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Katie Fasel August 22nd, 2012 10:50 AM

Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Despite being in business for 3 years now, I feel like there is just always something to learn, which will probably be the case in this ever-changing business for the rest of my life. That's ok.

But this video is by far one of my favorites, and the first where I feel like we really nailed it. The couple was an absolute major factor in that, as was their wedding party. They were all an absolute dream to work with, and their theme and decorations and details were an absolute dream for B-roll.

I would love to hear thoughts on anything that you think needs work, or anything that we could have done differently.

www.vimeo.com/foreverfossilize/laurenandraymond


Noa Put August 22nd, 2012 12:26 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
I liked it Katie, the voices where also recorded well and that makes all the difference. If I may point out some things; the zooming part. You use the zoom quite a lot and that's ok as long as it has a purpose, I only use the zoom for choosing my frame and try to leave the zooming part out of the edit. There where a few parts where there was a static shot and then just before you cut to another sequence there was a zoom movement. (at 00:33, 01:55, 02:54, 03:51) Now your clients will never notice this but since you are asking videographers opinions, they do :) I at least immediately noticed it because it distracted a bit and it should be something that's easy to take out in post.

Some parts where also a little bit shaky, I am quite spoiled with the excellent stabilizers of the small Sony cx series I use but if I use my dslr I can easily filter out any small movement with the new stabilizer in edius 6.5.

What I also noticed when they said "I do" was that part contained quite some noise from amplifying it, that's something you often can't prevent, depending where the mic was at that time but that part was cut off suddenly which made it more apparent, there you should apply a slow fade in and fade out to make it less noticeable.

Those are all just small technicalities that I notice so I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, like I said your clients won't ever notice and beside that sound and video blended well together making it enjoyable to watch.

I also see you used a songfreedom song, I was about to buy a song from them for one of my productions but they claim to have worldwide rights to all their songs but they don't, I checked for one particular song on their site with Sabam, the Belgian society of authors, composers and publishers and they told me I could not use the song unless I asked permission and paid license costs a second time, Eventhough songfreedom claimed they had exclusive rights. Then Songfreedom told me they have worldwide synch rights and are SUPPOSED to have worldwide streaming rights, but that each country could be as difficult about it as they choose. I found it too good to be true to pay 24,99 for a song and use it as long as I want on one production on my website, especially because the song was from One Republic, Secrets, a song I hear playing on the radio every day...

Tim Bakland August 22nd, 2012 12:58 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Katie Fasel (Post 1749543)
I can never get my vimeo links to embed, whether i post the link, or the embed code...am I doing something wrong?

Hey! I think you just need to make sure to do https://vimeo.com/video number (no www. just http://)

Tim Bakland August 22nd, 2012 01:00 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Noa Put (Post 1749559)
I also see you used a songfreedom song, I was about to buy a song from them for one of my productions but they claim to have worldwide rights to all their songs but they don't, I checked for one particular song on their site with Sabam, the Belgian society of authors, composers and publishers and they told me I could not use the song unless I asked permission and paid license costs a second time, Eventhough songfreedom claimed they had exclusive rights.

Are you sure about that one, Noa? That would have some pretty major implications.

Katie Fasel August 22nd, 2012 01:11 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Noa, thanks for the input...I don't mind you pointing any of that out at all. I had no idea how many zooms were there until you pointed it out. The one I was most aware of was the shot where they were sitting in the field and it fades out. But after you pointed them all out I went back and looked!

I think one of the reasons we do use the zoom a lot is to try and make the shot more interesting...not that things aren't interesting enough, but we don't have a slider, or a steady cam or any of that fancy stuff, so we try to mimic things I guess. Maybe we should lay off a bit.

As for the shakiness, a lot of the shaky shots are on a monopod. It's just too crazy and cramped and time constraining at a lot of our locations to set up a tripod for every shot, and I'm not as mobile as I would like to be when we do...so we resort to the monopod, especially for bridal prep and for photo shoots. All of the major events we use a tripod for, but I need to learn to steady my hand better on that monopod.

So I was confused by your Songfreedom comments...do you use them or not? We have been using it all year, and I like their selection a lot, and the new lifetime use thing...but now you have me worried that it's not totally legit. The whole music problem gets more and more frustrating all the time...I think I'm doing right by using song freedom, now its questionable?

Katie Fasel August 22nd, 2012 01:12 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Bakland (Post 1749566)
Hey! I think you just need to make sure to do https://vimeo.com/video number (no www. just http://)

Thanks Tim, that worked :-)

Tim Bakland August 22nd, 2012 01:24 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
There's several discussions going on here at once, Katie, and I'd love to hear more from Noa on the songfreedom thing because that has big implications.

But, as for the video -- nice work, I'm sure your clients will be thrilled and you've obviously come very far in short time.

Two quick comments (from someone who has really learned from comments on this very forum):

1. I like to make my own jpeg splash image and upload it in the vimeo settings (just to make it jump off the cover a bit more) -- add a title, etc.

2. a couple of the sunnier shots had white balance/color balance that was questionable (though perhaps that was for effect?)

Katie Fasel August 22nd, 2012 01:39 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Thanks Tim,
The clients have seen this and are head over heels with it.

The color balance is questionable, for sure, and not done for effect. It was extremely sunny (and hot, which has nothing to do with my video :-P) but the extreme brightness was making it really hard to see anything in the view finder, and we kept switching from shaded areas to wide open areas for photos...just looking back at the video now that I've posted it, the shadowy parts look too blue to me now. the best way we thought to cope was to set the camera on 5.6k for white balance, and try to get the exposure right. We shoot on HMC150s, so any advice on shooting in bright situations with those would be appreciated.

