Brand New Highlights Video - some cool stuff!
 

Here's my latest highlights video, and I feel like it turned out pretty well:

http://www.vimeo.com/1163863

The Vimeo compression wasn't kind to the video for some reason, so I'd love any tips (beyond what Vimeo recommends because I followed their advice EXACTLY).

I'd also love to hear any comments on editing, shot composotion, coloring, etc. Thanks!

Hey Travis,
You did a pretty good job with the clip. A few things really stuck out in your clip. First when the bride and groom are kissing in the beginning you speed it up a tad to make it much more fun but the very last kiss they give each other, a big drool comes out of their mouth. YUCCKKK! Bro you got to see if you can still take that part out. I almost vomited. You did a good job with the stop motion. I liked the filming for the most part except the shot you circle around the Bride and Groom outside. It was a bit shaky and one can tell the glidecam or stabilizer is not balanced. Besides that, it was edited very well and it kept me through easily to the end. Very good job Travis. Thanks for sharing and can't wait to see more from you.

Also a side note, thanks for the heads up on my other thread of destination events. Come find out USPS hasn't mailed it yet though I mailed it out a week ago from MD to MA :/

Great Job
 

You are my hero! I loved every part of it. It kept my attention and I was amazed--it was brilliant in my opinion! Very inspiring!

I haven't watched it yet, however, the anticipation is killing me!

My eyesight must be going. No sign of droolage noted.

Really nice clip Travis, enjoyed it from start to finish.

Your Vimeo clip looks as if it is too small (with scaling off it is really small). On my own Vimeo clips with scaling off, the clip more than fills the same screen. I suspect you need to revisit your settings.

What are you encoding using?

0.35-0.38 look again ughhhhh (^_^)

Hey Travis,

I thought you did a good job with this clip. The editing and the pacing kept me watching right till the end.

Maybe a few too many cross dissolves - and possibly one too many stop motions in time with the drum roll.

And yeah ... trim that first kiss to get rid of the drool. I can see how people would miss it ... but if you see it .... it's quite off-putting. That image is burned into my memory - and not in a good way :)

Your composition is pretty good - a lot of shots seem to veer towards the centre a bit though - i.e. with the subject in the middle of the frame. It's always good to keep your rule of thirds in mind.

I loved the stop motion with the ring - and the M&Ms that formed the love heart - really cool. And the spinning shot was my favourite from this clip - closely followed by the shot of the bride at the window through the banisters - really nice. I would have liked to see that shot earlier in the clip, but that's just me.

Good job!

Edit: False alarm on the drool it seems ... my wife watched the clip and she scornfully informed me that it is actually the bride's hair ringlet that gets caught on the groom. We even paused it in the right spot to check .... yes, we have too much time on our hands :)

I blame Monday for planting the thought in my head before I watched the clip ;-)

I get the notion that you have a background in music videos?

I like the stop action with the candy.

Thanks for sharing Travis!

-JS

Oh....indeed.....Thar she blows! Ok, ok.....before we get sidetracked in "Saliva Gate" I would agree that on the big screen that is probably going to trun and ahhhhhh moment into an euhhhhh one, so, maybe loose it and slow down the previous clip?

That aside, I'd love to have a clip like this under my belt.

I’m not sure if that IS a drool, I’m tempted to say it’s her hair or part of the grooms flower on his lapel, I doubt very much Travis would let that one go by.


I noticed that too



I like the flow of the video, I find the pink tint a bit over used, specially when you compare it with the awesome job you did with the vivid colours in the wooded area.

And lastly the only thing I would add to make it a bit more personal would be to add the vows as voice over at some point in time during the clip.

The coolest shot for me was the room number transition, very cool and original.

I agree with you. Very nice video. Which music did you use? I like it but I don't recognize it.

I'm going to try and respond to everything, but if I miss something, please let me know.

First, that is NOT drool during that kiss. The bride is wearing long earrings and one of them gets caught on his boutonniere and as she pulls away that's what you're seeing. Pretty funny that it happens right next to her mouth and some of you saw it as drool ... although maybe that's not funny.

As for the stabilizer shot, my Merlin gimble broke the morning of the wedding, so I was flying the thing on a semi-functional gimble. The shot at the end was also reduced to 25% speed, and that's why that one probably seems "shaky". Maybe I'll drop it in Motion and see if the resample feature actually works.

Alastair, I used the encoding tips that are posted on Vimeo. Quicktime MPEG4, keyframe every 30 frames, best quality, 29.97fps, 640x480. I'm not sure why it ended up with pixelization when I see so many other videos posted that are crystal clear.

Mathew, thanks for the comment on the rule of thirds. I generally try to do that but maybe I need to do it more. Oh, and I put that shot of the bride at the window near the end because I wanted the piece to have a strong finish and I felt that was a pretty strong shot, but not really appropriate for the last shot. Thanks for the comments, Mathew.

