"I think partly it's because I've continued to improve my work even if the financial rewards weren't there, and people are just noticing now"

There is truth to the rumor "passion drives success".

I'm not that great right now,IMO, when compared to Jason Magbanua, David Robins etc., but as long as I have the passion to create better works, eventually people will notice.

I am begining to reap the harvest after 5 years of experimentation. Still have a lot to learn, and more room to grow in the market.

When I first started doing this, I never saw the shots and edits in my head that are on these forums today...The mind is a beautiful thing when mixed with technology.


A shout out to all of us trying to make a difference.

And a special shout out to those guys and gals that have set the bar of creativity to the level of where it is now.

Amen. ....

yeah I like alot of it, alot of cool shot, but the first shot of the bride got to go man, you concentrated too much on cool shot but not on what angle to make her look her best, that first shot shows horrible double chin of the bride, I say ditch it and find another shot to put it in there.

I really enjoyed this one Travis, I thought all was well balanced and well edited to the music. The shot when they all were dancing and you moved the camera from above the crowd to a lower position was really cool.
One thing I'm not so sure about if it adds much to an already outstanding trailer and that is the different colors you used. I would just have used the original colors.
Again, great work, before you know Patrick M. will be asking you tips. :)

Good catch. I never even noticed that. My goal with that shot was to get the bouquet in front of her face so that just her eyes and part of her smile were showing, but the coordinator was adjusting her dress and kept shaking her around and her flowers kept moving all over the place. So I finally just quit trying to move the camera for the shot and held it steady to see if the shot would just happen. It didn't quite, but I thought this still worked and it was the only usable part of that shot attempt. Just didn't see the double chin. Thanks for the catch, as I will have to be mindful of that in the future. Thanks again.

Thanks for the comments, Noa. The coloring was chosen based on the bride's wedding colors, and I was struggling to determine the right balance of "themed" color shots with full color shots and the other "specialty shots. I'm still not sure if I got the balance right as some have said it's perfect and others would have preferred more full color shots. I suppose that might just come down to personal preference in the end. Thanks for the opinion, though. I appreciate it.

Oh, and if PM starts asking me for tips that will make my day! I just hope he makes it in here to give me some comments on this video. I'd love to hear what he would have done differently (or the same!). That goes for you too JMag!

Travis, sorry I was late for the boat, but I'm glad I swam to go after it.

First, that was just plain gorgeous. It's not the type of song I would use myself but you kept it interesting with the shot variety, solid composition and editing.

Overall the shooting was way excellent. But that angle you had for the first dance, the wide one, that was money. That tilt in the YMCA dance was also noteworthy.

There were great candid moments, excellently composed portraiture and coverage of events which make for a perfect highlights video.

Your monotones are reddish. It's a purely subjective decision. I prefer the sepiash/browner hues.

One thing that has been mentioned that I would change would be the super slomo of the unsteady glide. Perhaps there are a couple more shots you haven't used?

Thanks for sharing! And I'm frankly surprised you don't post more of your work.

Travis, A good variety of shots and editing. One thing I noticed is the slowmo's looked like down cranked film motion (like if slowed down the speed a film projector) wondering is this a style you were going for?

Reason I ask is because there are options like a timewarp/twixtor type plug-in to archive very smooth slow motions. I've been using timewarp and have got some very good results once I worked out how to use it.

Thanks, Jason. I really respect your work, so compliments from you are like gold for me.

The song was definitely not by my own choice. The couple said they wanted upbeat and edgy for a style and then chose that song. Go figure.

I could probably replace that glide shot with a combination of a couple of other shots, but I don't really have a suitable shot to sustain that full length in the song by itself. Unfortunately this was only my 2nd wedding with the Merlin, and it was breezy, and my gimble was broken, so a lot of my shots just didn't quite work out. I really wanted to use a shot that focused on the couple for the entire length of that last part of the song, and nothing else will be long enough.

That said, I kind of liked the look of it myself, but enough people have expressed comments on it that I probably won't do something like that in the future.

Again, thank you so much for the comments. You made my day (which is good because I'm exhausted from a wedding today). I'll try to start posting more of my work now that I'm hooked up on Vimeo. I think I'm going to post the main feature from this couple's wedding video to get some comments on that as well. It's about 15 minutes though, so it could be a lengthy upload for me. d;-)

Thanks again, Jason!