I have to give big kudos to the photographer, who set that whole scene up the morning of the wedding. Her photos turned out great, and that set up made for a lot of great shots for us too.

Noa Put August 22nd, 2012 04:20 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Bakland (Post 1749567)
Are you sure about that one, Noa? That would have some pretty major implications.

Well, I don't know how it is for US citizens but I can only speak for my own country, Belgium. I came across the songfreedom site and noticed they had a song from One Republic, Secrets, which I was able to use with 1 wedding demo for my site for 24,99 dollar and no need to renew, ever.

that alone sounded to good to be true, Secrets I hear playing on the radio here about every day, and that only for 25 dollar, pay once, use the rest of your life?

I asked songfreedom if that was even possible and they said: " Our licenses are world wide so if you buy from us you will not have to worry about having to pay an additional cost and once you purchase a song for the Pay Per Price fee of $24.99 you do not have to renew the song. Each song you purchase is good for that one use/ project but that project can remain online indefinitely."

That was quite clear, no? So I went to SABAM, the Belgian society of authors, composers and publishers and asked them the question if what Songfreedom claimed was true and they clearly said: "NO", they told me if I used the song Secrets I had to ask permission through Sabam as well and pay a license cost to Sabam.

So I went back to Songfreedom and they said they do have worldwide synch rights and are SUPPOSED to have worldwide streaming rights while their content partners have the ability to grant certain rights, each territory does have the ability to be as difficult as they would like. Then they refered to the Gema lawsuite, (Gema represents German Musicians) but the GEMA lawsuite is about German music used on youtube where no royalties where paid for, so I didn't see the direct link with videos I place on my website as they are on my own server. They told me that if te Gema Lawsuite got cleared up I might be able to place my videos then on Youtube if other rights companies are causing problems.

So here I basically stopped asking any further, for me at least, in my country I cannot take the risk of buying and using their music, eventhough they claim it's all good and well.

Tim Bakland August 22nd, 2012 06:04 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Wow.

Well I would think Songfreedom would be liable if there were any trouble (as long as you paid them, posted the JPEG slide they provide at the end of the video, etc.). Many folks pay them several hundred per year in subscription fees. If that really were bogus, there'd be some major recourse, I'd reckon.

Katie, sorry your post got somewhat derailed, though if what Noa is saying is true for us Americans, I suppose it's an important consideration. For now, though, I think I shall proceed with my purchases through songfreedom until I hear differently regarding the US licenses. That's a bummer for Belgium, though.

Katie Fasel August 23rd, 2012 06:39 AM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
No worries Tim...most discussions on here are educational, even if they are off topic. :-) I appreciate any advice and info from any angle, this has been a very interesting discussion for sure.

Bill Grant August 24th, 2012 02:04 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Katie,
One thing I would point out in addition to what everyone else has said is that you should be aware of pacing. 4:10 is a lot of time to fill and sometimes if you're pacing isn't right, it can drag like crazy. That is a very personal thing though so take my advice with a grain. It's easy to fix color and shake and smooth panning, etc. But pacing takes practice. Just keep in mind when you're watching back, does it ever drag?
Bill

Katie Fasel August 24th, 2012 09:57 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the input. The vows do drag in the middle...I'm noticing this more every time I watch it. Are there other spots you thought dragged on too much as well? Would love to hear them!

I still feel like I'm learning so much, this feedback here helps not only how I put the video together in the edit suite, but going into tomorrow's shoot I have a lot of things to put in practice as well. I really love this forum, it's been very helpful in making our business grow and I appreciate the feedback and advice of everyone here.

Bill Grant August 25th, 2012 09:41 AM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
So, in general it has a tendency to drag the whole way. Ask yourself as you're putting it together, why am i using this shot? What does it accomplish? If its ever just to fill time or get you from here to there, the whole piece will suffer. A lot of the issue is trying to use a whole song, then you have unnecessary time to fill. A good exercise is to cut an entire video with no music. Then choose the music and cut it to fill the dynamics of the piece. Focus on story first then pace then flow. Don't feel inclined to show every second, rather try to tell the story and replicate the feel. One of the hardest things to do as editor and shooter is to discard a beautiful shot because it doesn't work. Try to make it as short as you can while still telling the story. Always leave them wanting to see more. :-)
Bill

Ben Creighton August 25th, 2012 02:57 PM

Re: Our Best Yet -- Would love your thoughts
 
Katie - First of all, excellent video. Something for you to be proud of! But since you're seeking the advice of other videographers, I thought I'd chime in with my two cents. I am not critiquing as much as just giving my opinion, which is only a matter of taste, or preference. (You should probably just ignore me.) ;)

I agree, quite a lot of zoom, but the only one that really bothered me was when you were zooming out at 2:40 and cut to a zoom IN on the very next shot. Okay 'nuff said about zoom.

I felt the song should have been attenuated a bit more between 1:38 - 1:46, so as not to take away from the bride's 'I do'. Maybe 3 or 4db less, IMO...

I would love to see this exact video with cross dissolve fades instead of fade-to-black in several areas. Again, that's just a preference.

(I'd like to know more about what gear you used, and what post workflow too.)

All in all, fantastic job. I'd be proud to put my name on it if I'd made it. I'm sure the happy couple loves it!!


Ben


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