Wedding Highlights
 

Des anyone see any problems with this piece? I have been working at it and I wanna double check that I didn't miss anything:

password: test

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

The owner of the wedding company I edited this just bashed it saying it looks rushed and not put together nicely. I cant say my blood isn't boiling right now...

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

I think the song drove the video and I thought it was good. Perhaps the colors looked a little "old" but I think more than anything it was because of the lighting inside of the location itself. Not sure anything looks rushed.

Clinton

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

My critiques:

Okay, thank you for the work and effort you put into your editing. I love the editing with the music and the flow of it for the most part, but it appears to me like this was rushed and put together quickly. A lot of shots was out of focus from beginning of the reel to end, like you trimmed and drop the clip on the timeline before we actually focused on what we were shooting. All the dance floor shots were steadicam and some were out of focus, nothing from the second camera on open dance floor, which also seemed like a short cut. I'm not saying that what you did and please don't get offended, but it did come off that way. I will list changes needed to be made and send it to you shortly...

• :11 use slider shot of her when she not picking up her phone, if possible
• :14 - :17 all prep shots of her face are slightly out of focus,please replace, keep the last one with the whip pan though.
• replace mirror shot of her when she's in focus, or rack focusing to her
• :42 too similar to shot before and has no action and out of focus, please replace
• 1:55 remove romantic
• 2:00 out of focus, use the same shot, but when she is in focus
• 2:04 sharpen groom's face
• 2:23 random shot of couple with mic, take out
• 2:42 sharpen bride's face
• 2:55 take out zoom out, replace with with romantic
• 2:59 take out zoom in use quick romantic, but definitely go back to a stable shot of them kissing at the ceremony
• 3:14 slightly shake at beginning of clip, trim it and crop me out
• 3:20 crop my camera out
• 3:28 shot is too quick, and looks bad with him looking at camera
• 3:31 replce, everyone is out of focus
• 4:00 whip pan doesn't fit
• 4:06 use different father/daughter dancing shot, where he's not staring in the camera
• Insert a close up shot of the mother and son dancing as well
• 4:08 - 4:22 too many open dance floor, steadicam shots, some out of focus, use some of the other camera shots as well.
• 4:25 steadicam shot is out of focus, please replace
• 4:31 groom and little girl is out of focus, please replace
• 4:40 cake shot slightly out of focus, please replace or use same clip but when they are in focus
• 5:06 show close up of who got the garter, they are blocked and out of focus on the other camera

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Lol he doesn't know a nicely put together piece when he sees it! nice work, I like it a lot!

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Were you hired to do the editing or where you the second cameraman filming and having to do the edit as well? I take it that the owner of the wedding company was the one with the steadicam?

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

i am just an editor. As a 3rd job i do it per project. Paid $250 for this. Yes he was the steadicam operator. This is a rough I showed him, by no means a final version. I think the best of us miss some little things at times.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

So the camera operators provide you with a lot of out of focus material to edit and then complain about it? Where there actually enough in focus clips to choose from?

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

I will admit there is a few shots i missed but yeah for the most part the "sight out of focus" isnt unusable in my eyes. Maybe I need glasses lol. But there are situations like why didnt I use the 2nd camera during the reception part. Because the shots were shaky and someone was standing right in front of the camera?
The owner edits most of the weddings and shoot almost all of them. He is the one critiquing. Questioning my effort bothered me. This is a rough so treat it like one. Here was the first message he sent me before the notes:

"Okay, thank you for the work and effort you put into your editing. I love the editing with the music and the flow of it for the most part, but it appears to me like this was rushed and put together quickly. A lot of shots was out of focus from beginning of the reel to end, like you trimmed and drop the clip on the timeline before we actually focused on what we were shooting. All the dance floor shots were steadicam and some were out of focus, nothing from the second camera on open dance floor, which also seemed like a short cut. I'm not saying that what you did and please don't get offended, but it did come off that way. I will list changes needed to be made and send it to you shortly..."

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

This is why i could never give my work to someone else to edit. He needs to accept what you've done and be done with it or edit it himself. Nothing you did is WILDLY out of line or bad. Most of his shots are terribly overexposed so i can only assume a lot of his other shots were on-par. Good luck.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

My opinion is you did well on the editing part, only I see a lot of operator errors of which out of focus shows the most, but with the cake at 04:40 f.i. it starts out of focus and then you see it slowly becoming into focus but before it gets there you cut away to a dancing shot and a close up of the cake and then we see the same shot as on 04:40 but this time in focus and here I can understand his comment. But as I cannot see what came right after the first almost in focus shot it's difficult to judge it you had something to work with.

I think for us it's difficult to see what could have been done better when we're not able to see the raw material, what you did use has a lot of out of focus shots, so the question is if most of it was like that and then you have something to defend yourself with. It might be a sign for the owner to start using deep dof camera's :) (Are you sure he is not a user on this forum?)

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Delete this thread! lol. I think I need to check my vision I think when things are between fopcus n out of focus I am having a difficult time seeing it.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Are you serious? Those out of focus shots are quite obvious to me and that is from a Vimeo compression, you really can't see that?