I wasn't specifically going for the "cranked down film" look. I really just wanted a clip that was focused on the couple for the entire length of that part of the song, and I wanted a clip that was dynamic since it was going to be onscreen for so long. This was really the only clip I had left that fit the role, and so I had to drop the speed to 25% to make it fit the length. The resulting "cranked down" look was something I actually liked, but a number of people on here have expressed that I should do something else there, so I'm going to keep that in mind for the future.

Also, I have looked into Twixtor, and would love to give it a shot, but it costs money, lol. And I'm already saving up for an HD upgrade, and new tripods, and potentially a vest for my Merlin, not to mention some other business upgrades. So unfortunately Twixtor isn't really an option for me right now. I tried to use "optical retiming" in Motion, because it's supposed to work great for slow motion, but it kept saying I didn't have enough disc space, which is crazy because all of my drives still have at least 100-150GB available each. Maybe I need to export that clip as a standalone movie? Not sure.

Thanks for the comments!

If you could get Motion working then it just gives you that much more tools in able to choose what type of slow motion fits the scene/shot, I actually use down cranked, blended interpolation and time warp because they all have a creative place. Even in the edit you have there some places I think the cranked down look actually works really well just felt some of them a nice smooth slow motion would have worked better.

Travis,

I like what you did here. I think you had some very solid and artistic shots, some good concepts and some excellent sequences. The spinning rings shot and the ending sequence were top notch.

A couple suggestions:
-the pink toning really killed it for me. I realize you were going for a theme, but the pink- like a sepia or bw- can be really over used in a way that minimizes the impact of the video itself. If you enjoy the toning, I would try to use it more sparesly and perhaps look at trying to make your images pop a little more with the toning (in terms of more contrast without blowing out the highlights). Some of the images looked like they were toned without fixing exposure first, and it gave them a very dense and almost over processed feel, like the shot at 0:40. The toning at 0:29 is just gorgeous, and to me, I feel the energy and love just come through the shot and it just jumps off the screen- which to me is what the grading is for.

-the really long slomo shot at the end really killed it for me. The sequence after that was awesome, but I think you lose your audience by holding a shot like that so long and so slow. Just my opinion of course, and I would certainly be interested to hear what others thought about the timing and length of the shot. Had it been the last shot with a long fade-out it may have felt better, but it almost seemed like an ending with more after it.

All the best,

Patrick

Nice filming...too much kissing...

Patrick, thanks for the comments. In all of the shots I did adjust blacks, mids and whites before I did anything else. The shot at 0:40 was meant to have an overprocessed kind of look, but maybe it's not working well enough. Someone else commented that they really liked that particular shot, so maybe it's a preference thing.

For the pink tone, here was my thought process. One of the bride's colors was pink, so I liked the idea of incorporating that as a theme into the video. Also, I wanted to try something different, since so much of the time the highlights videos are a collection of full-color clips with toned or other clips as "standout" type pieces. I thought it could be cool to reverse that, and basically make the full-color shots the "standout" pieces, and I thought they'd stand out even more in a sea of toned shots than the other way around.

Now it seems a consensus is building that there are too many toned shots, so I'm going to assume this part of the experiment didn't really work out, and that's good to know for the future.

There also seems to be a consensus on the long slo-mo shot at the end. I still really like that shot, and the length too, so I would really like to hear some more comments on that. I know some haven't liked it for the undercranked look it has, but what about the length? Is it just too long?

Oh, Patrick, your comment about "an ending with more after it" is spot on. I kind of felt like that was how the song went. It felt like the song was ending, but then there's this short musical piece that follows. I actually debated just cutting the musical part off of the end of the song, and having it end with the lyrics. Maybe that would have been a better move?

Thanks again for taking the time to watch and comment. I really appreciate it.

Too much kissing? It's a wedding day!! Just kidding. I've actually been working on some ideas to provide more variety to the shots in our photoshoots, so thanks for the comment. It's funny how some couples are just so into each other that they can't seem to stop kissing no matter what you're having them do. These guys were a bit like that.

I don't know that I would agree that there's "too much" kissing in this video, but I totally respect your opinion and agree that some additional creative variety would have been nice too.

I just thought I'd elaborate on this shot a bit more. This shot (and a few others like it in the video) were not filtered like the basic pink-tone shots that dominate the video. These few clips were actually corrected for exposure, then reduced to 25% saturation, and then a pair of colored gradients (yellowish and reddish) were applied vertically to either side of the image to create (I hope) a sort of overexposed film type look. Not sure if it was appealing or not, but that was the process behind it.

