Need Help with wedding cinematography

S

SuperMachoAlpha

Member
Hey, everyone. I am going crazy trying to figure out how to get a certain cinematic look for weddings. I see a very popular cinematic wedding look all over youtube - The skin tones look smooth and clear, the highlights look very bright white, and the shadows don’t look very crushed. It is the perfect look for weddings. I have the same cameras that these wedding cinematographers use, same lenses, and same software (FCPX) yet I can’t get the same image quality as them. Would anyone know what I would need to achieve this look? Am I missing something? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I added a link on youtube of my favorite wedding cinematographer on here (Dave Tebbut) so you can see what exact image I am trying to achieve.https://youtu.be/Bw8_WnUL7UY


Additional info:
My cameras: 5D mark iii & GH4 with metabones speedbooster XL.
Lenses: Canon 70-200 2.8 IS L, Canon 24-105 L, Canon 50mm 1.8
Software: FCPX with plugins: Filmconvert, Magic bullet suite, Pixel film studios, Osiris luts

Any help would be appreciated a ton. Thanks a lot everyone.
 
May sound obvious, but why don't you Email Dave and ask him how he does it? Or if he's near you see if you can go along on shoot. Maybe post here when you get a reply.
 
Rainer said:
May sound obvious, but why don't you Email Dave and ask him how he does it? Or if he's near you see if you can go along on shoot. Maybe post here when you get a reply.
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I did email him and asked him. He told me he uses a 5D and a 70-200 lens. I have the same gear but my footage looks nothing like his. My footage looks very nice but the skin tones on his videos look very clean and smooth and they have a cinematic look to them. I have tried all kinds of combinations/color correction and can't seem to get it to look like that.
 
Looks to me like he's pushing the skin toward orange and oversaturated, but in any case the answer has more to do with profile settings and post correction than it does with camera/lens. I'd ask him for those particulars if you like his results and he's willing to share.
 
If I'm being perfectly honest, there isn't much in that video that stands out to me as being beautifully shot. To my eye it looks like standard DSLR footage. The only thing that I really like about it is his use of telephoto lenses for the exterior work. Without having seen your work, I'd venture a guess that you'll see a drastic improvement in your footage if you take a bit of extra time to search for beautiful light and place your couple accordingly. The other thing that I really encourage is to stop down your lens. These days so many videographers shoot wide open simply because they can, but if you stop down to F5.6 or even F8 you'll get a depth and sharpness that really compliments long lenses and exterior locations.

Example: this is the last wedding video I shot, where I deploy this very simple philosophy.

Side note: this might be considered very pretentious, but I'll say it anyway because I believe it. Wedding videographers are not cinematographers nor are the videos they shoot "films". Call me an old timer, but to me a cinematographer is someone who designs, shapes, and creates light to maximize emotional effect and uses composition and movement to tell the story. Wedding videographers do nothing of the sort, and I find it disingenuous to refer to yourself or others as wedding cinematographers.
 
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Wedding videographers are not cinematographers nor are the videos they shoot "films".
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I'd say it depends. Some wedding work deserves applause and is better executed than a lot of lit and storyboarded features. From your telling, there's no such thing as a documentary film, nor do features in the Danish style qualify as films or their makers as cinematographers.

But generally I agree that "wedding cinematographer" comes from the same hopeful place as "Subway sandwich artist."
 
Finnegan, your video is very nice and you made their wedding look like they had lots of fun. I guess the reason why I ask about Dave Tebbutt's wedding look is because out here in Las Vegas a lot of people like his work so they all want something similar. Dave said he uses final cut pro 7 and only the color wheels, he also said he uses cinestyle as his profile. I use final cut pro x. I wonder if there's a huge difference between the 2 softwares. Also, How do you guys make your footage look softer but yet very clean? The footage from my 5d mark iii looks too sharp, I have dropped the sharpness but it looks too soft, nearly blurry. I see alot of wedding videos and the skin tones look nearly plasticky, but somehow very nice. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.
 
FWIW, try to remember it's the story that engages the audience, and there are plenty of color looks that might reinforce the story and help you put your unique touch on the finished look.

My suggestion is to take a friend out on a sunny day and an overcast day, shoot some stuff in a variety of picture profiles, slightly over and under expose some shots. Take them back to your NLE and play with them. Decide what look works best for your personal style.