Carl, thanks for the input. I also had a feeling that maybe I was overusing the red tone, but I also wanted to keep that look as the theme for the video. So I guess you're saying that I could probably put a few more full-color shots in and the theme would stand? Also, I don't overlay the vows on highlights videos because for my style the highlights are all about the song and the visuals. I also produce a short-form main feature for the client (which I may also post soon) that has the vows overlaying music, so doing the same thing in the highlights video would be redundant for the couple. Just thought I'd explain that.

Kees, the music is "Sea Breeze" by Tyronne Wells. Beautiful music and awesome lyrics. My one regret with video is that I didn't pay enough attention to the lyrics enough before the wedding day (I listen to the highlights video song the couple has selected a bunch of times before the wedding to get a feel for the style and mood of the song). I could have composed and set up a number of different shots to really take advantage of the lyrics. Oh well, lesson learned.

Thanks again everyone for all of the comments and support. I really appreciate it!

Just to clarify, that clip was not sped up at all. The groom was just going to town kissing her.

Actually, I don't at all. I got started editing by editing my own wedding video years ago. I've never actually done a music video, though I sure would like to.

Glad the stop motion with the candy is being received well. It was a pain to shoot and I really didn't want it to come across as cheezy or gimmicky. Glad to hear it's a hit!

Do it again, but change your frame size to 1280 x 720

My video is not HD, though, it's SD with letterboxing. Should I still do that?

Hi Travis - loved the clip!

Were you using a GL2? I really liked the first dance shot at 2:52. Did you use a GL2 for that? If so, do you recall the settings to get a great shot in a low light setting? Would love to know.

Thanks!

Thanks Nick. Yes, I use several GL2's at every wedding. The settings for that shot should have been probably 1/30 or 1/60 shutter, f1.6 or f1.8 and no gain. I can't be sure because my assistant was running that camera and his footage was actually too dark. I had to adjust things in post to get it to look better.

I did use a darkening trick on the right side of the frame for that shot to focus your attention to the couple and help make them appear somewhat "spotlit". It was tough because of the wide-open door in the background is just screaming bright outside light and it was competing with the couple.

I see what you are saying about the redish theme you have going on. In that case I would make all the pre-ceremony footage using that tint and when the first ceremony shot comes on, I would transition using a bright dissolve from the red tint to a actual color, and leave the actual colors all throughout the remaining clip. When you refer to pre-ceremony shots afterwards then reuse the red tint, that way it gives more meaning to the color theme and develops the story through the clip.


Did you shoot the wedding in 16:9 or was it in 4:3 and then you added the letterbox? If you did shoot in 16:9 then you should output your video at 720x480 not 1280x720 since it isn’t in HD. If you shot your footage in 4:3 and then added the letterbox, you will need to render your footage cropped but still using the 720x480 resolution.


Hope that was helpful.

Chris, thanks for the comments again. I appreciate it.

I did shoot the wedding in 4:3 and just added bars in post. So you're saying I need to crop the footage on export and use 720x480 for the export resolution?

Also, I still don't understand why the compression on Vimeo wasn't very good, whether the clip was 4:3 or 16:9 shouldn't affect that. I could see problems if I took a 4:3 clip and exported it as 16:9, but if the clip is 4:3 and is exported at 4:3, then the compression on Vimeo should be unaffected by the screen ratio, correct?

Didn't appreciate that it wasn't HD (gawd help us when you switch!).

Wow, thanks. You have no idea how badly I want to be shooting in HD. I've been wanting it for 2 years now. I think this year I might finally be able to afford the upgrade. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Just an update. I went to the trouble of masking out the offending "drool" to just avoid any potential future issue with the clip. It turns out the "drool" was not the bride's earring like I originally thought, but a whisp of her hair that caught on the flower. I won't be posting the updated clip since it already took like 2 hours to upload the video to Vimeo last night.

Thanks again for all the comments, and I'd love to hear some more (good or bad).

Hey Travis,
The drool was not offending at all. It's just I was thinking for the Brides sake when viewing it. As you stated it wasn't even drool though it looked like it. I had a job recently where the bride to be was walking down the isle and snot came running down her nose. I wanted to throw up right there. She was older being in her 40's and boy am I not going to enjoy looking through that footage. The worst part is it was recorded in HD. Besides that false alarm from me you still did one heck of a job editing the video.

Monday

No, I'm glad you mentioned it, though. I actually noticed it the other day, but then immediately just thought it was her earring. Having you and a few others also noticing it made me realize I should just go to the extra trouble of masking it out so that it wasn't an issue for the bride or anyone I might want to show it to. I appreciated the honesty. Thanks again!