I'm not worthy! Obviously I loved most of the same stuff that everyone else did, but I still wanted to chime in to say that I LOVED the room numbers, the rings, and the candy (well worth the time spent on it!). How did you time the footage to the music so well? I've seen programs that will do that automatically for you with photo's but I'm assuming that no such thing exists for film...or does it??

Loved it!

Travis - re filming, I doubt I am worthy to undo your shoe laces, and I meant it when I said nice filming. (I've only done a few weddings -which I think have come out not bad - and it is certainly not how I earn my keep)

It's just that I can't get excited about Engagement videos or Highlight videos - and that is making absolutely no comment at all about the creative ability or skill level of any person making such videos. Clearly some of you guys are remarkable in your abilities. Such abilities I would like to possess/cultivate - maybe one day.

And of course if customers wants such videos, well that's their choice, and if your in the business of satisfying customer wants/demands, then satisfying them is your task.

It's the genre that fails to ignite anything in me. The documentation of the day, or highlights of the day (which this 'Highlight' didn't seem to be as I recall), is another matter. Perhaps I ain't with it...:-)

Or perhaps it's a philosophical issue I have - something to do with the fact that at the end of the day, the marriage is more important by far than the wedding.

This has been cast in stark relief for me. A girl we had a lot to do with set her heart on her wedding, and kindly got our three daughters (ages about 6 to 10) to be flower girls. The girls were decked out like gems and I must say enhanced the whole show. (If it was being done today I'm sure she would have had a video taken.) But the bride from virtually day one, set out to make her marriage hell - and succeeded far better than her widest dreams. In retrosepect, I see me daughters were used, were simply gorgeous props for 'the perfect wedding' (which it wasn't but was what the bride dreamed it would be) and this has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I imagine you guys that film weddings every weekend, see ones that thrill you to the bone because of the authenticity of those involved, and others you wonder why on earth you're filming them.

Anyway this is sideways from the quality of your production...which was great.

For what it's worth, it just doesn't seem that endless kissing is what it's all about...

Thanks, Kelsey. Glad the candy shot was worth it. I ate the M&M's afterwards, so at least that part was worth it!

Timing footage is just an exercise in patience. When I want to place a cut on a beat, I just play until I hear the beat, pause, back up the playhead with the arrow keys until I hear myself passing the beat, and then go back forward to catch the start of the beat exactly. Sometimes I scrub (with the arrow keys) back and forth over the beat to get a feel for exactly where the "meat" of it hits. Then I usually go 1 or maybe 2 frames past that to place the cut.

The reason you generally want to go a frame or two past the beat hit is that light travels faster than sound, so if you place the cut EXACTLY on the start of the beat ... well, you end up SEEING the clip change before you HEAR the beat change, and that's not what you want. You want to feel like the music is driving the cuts, not the other way around. I hope I made sense of that for you.

Wow, that's a pretty deep post, lol. I do totally agree that marriage is about much more than just the wedding day, but how a couple acts on their wedding day also is a decent indicator of how their marriage is going to unfold. If a couple is very into each other (doesn't have to just be kissing .. maybe the groom can't stop holding her hand or whatever), then I believe they have a better road ahead. If a couple could care less about being around each other (I've seen some of these, trust me), then I would put money on them having marriage troubles shortly. We're pretty lucky in that we tend to attract couples who are truly in love and are committed to each other.

So although endless kissing isn't what it's all about, it does have significant meaning. I mean, there's a reason you choose to put your lips on someone else's, right? My wife heads the photoshoot and does probably 90% of the shot direction. She usually has the couple kiss quite a bit because it helps them loosen up and have fun, which allows for better non-kissing shots. My goal has become to take the 10% of the shots I get to set up and do something totally different. Still working on my list, though.

I totally understand the genre thing. I took this video over to show my mother-in-law today (father's day get together), and a group of 5 or 6 people ended up watching it. I think maybe 2 or 3 of them were actually interested in it. The others either didn't really care (can't blame them since they don't even know the couple) or just weren't into watching something like that right then.

Anyways, thanks for the thoughts.

First pay no attention I am only a photographer.

Second, you are right it was cool stuff, this would seem to me to be a great highlight reel to show future brides, (and other videographers) it certainly shows what you can do.

The problem is I became aware of the cool stuff, my attention shifted from the romance and poetry of the wedding to this is a videographer who can do some pretty cool stuff.