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

My response was on exactly what your saying. Give me an example. There are times where the out of focus is what I have to work with.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

But the owner allready has pointed out all out of focus shots and when they occur, what do you want me to show you?

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Every shot is out of focus if you nit pick. The question is hats acceptable and the out of focus in the bride prep that he wants fixed is the same focus of most the shots of the wedding. Yes you do what your told for a job, but that is where I have trouble deciphering.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

I think the camera work is the main problem. The overexposure in many of the shots bothers me a lot more than the out of focus. Could be a picture profile issue -- too much contrast.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

This is what I dont like about these forums and talking to others in the business in general. Nit Picking is easy when you are in the trade. But some of you guys and this company owner need to accept that clients don't see things the same as we do. Hand that over to any client and I guarantee 99 brides out of a 100 will say 'Amazing'.

Sometimes you have to wonder if critique is just a way of massaging your own ego...

Well done I say.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Yeah, but in this case the bride is not his client but another videographer is so a well done from us doesn't help him at all. :)

It's true what you say that we pixel peep much more then our clients do but this kind of comments you can expect from wedding company owner if he has high standards, if he doesn't want out of focus shots in his video then it's up to the editor to take that into account or he probably will not get paid if he doesn't. This has nothing to do about people nitpicking at forums, Sean asked our opinion and if I read what the wedding company owner says that's the only opinion that really matters here, not what you or I think and I see the guy was pretty clear about what he wants changed.

Honestly I was a bit surprised Sean posted the owners conversation on this forum, there is a large possibility he is a registered member as well and he has access to this part of the site.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Ok i'm not an expert, however, as far as i can see you missed some OOF bits. Having read the rest of the thread i think what you might try is to follow the clients requests and put up the result for comparison purposes and see how it turns out.

Overall it's quite good, my personal preferences would be - I'd prefer transitions to be slower or smoother, but that might be just me tho!

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Ended up making the corrections and met up. It turns out whatever version he downloaded from vimeo, was a bad quality and out of focus because when he watched the dvd with the same out of focus shots he described, he was like wow, im sorry it didnt look like this when I watched.

Its the miscommunication, and I suggested less fb messaging and more skype or phone convos. I also demanded he trust me more to make right decisions and assume something was wrong next time he sees so many focus issues.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

That's why I avoid using DSLR cameras for the time being, Such a hassle to keep in focus. maybe when they make DSLR cameras to focus like camcorders then I might use them. So for the time being I will stick with my NX5.

stelios

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Hi Stelios

I tried with a Panasonic GH1 and it's tough to focus and hold a tiny camera...The new Sony EA-50 has bridged most of that gap by making a big sensor camera in a shoulder mount format with full auto and servo zoom. I'm seriously looking at one....out of focus shots might look creative to us but the bride might have other ideas completely and expect shots to be sharp and well composed too. It's really all about keeping her happy and not inflating your own ego with cool shots that impress only you!

Chris

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Chris
You are absolutely right!!! Weddings= Bride. Make her happy and you are a star.

"-----and not inflating your own ego with cool shots that impress only you!" I couldn't agree with you more.

The new Sony EA-50 looks interesting. Is it available in Australia?

stelios

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Ofcourse you can deliver with a regular videocamera with just one tripod, have clear sound, nicely stable framed shots and the bride will be happy, but there is a reason why the best in our business work with large sensor camera's and use sliders, steadicam, cranes.. they do make cool shots and they know how to deal with shallow dof the right way and their work is exceptional, those are the persons everybody is talking about, not the guy with his one videocamera.

It's not about inflating your own ego, its about thinking and working outside the box. You always have clients that settle for plain and simple but a lot of clients want more then that and it's up to each videographer to choose who he is going to deliver to.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Hi Stelios

Not yet but soon ...Global Media have it on their preliminary products list already.

Noa, absolutely yes I agree 100% as long as the creativeness is of benefit to the bride and not just the videographer saying "Look what I can do with my stedicam...aren't I clever"

If the footage enhances the wedding then I'm all for it and your footage certainly does do just that and more importantly you never try to draw attention to yourself which one sees so much nowdays which really adds nothing to the wedding video.

Chris

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

I am a single shooter & use a T2i for the prep, park and B-Rolls at the ceremony, reception. I agree about the focusing , I was editing a wedding I did recently and thought that I nailed the focusing, lo and behold some are soft focuses. It's good that they are mostly for cut-aways but same concern here about going all DSLR.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

There are wedding videographers that are über creative to maybe show off but that is what their clients are choosing them for, my style is a mixture of straightforward documentary and eye candy shots while a colleague/competitor of mine does short videoclip (mtv) style weddings and he is full booked every year. So I think it's not a matter to show off but to find a style that sells, my clients like the fact that they can view the church part from beginning to end from different angles if they wish while the clients that my competitor has find that probably incredible boring.

Re: Wedding Highlights
 

Sean I didn't notice any focus issues. My issue was the was pacing. 5:37 is a looong time and it really needs a structure and story to carry that long. And also after a year of using only licensed music. Using the beatles, not to mention using the whole song seems cliche. It certainly was edited well seemed to to be smooth and slick but dragged after about a minute because of repetitiveness. This is MY opinion and has no base in reality...
Bill