, the second being the more advanced and artistic grading, and the third being the review process where the rest of the team checks things out and makes comments or tweaks on the look. We try to avoid canned looks like MB as much as possible to keep things original and to get the maximum amount of flexibility.

P.

Thanks Steve,

I bet that the Red wedding was quite the challenge and exciting at the same time. I would love to try that out some time. Flying a red or this rig is certainly a challenge and we definitely missed some shots we would have gotten otherwise and one of my favorite shots is too soft to use, but in looking at the feel of the footage vs bare cam, it is hard to go back.

P.

Paul- hope you get lucky. There are limitations on what you can bring in and your best bet is to stay under those. The biggest one is 2 cams per person. They also have a random red or green light system and if you get a red your bags will be fully searched. I would do some research into the local laws and decide how you want to handle it should you get a red light. In many countries like this it is legal to film a wedding if the couple is from the same country as you.

P.

I got "red-lighted" on our honeymooon, but I didn't have much besides clothes back then so it wasn't a big deal.

Patrick, did you learn your color grading mostly through trial and error or did you have an education source? If you had a source, you don't have to reveal it if you don't want to. I'm just curious.

Hi Patrick,

Love the look of this piece. Those shots on steady cam with shallow dof were great to watch.

What is MB?

MB = Magic Bullet Red Giant Software: Magic Bullet Suite 2008