I think the problem most are having with the quick kissing of the groom is that it seems out of place with the mood of the music which seems to scream for soft slow kisses, it breaks the mood, we are wanting to feel the emotions of their day and then he does that.

I thought that was one of the best spinning kisses I ever seen, I like your mood and distance in that shot, like they were in their own private Idaho. I love the shot towards the end of brides arms outstretched against the door, heavily back lit, would have loved another second of that.

All in all I thought is was a great highlight video, would have liked to felt their romance a bit more, technically I thought your skills were very good, I thought your creative ideas were very good, I personally liked the end I felt like we were starting to get involved with them at a slower pace, personally I was hoping your loop around them would continue until we saw them walking away towards the future.

Personally I would love you to be here in Arizona, I would recommend you.

Bill

Thanks for the comments, Bill.

I know what you're saying about having clips that break away from the slowness of the music, and that was actually intentional. Maybe it didn't work as well as I had hoped, but I was trying to make sure I had a variety of clip styles so the video didn't feel like it was dragging. Too often when editing to a slow song too many of the clips end up in slo-mo and the video drags. I was trying to avoid that.

I too loved the shot with the bride backlit at the end, and actually did about 6 or 7 takes on that to get it right. I couldn't extend that shot any more than I did because where I was shooting I couldn't drift to the right any more than you see in the shot because of a large desk. I considered using that shot in place of the shot right before it where I pan around the couple, but I didn't like the look of it at 25% speed. It killed the magic for that shot, but seemed to work for the other one.

And on that note, my goal with the shot where I spin around the couple was to spin all the way around them and stop behind them and let them walk away. Would have been an awesome ending shot. The trouble was this:

It was breezy that day and I was having trouble keeping the steadicam "steady". The gimble on my steadicam broke about 5 minutes before that shot. And probably most importantly, we were in the forest and on a hill. It's very difficult to walk a circle around a couple who is walking downhill through the forest and I can't look down at my feet to see what I'm stepping on, lol. I was basically tripping over rocks and sticks and bumps as I spun around them. Right about where the shot ends I lose control of the steadicam and it swings wildly upwards as step into a bit of a hole. Had to end the shot and chose not to reshoot it because I didn't really think I'd do any better a second time around.

Oh, and feel free to recommend me in AZ. I travel. I've done weddings in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Iowa, Florida ....

Great shooting & production
 

Great work on this one. More has been said than I can contribute (coming late too the party). I haven't had the artistic inspiration to dive into colorization yet. I don't know if that is a style I can produce. Have you done a colorized production before? If so, what was the decision process? Did you just dive in and say "I'm going to do it?" Or did a shot stick out and inspire the colorization?

So...seems like you got some great feedback/advice here for the most part! I think technical and artistic critisisms are extremely helpful. Some other comments...just seem negative and nit-picky, which in my opinion means you've "made it"! So congratulations on that! ;-)

Thanks for the visual Travis, lol, sounds like it would have been more fun filming you at that point, a real YouTube moment. ;)

Bill

I've done "colorizing" before, but I don't know that I've ever made the colorized clips the backbone of the video, so this was kind of new. I just kind of fell in love with the idea of creating a theme look for the video that wasn't full-color, which is what I usually do. I also felt the pinkish tone would lend a certain romantic feel to the video that full-color doesn't always do. Sometimes I feel like full-color is too real, thus the idea of using a tint as the theme.

Thanks, Kelsey! I definitely have appreciated EVERY comment made on here.

That's probably true. Although, I might have one better.

When the couple left the reception I attempted to "chase" the car as they drove away down this hill. I was hoping for a cool shot of the cans bouncing around behind the car as it slowly drove away. However, the lights had been left on and the car battery was dead when the couple went to leave, so they had to get a jumpstart. By the time all of this was done, the groom was really itchy to get out of there so he didn't drive away as slowly as I had hoped.

I actually have a shot (from my assistant) in their deleted scenes with me attempting to chase the car with the steadicam. You can hear the grandma in the background start laughing at the sight of me hunched over and running funny (you have to run funny to keep a steadicam stable, lol) chasing the car. The shot actually turned out semi-decent, but the deleted scene shot is kind of funny too.

The real person to film on a wedding day is my wife (photographer). I swear she turns into a monkey on the day of a wedding and starts climbing and balancing on all sorts of things to get shots. This wedding the groom was quite tall, so at one point she was literally balancing on the top bar of a bike rack with my assistant helping her stay stable. I was kicking myself afterwards for filming the groom instead of her, lol.