Jim + Sarah | Bahamas Wedding Trailer | Serendipity Studios

Here it is. The preview trailer for the wedding we shot in the Bahamas a few weeks ago. As usual, we tried something a little different. Enjoy.

Jim + Sarah | Bahamas Wedding Trailer | Serendipity Studios on Vimeo

[Matthew Craggs]

I have a couple of critiques as well re: color. I hate to be picky with other people's work, but it's in the interest of constructive criticism, and I know you can take it. I should also say that I'm not looking at this with the best monitor so I'm crossing my fingers that this makes sense.

@ :10, the waves look orange. The previous shot is quite warm, so I would imagine at this point that you're going for a warmer feel, but it looks weird when the sky, boat, and water in the distance is so cool.

@ :11, the boat looks like it has an awful lot of orange & magenta in it. I would imagine that you were trying to keep his shirt white, but I would recommend keeping the boat white if you have to choose since it takes up most of the frame and is more noticeable if it's not white.

It looks like you're keeping the bride detail shots really warm and the groom detail shots cooler the way you increase the cyan. Personal preference, but when you have a two minute clip it feels better to keep everything more consistent rather than jumping back and forth. I understand the logic, but makes more sense in a longer clip where you get a greater sense of their surroundings, vs. opposed to focussing on the details.

Actually, I think a couple of wider shots that show the two in context of the locations could have looked nice. For example, I love, love, love the photography of Jeff Ascough because he is able to stand back and use the surroundings to add to the story of each photo. I try to do the same thing when shooting weddings. But this isn't so much critique as me saying what I like, so I'll leave that.

When we get outside their skin tones look off, and one angle looks a bit overexposed. There is little detail in the sand at 1:00, clothing at 1:06 & 1:17, and wood at 1:26. It's tough when you're dealing with hot Bahama sun.

Other than these minor gripes, I liked it. In terms of the edit, the only thing I would change is adding one or two wide angle shots in the middle section and adding a shot of the speaker like Susanto suggested. Music is good, pacing is good, text is good. Overall, in my humble opinion, a solid job.

[Travis Cossel]

Mattew | Thanks for sharing your critique; much appreciated. I totally agree with you on exposures. This was our first shoot with 7D's, and we were using the light meter to monitor exposure. We definitely learned with this shoot to adjust a stop lower for the next time.

I also agree with you on the two color comments. The tricky thing was that on the plane we were shooting through a tinted window, and it really altered the color of the footage. We corrected it backwards as much as we felt we could, but it still doesn't quite match the following shots. We pushed the first boat shot towards a warmer look initially, but we were losing that amazing blue water that the Caribbean is so well known for. So we went with the cooler and more natural look over the warmer look. The following shot could use a bit more correction, I agree.

Also, agree on the shots between the bride and groom preps. The challenge there was that the groom prep was 100% natural light. The bride prep was an equal mix of daylight and tungsten; very very difficult to shoot and grade. We probably could have spent more time matching the shots a bit more closely, though.

Regarding wider shots for the preps, we specifically wanted to avoid that. Our vision was for a tighter and more intimate build-up that releases when you have the wide shot of the first meet. In other words, we wanted to stick with tight shots to create a higher sense of anticipation to see more, which then makes the dock reveal more impactful. As it was, I didn't really want to use the final shot of the groom prep where you see the groom's face. We wanted to keep their faces hidden until the first meet, but alas, sometimes you just don't have exactly the shots you want in the edit room. d;-)

Anyways, thanks for watching and for sharing your thoughts.

[Scott Hayes]

what music might that be? very nice.

[Randy Panado]

Hey Trav,

Can't believe I didn't get an email or a FB message that you posted this :P.

I'll chat with ya more about it later but you handled those new toys quite well! Gotta love that slider shot on the dock :).

Cheers bro,
Randy