Recent E-Sessions
 

I am still very new to this, and as you will be able to tell, just pulled the Stedicam Merlin out of the case, but wanted to at least attempt some moving shots.

Nothing pretty outside this time of year, and they love to hike in the mountains so took them to a local walking trail since going to the Mountains was not an option.

Not sure what happened to the intro, will have to go back and fix that but would appreciate any comments and critiques I can get.

Andrew & Darbee E-Session on Vimeo

Nice piece,
I liked the integration of the photos.

There was a bit too much headroom in both of their interviews and I thought the colours were a bit desaturated, I realize it was a flat day but maybe try pumping in post. I also would've liked to see some B-roll shots over the interview audio.

Keep it up man!

Thanks David, and looking now, I agree the saturation could use a boost. Thanks for the CC.

Nicely done. I have to 2nd the saturation comment. In my opinion, I think you should have asked for a take 2 when the groom glanced at the camera after they kissed ( intro) or I would have just cut at the kissing part.

Thanks for sharing, I am pretty sure your Bride & Groom will love it.

Thanks

I do have a take two of that, but was on the fence if I liked the look or not, will be an easy swap if I decide to change it.

Denny, thanks for sharing. I'll mirror an earlier poster- the framing on the interviews looked a bit off (too much head room). Shoot for having their eyes be on the upper 1/3rd line or a little higher. When going for close-ups (I know you didn't have any in the interviews) it's better to cut off the top of their head than their chin.

Additionally the audio sounded a bit hollow (acoustics of the room?). It's best to try and use a shotgun on a boom right outside of the frame. Because your picking up the audio so close to the subject it helps eliminate capturing any unwanted acoustics in the room.

The photos you used looked to be stretched. Whatever NLE your using it's a simple fix.

Finally the imagery in the park shoot looked very flat. However that's not a bad thing- that's the best kind of footage to work with in post for color grading. Often times people will shoot things purposely flat to give them more latitude when color grading.

Thanks for sharing! I love these sorts of shoots using traditional talking-head interviews and focusing on story telling.

Hi Denny,

Good job putting this up for review & thanks for sharing. I really liked it and the way it's structured - a good, solid piece. It was just a little too long for my taste and I feel like it could've benefited by cutting a minute or so IMHO.

The interview head room has already been mentioned. Obviously if you're editing HD and delivering SD this should be something you can fix.

The flatness of some of the footage is more noticeable when intercut with the nice colouring of the stills. The thing that really stood out for me were the transitions of the stills with them flying in and off screen. That, for me, really detracts from production value unless it's a 'look' you're going for, and then it's always a challenge to pull it off well. Simple cuts and dissolves would look better here I think.

There's a couple of jump cuts during the interviews which actually work very well.

They seem like they were a great couple to do this with and you've conveyed their story very well. It's not always easy to draw people out like this when they're not naturals in front of the camera, but you've done a great job

Well done!

Matt.

Hi Denny

Everything pretty much has been covered in previous posts, I have fallen victim to the echo audio in the past, and it's something you really need to focus on to improve the final product, I can attest to that with my latest clip as has been posted on here last week.

Colour grading really will help also, what NLE are you using? The contrast of the stills v photos is very obvious and as Glen mentioned they seem stretched, just need to changed the pixel aspect ratio to the appropriate video equivalent.

Good on you for getting out there and posting your work on here.

Cheers
Darren

Thanks again everyone, and I did use a shotgun mic off camera, but maybe a little too far from the clients, will move it in as close as possible next time.

I am using Premier Pro CS3 for my editing.

If you do not have any plugins, ( I tried MB Looks but could not get it to work with my system) you could try playing with "levels" can make images pop a little bit more. There is no secret formula that I am aware of, just need to experiment and see what you can come up with.

Cheers
Darren

Most all things you may want to consider changing have already been advised by others already. One thing which may not have been mentioned is to try to match the color brilliance of your photography to the video images. If you could not get the lighting equipment to do this on location then you will have to do more improvising in your color correction tool settings in your video editor to match photo shot to video scenes, then save the presets to use later if needed.

I think the main thing to never do again is the odd framing of the people in the example interviews, and not to have them look into the camera when talking but look at the interviewer off screen at all times. Watch the biography channel for typical setups of these kinds of situations.

Best wishes.