Oh, and sorry for your own "snotty" troubles. That's a tough one. Did the bride not have a tissue tucked in her dress?

enjoyed the coloring of the first wide shot of them dancing. had a classic portrait look.

appreciated the non-linear-ness of it. it didn't feel random, as can be the case.

from a business perspective (being someone who doesn't offer highlights per se), i see that it was a very recent wedding, so the couple is probably loving you for that! do you do this (this soon) for every wedding, or is it an accessory?

jones

Yeah she did. Thank God cause that would have been a big mess up at the alter (^_^)

The highlights video is included in most of my packages (3 of 5), and nearly all of my couples book a package that includes a highlights video. Usually it takes 3-4 weeks to finish out the editing, and the highlights video is done pretty much last because by then I feel like I know all of the footage very well.

This particular wedding was only 2 weeks ago, and I'm definitely setting a record for myself. Partly I was pushing myself to see if I could get it done in 2 weeks and partly I was just in the zone a lot for this wedding and ended up working some really late nights (mornings I guess) to make sure I didn't lose the creative momentum. I did speak with the bride today and she was pretty shocked that her DVD was nearly ready. I shoot for 3-4 weeks but I tell my couples 8-12 weeks or longer because each project is a custom project.

I'm glad you felt it was non-linear without being random. I have a hard time breaking from chronology because I have a very strong logical side to me that constantly tries to beat down my creative side. But the short-form edit is already chronological so I'm really trying to break away from that in the highlights video so the two pieces are distinct.

Thanks for viewing and commenting!

Travis, that's killer dude! I'm going to snag that song for a Galveston wedding I'm shooting in two weeks.

Thanks for sharing.
Tom

Thanks, Tom. Funny story about the song. When I interviewed the couple a few days before the wedding for their final consult they didn't know what song they wanted for their highlights. I told them I could give them some ideas since I had been itching to do something more upbeat and edgy (like much of what I've seen on here). I confirmed with them that they were up for upbeat and edgy and fun, and then did research and email them a list of my song suggestions. They came back and changed their mind and picked this song instead, which is kind of the opposite of what I was envisioning.

So at first I wasn't fond of the song (from an editing perspective), but I forced myself to listen to it probably several dozen times in the days up to the wedding (fell asleep to it at night, etc.). I ended up developing a vision for it.

FWIW... I've read in several places that QT's default keyframe every 30 frames really shouldn't be so and really should be a factor of 10 times the frame rate... 10 x 30 frames = keyframe every 300 frames. It seems also that it's supposed to reduce any blockyness & also keep the file size a bit smaller.

But wouldn't that then make a keyframe every 300 frames if you put 300 in the "keyframes per" field? Seems like having fewer overall keyframes would actually result in reduced quality.

Maybe the number should be "1", so a keyframe for every frame?

Well they came from reliable sources :) & I can't recall the reasoning, but I remember it making sense. If I can conjure up a url, I'll post it.

I was just trying to figure out the logic behind it. If you're keyframing every 30 frames, then you basically have a keyframe every second, but if you're keyframing every 300 frames then you only have a keyframe every 10 seconds, so the quality should suffer. Unless I'm missing something.

If you can think of the link, please do post it. I'd love to figure out how to get my videos on Vimeo looking as good as others I've seen!

Travis,
I've been using this sight for some time now getting ideas and songs from it. This pl;ace is good for that kind of expansion of the mini filmakers horizons. Hell, I used to live in Moutanin Home Idaho and when I checked you out I couldn't believe this kind of creative art was possible from that neck of the woods. I'm proud of you Travis.

By the way, is the Steakers Bar still there in Boise? They have a room for people to disrobe for anyone that want's to streak, and then they had little foot print markers on the floor for the streakers to follow when they ran through the lounge area. I did it once many moons ago. Just curious.

Tom, I don't know about the Streaker's Bar, but now I'm going to have to find out, lol!

Thanks for the kind words. The Boise market for videography has been a tough one, because like I mentioned earlier it's an afterthought for most brides. However, after several years of struggling to get people to think bigger about what's possible from a wedding video, I seem to finally be making some headway. 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. I also think it's partly that I've learned how to better sell what I do, which is quite different from what the norm is here. Name recognition always helps too. d;-)

Here's one
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage..._from_fcp.html

That's encouraging to hear Travis. It's a similar situation in my area so that gives me hope that perseverance can pay off

Keep it up mate!

As an aside ... I believe my wife called it as hair and not drool back on page 1 of this thread ;)

Wow, that is interesting stuff. Thanks!

Yeah, you really just have to severely overachieve for a while until it starts catching on. I'm guessing by the time I retire I'll start getting paid for my hours, lol.

Oh, and I saw that. Tell your wife she gets a handful of gold stars for the catch!