Wedding Main Feature - please critique
 

I posted the intro to this several months ago, but never got around to posting the full feature on here. Well, here is the link. I welcome all praise and criticism. Thanks!

http://www.dreambigproductions.com/w...ch_feature.htm

Hi Travis -
Maybe it's my bad eyesight, but that's about the smallest display window I've seen... I'd upsize that midget a bit. I watched some of it and looked good, but I found myself squinting and gave up about 1/4 in...

Travis...looked good. I liked how you used some of the conversations, makes it more real. Personally I think maybe a song with lyrics would have mixed it up a bit. Really liked the intro and with the names sliding in.

Nice work.
-John

Yeah, I was trying to save bandwidth on my server. It's a 15 minute video, so I didn't want to make it too big. Sorry about that. Thanks for the attempt, though, lol!

:EDIT: I'd like to add that this video was originally uploaded to show potential clients, and a good percentage of the clients in my market don't have awesome internet connections, so I decided to be cautious with the video size.

Thanks for the comments. This was the first time I edited a main feature strictly with "movie score" music. I have mixed feelings, because this music makes it a cleaner edit, with more emphasis on the visuals, but songs with lyrics have the advantage of tying you in more emotionally via the audio.

Hey Travis,
Got through the first 5 mins. Your highlight is quite longer than many I've seen. Yours and Johns. I really liked the way you incorporated the rehearsal into the highlight and also the use of natural audio. It was a very good combination that lead very easily into the wedding day. Congrats on a job well done. The major thing for me that took away from your video was your excessive dutch angles. It was really bad during the rehearsal when you have the stones that are leveled and then the horizon that are leveled and then your camera is in dutch mode. It was distracting when you have that line going through the peoples head. If there was no horizon it would've been a lot bearable. Thanks for sharing

Monday

Thanks for watching. To clarify, this is NOT a highlight video. This is the main feature that the couple receives on their DVD that acts like a movie of their wedding day. The feature is around 15-20 minutes long. My highlights videos are only 3-5 minutes long.

As for the dutch angles, thanks for the comments. I never noticed, but now that you pointed it out I can see the shot with the horizon line does look funny at a dutch angle since it goes through their heads.

Thanks again for watching and commenting.

It IS way too small for much benefit at all. Since it's flash based, I would think that even twice that size wouldn't use much more bandwidth.

I'd re-tool that thing :)

Now where's my reading glasses...

Umm... it says Burch Highlights. I'm confused.

I liked it, especially because it gave an impression what happens before in a documentary type of style. Reg the the dutch angle comment that was given here, the only time I found it distracting was at 03:00 when she was talking (to her dad?)
Dutch angles are nice if you want to add a creative touch to your image but since at that moment it was more documentary style it was a bit out of place. I use them as well but try to keep it at a minimum.

Eventhough it was a long clip i completely watched it as it gave me the opportunity to see the differences between your traditions and ours (in Belgium) and I saw several. Rehearsals f.i. is something that we don't do, also trowing the flowers in the evening is not always done. And having that many bridesmaids is not the case here. It looks like you do way more preparation as we do, here I always need an eye in the back of my head to know what coming next. :) I also saw that their friends gave some speeches in the evening, that's also not the case here, it's usually the groom that just welcomes the guests and that's it.

I also like the way you combined it with the music (was it from a movie, and which one?) as it matched very well, also mixing in the spoken part was well balanced.

The only thing that was not that good was the size because it was really small, I also don't think making the window larger will add a lot of mb. Can I ask what program you use to encode?

I know, I just uploaded it to a pre-made page and didn't change the title. It was just for you guys to see, but I didn't realize not changing the text would cause such an issue, lol. I'll just change the text.

Thank you very much for all of the comments and especially for watching it all the way through. You mentioned some differences between this wedding and the typical Belgian wedding, but what's funny is how different weddings in the US can be depending on where you are at. Very interesting.

Anyways, I used Visual Hub to convert my Quicktime movie to Flash. Thanks for watching!

Really? I thought wedding traditions were all the same in the US? A typical Belgian wedding is always the same, actually a bit boring from a creative point of view. Belgians love to eat and drink you know and the eating part takes up a big part of the evening and the openingsdance often starts at 24:00 or 00:30.
All the fun things you do, like "trash the dress" or "save the date" clips are not being done here, there is hardly any interest for those kind of video.
Some months ago I wanted to see if there was a market for a trash the dress because no videographer in belgium did something like this. Therefore I decided to give one away for free (a Photo and video session)
You know how many had reacted? One person...
Think Belgian brides are to conservative for something creative/experimantal like this and they don't want to ruin their dresses because they paid a lot for it.

When I see what you guys often produce I envy you for having the opportunity to work with clients that are more open minded.

2 weeks ago I had a Italian wedding and that was more fun to do as they know how to party, all through the day something was happening and there was hardly any time for me to sit down. It was sometimes a bit chaotic but never boring. In such a case I have more then enough material to make a creative video. But the main part of the Belgian weddings is quite a lot of waiting for something to happen, especially after 15:00 -16:00.

Anyway, thanks for your answer Travis and the mail you send me, it's much appreciated.

It's exactly the same in my market. In fact, the average bride in my market is still not even considering getting a wedding video in the first place.

I have yet to do a "trash the dress" or "save the date" video. Just this year I finally booked a "love story" video, but only one. Last year I offered my love story video at half price, and had no takers. No one in my market seems to care about HD, or same-day-edits, or any of that kind of stuff.

In my market, I'm way ahead of the game in terms of what my competition offers, but compared to what videographers in Canada or the Phillipines are doing I'm way behind. It's definitely frustrating, as I aspire to offer what they do and do the kind of work that they do, but I also need brides that are willing to pay for that. So I understand your frustration too.

This particular wedding was big wedding for our market. The couple pulled out all the stops. My average wedding is much smaller and not nearly as "exciting" in terms of what is going on. But regardless of the wedding, I always do my best to capture everything and present it in the most impactful and emotional way.

Travis,

Nice work and I enjoyed watching it. Seems that the focus is totally on the couple though. . . .I can't remember much footage of the bridal party and practically no guest shots other than during the dancing. I would be interested to know what else is on the completed DVD besides this main feature? Do they also get a copy of the complete wedding ceremony and the speeches?

Mark

Yes, the DVD contains a special features section with a highlights video, the full ceremony edit, full edits of all the other important events (like first dance, toasts, cake cutting, etc.), other special edits based on individual weddings, and deleted scenes. They also had a personal messages edit on their DVD which featured wedding party and family.

Ditto on the intro
 

The title work did catch my eye. Very new and unique. Couple will love it. Very cinematic presentation. Much like some intro I saw on here filmed in France (I think). Great pacing for a movie. Well done, though as others have said, I bet a bigger preview would be nice (though for how long of a clip that is, the file size would start to be enormous).