HVX in wedding videography, best way to explain the workflow

xyouthx

xyouthx

Well-known member
So, for a little extra cash, msyelf and another HVX owner (were both students) will be shooting a few weddings this summer on our HVX's. However at this point I only have (1) 16 GB card, and he's still shopping around for the right setup.

So, obviously we cant shoot the whole ceremony in HD for the simple fact, I cant afford the additional P2's, or HD's. So since it's being recorded to tape, what's the best way to explain this?

Shooting native 16:9 widescreen weddings, but what else can I effectively say about shooting to tape on the HVX?
 
I would put your services in terms of "we can deliver DVD quality footage of the entire event and have the ability to shoot in HD for specialized shots or specifically timed events"

If you have a laptop and invest in another P2 card you should be able to pull off swapping cards and offloading your footage so that you could continuously shoot in HD.
 
John Froton said:
I would put your services in terms of "we can deliver DVD quality footage of the entire event and have the ability to shoot in HD for specialized shots or specifically timed events"

If you have a laptop and invest in another P2 card you should be able to pull off swapping cards and offloading your footage so that you could continuously shoot in HD.
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do you mean DV quality footage?
 
xyouthx said:
Shooting native 16:9 widescreen weddings, but what else can I effectively say about shooting to tape on the HVX?
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I'm unclear of your question. If you shoot it on tape, I think you'll be saying that you'll be saying that you'll be shooting in DV on an HD camera.
 
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you prob already know this but you cant shoot HD on tape. Only P2. I have 2 16gb cards and shoot 720/24pn which gets you the best quality at best card space for HD.. 40 minutes each card (2-16gb cards = 80 minutes of HD footage) as i near the 40 minutes on 1st card i dump and continue shooting on the 2nd. You have more than enough time to dump the 1st card before the 2nd one is drained of space. Take a laptop and external HD and set up your folders and you'll be fine. As far as terms you can add about shooting on tape? i'm not sure you can add more to that. it is what it is.

If your able to secure the job, hopefully with a signed contract and at least 50% up front (rest paid upon completion of the fully produced DVD's) i would go out and buy another p2 card, 16gb. This way you can deliver a HD product. If they did not want HD then you can tell them the option for HD is there if they want it (name your price), but you will be converting the HD footage to SD which i have done on a few Corp videos i did early this year, and they will be extra pleased with the footage.. Grant it that you have good lighting. My Corp work was shot under studio lights so i did not worry about the lighting and the end result, i was re-hired to shoot 2 more.. :) with another coming soon.
 
xyouthx said:
do you mean DV quality footage?
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Well since DVD and DV are essentialyy equal (both being 720x480 NTSC) I would say either would be accurate but I would tend to go with saying DVD rather than DV because most consumers are more familiar with what DVD quality is and probably do not care quite as much about what DV quality is.
 
distinction noted, and thank you.

And the whole point of the wedding vid business is to make additional money for more equip such as another P2, steadicam, maybe 35mm adapter. But we have to get gigs first.
 
xyouthx said:
distinction noted, and thank you.

And the whole point of the wedding vid business is to make additional money for more equip such as another P2, steadicam, maybe 35mm adapter. But we have to get gigs first.
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i know what you mean. its how i started.
 
little off topic, but when you film a wedding in HD and are dumping on location, what do you do after you've given them the finished product? Just keep a copy of the DVD, or do you archive the whole project on a Hard drive and just keep buying more external HD's?
 
xyouthx said:
little off topic, but when you film a wedding in HD and are dumping on location, what do you do after you've given them the finished product? Just keep a copy of the DVD, or do you archive the whole project on a Hard drive and just keep buying more external HD's?
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There are many forms of saving, and many will chime in here with their method of saving data. Im my case i always keep a dvd copy of the finished product for my own record keeping and later demos displays for other potential clients. I also normally keep two extra HD on file for at least 3 months after i deliver the final product. I re-use the HD's when i see the need to erase and use for another wedding and so on. I also burn 1 or 2 DVD's with no edits, straight dump from camera to disc (dvd) and save a copy if i do not have spare HD's. You can also include the price of a new HD for each project you work on in your clients price. This way you have money to buy a new HD for each wedding you shoot. After finishing each wedding you stash away the HD in a zip lock bag and put in a safe place.

Just my .2 cents.
 
xyouthx said:
what do you do after you've given them the finished product? Just keep a copy of the DVD, or do you archive the whole project on a Hard drive and just keep buying more external HD's?
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If the source files are something that I will not likely need to re-edit or use again, I will encode them to high bitrate Windows Media HD (much smaller file sizes) and delete the large source files. If there is a likely potential for use of the footage in the future, I will save the original source files on external hard drives.

If I design a DVD, I always keep a backup for myself
 
ok, that's along the lines of what I was thinking. Just keeping the footage for a few months and erase when needed, on top of a few DVD's of the finished product, and raw highlight footage.
 
doug, didnt know you were interested in shooting weddings. i do about 2 a month. i use a firestore and another guy just goes solely p2 with 2 16gb cards(used to use 1 16 and 1 8). so maybe look into renting a card maybe.

we shoot at 24pn, which gives you about 40 minutes on a 16gb card, which is usually enough for a normal ceremony, but have the 2nd card emptied for backup. receptions can be tricky, but not too bad. its good to have a person solely for offloading. if you have any other questions drop me a line.
 
If you want to shoot in 1080 with the HVX, then get some more P2 cards. I did a lot of weddings with the HVX using mini DV, but then sometimes the client would want the whole thing shot in HD. So, I tried doing the hot swapping to a laptop, but unless you can be locked down on a tripod this method doesnt work.
 
ok great, thanks so much guys!! I think I have all the knowledge I now need, but now I just need clients.
 
If your client wants to pay, you can charge for a "lifetime data storage" option. Otherwise, let them know you'll only keep the footage for 6 or 12 months. Keep the DVD master and a backup forever. If they come back begging for it, it's a good thing to have.

I told my clients that they might consider remastering their wedding in 25 years, and having the original tapes and data would make for a much higher quality conversion to whatever the standard was at that time. The storage cost over time really isn't that expensive, because costs come down so quickly.

Go pay for some booth space at bridal fairs. Look for a small to medium sized one that doesn't have any other videographers. It's worth the investment.
 
16x9 in SD

16x9 in SD

If I understand the HVX correctly, when I shoot in 480i using squeeze mode, I get a wider view? Is it recording the 16x9 image natively? How do I output this to a DVD? I use Avid Xpress Pro for editing.
 
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