St. Thomas Wedding Highlight

Just finished up this highlight in time for Christmas for a client. It was a destination wedding in St. Thomas, USVI. Brutally hot and humid but a fun shoot none the less!

Shanna & Matthew Highlights- St. Thomas, USVI on Vimeo

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Michael Ojjeh

Glen, You misunderstood me, I was not being sarcastic at all, I was assuming that you used DSLR on the shoot because the footage was fantastic it really looked like it was shot with 5DmkII and that is a big compliment to you, I can't get my footage to look like yours with the XH_A1 especially inside, your colors looked beautiful. what's your secret ?

Oh wow, well thank you then. If a videographer can mistake it for 5D footage that further solidifies my stance on using DSLRs on live events. Family and clients can't see the difference. I asked my wife, my father & mother, and even clients that have in-house meetings with me and none of them noticed any appreciable difference. Granted- I do, dramatically so; however keep in mind we are videophiles.

Regarding "my secret"- there isn't really one. I designed a custom preset I use for all my weddings. Most will take the approach to flatten their image coming out of the cam to award them more latitude in post. I, on the other hand, try to get the image as close to finished right out of the camera. It involves using a cine-gamma, and crushing the blacks.

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Matt Barwick

Love it - that transition at 1:57 from the lookout to the reception dance is awesome.

Cheers,

MB

Thanks Matt, yeah I lucked out with that. I saw the lateral motion in the other clip, dropped it in with a linear wipe and, quite simply, got lucky. I did have to change the timing a bit adjusting the length and location of the transition.

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Dimitris Mantalias

Another excellent Glen Elliott work. I can't really add too much to what has already been said. The superb color of interior scenes made me think too that it was possibly a DSLR!

Thanks Dimitris. We had some good lighting set up on the dance floor. 3-point lowel pro lights on dimmers. One of the better receptions we lit. Additionally the ambient lighting was blue rather than the standard warm/dimmed incandescent. The blue mood lighting when with the restaurant's theme- "Havana Blue".

[Michael Ojjeh]

Originally Posted by Glen Elliott

Regarding "my secret"- there isn't really one. I designed a custom preset I use for all my weddings.

Glen, If you don't colorgrade much in post and your footage comes out as superb as that, I would appreciate it if you could share with us your preset, frame rate, exposure....I can tell you that this is one of the best footage I have seen coming out of XH-A1 with colors as superb as that, and not to mention the excellent camera work and edit that comes with it.
Great job keep up the good work :)

[Glen Elliott]

This particular piece was color graded more than anything I've previously done for weddings/events. Granted the settings were all very mild and opacities set around 30% using RedGiant's Magic Bullet Looks. If I could critique my own aesthetic I would have used a bit less diffusion.

[Travis Cossel]

Great stuff, Glen. Always awesome to film a great looking couple in a great location. I love St. Thomas. Grading and editing were solid. Good shot compositions. Fun to watch.

My only critique would be that near the end it felt a bit like you were re-using previous shots with the circling steadicam inside and outside. I know you didn't actually re-use any shots, but many of them were so similar to previous shots that it just felt like I wasn't seeing anything new if that makes sense.

Perhaps you could have edited the song down a bit to accommodate? It's a minor thing that I'm sure your couple would never notice. Thanks for sharing!

[Susanto Widjaja]

I watched till the end! smokin hot bride! nice steadicam shots! sharp cutting! well done well done...

Santo

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

Great stuff, Glen. Always awesome to film a great looking couple in a great location. I love St. Thomas. Grading and editing were solid. Good shot compositions. Fun to watch.

My only critique would be that near the end it felt a bit like you were re-using previous shots with the circling steadicam inside and outside. I know you didn't actually re-use any shots, but many of them were so similar to previous shots that it just felt like I wasn't seeing anything new if that makes sense.

Perhaps you could have edited the song down a bit to accommodate? It's a minor thing that I'm sure your couple would never notice. Thanks for sharing!

I see your point- after cutting trailers so often I think I prefer shorter lengths. This was an early "highlight" I told the bride I would complete by Christmas. I made it- finished the last cut and exported it online on the way out the door to my families' house Christmas eve. :)

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Susanto Widjaja

I watched till the end! smokin hot bride! nice steadicam shots! sharp cutting! well done well done...

Santo

Hey Santo- thanks for watching and commenting!