Our First Wedding Video

My wife and I finally took the plunge with our first wedding video. One of the many things I learned on this one was to mic both the groom AND the bride. I had assumed his mic would pick everything up, but they stood farther apart than we had anticipated--thus the distracting signal-to-noise ratio during her vows. I also need to learn more about color grading. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Here is the link…
Patrick & Silvia Byers's videos on Vimeo
Thanks.

[Josh Fung]

Looks Great Patrick!

Whats the text scripting effect you use? looks really good.

[Mary Angelini]

Great film quality, love the opening shots.
I'm very curious to know what cameras you used.

[Richard Wakefield]

i too like the titling, the quality, the audio, and the fact it's your first attempt! well done!

do you mind me giving brutal but constructive criticism?
- watch any film and count how many times the camera zooms in/out. once, maybe twice? ok, it might be a personal thing, but i'd suggest only to zoom before you hit record. only include it if you really had to, sort-of-thing. So i'm sorry to say it, but all your best shots are ones where there's no zooming!
- i totally see what you're saying about micing the bride up, but take into account that alot of brides won't want to be mic'd up. in the 3 years doing this, i've got away with mic'ing the groom up, using a shotgun mic on the camcorder, and more recently having an olympus DS30 audio recorder near the front. that grabs all the clear audio i need, without mic'ing the bride up.

i hope you don't mind those pointers, they aren't even necessarily 'right' but thought u might like to read them either way

look forward to seeing your future work!

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I agree with Richard way to many zooms but otherwise nice.

[Patrick Byers]

Thanks everyone, for your feedback.
Josh, I created the titles with Apple's LiveType.
Mary, we shot it with a Canon XLH-1 (camera 1) and a Canon HV20 (camera 2)
Richard, your critique is very much appreciated. Anything I can learn from you "old hands" is worthwhile. For me, the fast pushes and pulls of films from the 70's are objectionable, but I thought slower zooms would be OK. I've got a GlideCam but I felt it would be distracting to the ceremony. Perhaps quicker static shots would be less objectionable. Also, thanks for the pointers on audio. I like your approach better than mine of asking the bride to carry a transmitter in her garter.

[Ryan DesRoches]

Great job, I really enjoyed it! (loved the shot of the ducks :) )

[Jason Robinson]

I won't repeat what others have said.

I liked the DOF shots you put in there. I would use the glidecam more. It is a powerful tool and can get some fantastic shots.

I would like to hear more ambient audio. Water fountain sounds, wind in the bushes, etc. It makes the documentary approach you chose much more impressive.

And I know others have said it, but the zooms where pretty over used. Just expect that no one here on DVinfo will be too keen to see zooming shots, unless it is a rare reveal type shot.

The production does look very nice though for a first go! I don't even watn to show my first one!

What is the goal of this production? A whole wedding overview? A preview? A sampler? IT seemed a bit long. For that sort of length I woudl want more dialog and plot development.

[Noel Lising]

Love the opening shot ( first 20 seconds), wish I can find a spot like that in Toronto without being runned over by car. In my opinion I would cut back on the intro shorten it a bit). I also like the duck shots. Overall it's great.

Thank you for sharing.

[Sam Mendolia]

Noel, you'll have to drive a long way north of the city, on highway 11, (Yonge St) or highway 10, (Hurontario), to get anything like that.

If you look, it will be there, but you will also have to watch out for cars!

[Patrick Byers]

Thanks again, everyone. Wow! I never realized what an effect zooms can have on the pros. Thank you for the pointer. You all have my word that my next production--if I'm lucky enough to get another--will be zoom-free.
Yes, I'm a fan of the shallow DOF.
I didn't have the ambient of the fountain because I was zoomed in from far away for the DOF. (Now I know I should have come closer after the shot and sampled some audio only to include it.)
As for the goal/length…I'm glad you asked that question, Jason. I don't know what's generally expected. What lengths do you sell the most of? Does a basic package usually include a highlight piece like I see on your websites or is that usually just for marketing yourself? Is the wedding video itself supposed to be the full ceremony in real time without the bells and whistles that can be shot before or after during a separate, more art-directed shoot?
Sorry if I sound clueless, but I pretty much am.
And again, thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to guide me. I am very impressed and humbled.

[Noa Put]

I know that were you live glidecam, cranes, 35mm adapters, glidetracks and Canon 5d's are almost considered a must have but to be honest, you can make a good wedding video with just one camera a good tripod and by assuring your audio is good. Ofcourse everything you add will increase the value of your production but you need to get the basics right and build from there.

In your case I was surprised seeing how well you did as this was your first wedding, think you would laugh when seeing what I did my first time. :)
The comments here about zooming I can only agree, only zoom when it has a meaning, otherwise don't and zoom mainly to choose what you want to show and then start recording or cut away zooms in post.

Second thing is your audio, I don't think you need to worry about color grading in the beginning as to me the color looked ok but good audio makes all the difference, I liked it when you used the audio from the grooms mic some time before the ceremony started and you captured some nice moments there. But the priest, bride and grooms voices all had a too different tone. Especially the priest sounded quite hollow. Micing the bride is something that I don't have to try here as they just won't accept. Remember, the bride is the princess of the day and you don't wan't to ruin that with an ugly black clipon mic :) I use a combination of 4 audio recordings. One is a iriver with clipon mic to get the audio from the groom, the second one is a iriver that I attach to a fixed microphone where guests read something, a 3rth is a zoom h4 which i place in front of a church loudspeaker, or if they have people singing live I place it in front of them and last ofcourse the audio from my camera.

here I always can get up very close when they share the rings but my iriver takes all the audio I need. Also bride and groom are never so far apart as in your case when they say their vows. :)

Also watch out with the second camera, the hv30, because I saw some uncontrolled and out of focus shots (at 06:34) which didn't look that nice. Here it would be better leaving that camera's lens wide (no zooming in!) and place it on a good tripod that can move smooth.

I think that when you can get those basics better you already can have high value production, you made a very good start and it can only get better.

Maybe one last tip, your demo was realy long, if you want to use it as highlights in the future for clients 3 to max 5 minutes should do. Most people won't watch much longer.

[Patrick Byers]

Thanks, Noa.
What model/configuration of iriver do you use and/or recommend. Just Googling it, I see everything from $70 to $450 USD prices.

[Noa Put]

I was lucky to get myself an older version which was cheaper and much smaller then the models they make now. I use a iriver T20MX with a Archos stereo microphone and amplifier.
To give you an idea about the quality, paste below link in your browser, the first part you will hear is what my camera recorded and I was about 2 meters from the priest, the second half is what the iriver recorded (the priest had the microphone clipped on.)

http://www.noafilm.be/wp-content/audio/iriver_test.mp3

That came from an English / Norwegian wedding in the center of Brussels which was my only not Dutch speaking wedding till now :)

[Robert M Wright]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

...the first part you will hear is what my camera recorded and I was about 2 meters from the priest...

Was that the onboard camera mic?