Also, you MUST calibrate your monitor first. I've seen way too many shooters fall in love with a certain look and then when they see their work on someone else's monitor, freak out.
 
Videographers spend a lot of time experimenting to get a certain look. I would not expect them to give the details of their custom look away.
 
Finnegan said:
If I'm being perfectly honest, there isn't much in that video that stands out to me as being beautifully shot. To my eye it looks like standard DSLR footage. The only thing that I really like about it is his use of telephoto lenses for the exterior work. Without having seen your work, I'd venture a guess that you'll see a drastic improvement in your footage if you take a bit of extra time to search for beautiful light and place your couple accordingly. The other thing that I really encourage is to stop down your lens. These days so many videographers shoot wide open simply because they can, but if you stop down to F5.6 or even F8 you'll get a depth and sharpness that really compliments long lenses and exterior locations.

Example: this is the last wedding video I shot, where I deploy this very simple philosophy.

Side note: this might be considered very pretentious, but I'll say it anyway because I believe it. Wedding videographers are not cinematographers nor are the videos they shoot "films". Call me an old timer, but to me a cinematographer is someone who designs, shapes, and creates light to maximize emotional effect and uses composition and movement to tell the story. Wedding videographers do nothing of the sort, and I find it disingenuous to refer to yourself or others as wedding cinematographers.
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I was about to come in and say the same thing about the style the shot.
 
Well, a lot of guys and gals who shoot weddings actually do use the "technical" terms of cinematography. Do we penalize those individuals for the people who just turn on a camera and hit record?
 
Tetewsky said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc4ZChlFoEQ

Here's some of my stuff.

I agree with other posters that wedding "cinematography" isn't really cinematography. It's a lucky circumstance if a couple has a wedding where events fall around certain times of day such as magic hour.
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Your work looks awesome. That's what I want to know. How do you grade to make it look cinematic like that? The skin tones look perfect. Any tips would help a ton. That's a nice video you posted.
 
The crowd that's blasting "wedding cinematography" seems pretty arrogant from here. If I'm a documentary cinematographer for a feature film, and I'm at a wedding, does it count as "wedding cinematography?" What's the difference?

There is definitely a difference between "my uncle will bring a camera" and "we're covering the event with six Alexas for the BBC." But, to dismiss all wedding shooters as not "cinematographers" seems a bit cold, to me. I've been to weddings that had two first ACs. I'm not aware of any videographers that hire ACs.
 
I do weddings in the summer, and I'm fine with not being labeled a cinematographer. It makes sense. I don't think it really cheapens what I do, it's just a logical statement.

I've always seen cinematography as having an element of control. You control light to create a mood. Choose lenses and camera moves to compliment a story.

With weddings, you just rarely have that luxury. I mean, I try to make the best use of the available light, but I generally can't stop everyone and control a whole lot. Sometimes during the photo session you have some leeway, but even then, I'm not dragging out reflectors, flags and big lights.

It's akin to event videography. Which is fine! It's a unique skill and still worthy of respect. It's just different than shooting controlled narrative scenes. At least that's how I see it.

Also, to answer OP: To me, it looks like he makes frequent use of longer lenses. Uses a non-overly contrasty profile, and other than that, I think he just lucked out with some pretty favorable lighting conditions for most of the day. Even the walk down the aisle was in the shade. I've had ones at high noon with the sun blasting through trees, so the aisle was a mix of harsh highlights and shadows. Ain't nothing making that look good. Maybe an Alexa.
 
Just to add to this, even though I don't to weddings etc, what might be a best idea is to send your footage to a good grader/colourist they will be able to tell you what is going on, also try out some lens filters and do some testing.

Most wedding videograhers has their own style and they may not share all their findings,


Jeff
 
SuperMachoAlpha said:
Your work looks awesome. That's what I want to know. How do you grade to make it look cinematic like that? The skin tones look perfect. Any tips would help a ton. That's a nice video you posted.
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It's not graded heavily- it was mostly just shot in good, LUCKY lighting conditions. The footage with the red headed couple happened to be captured during magic/golden hour, so the light is very soft. For the night stuff I requested that all ambient light be turned up. A lot of the look comes from a combination of shooting tighter and having smooth movement. The color pass is literally just attempting to make it look as natural to my eye as it did, maybe just a slight contrast push.

And the stuff that's less featured- the lighting is not as solid. The shots are pretty good, but again, there's no real way to control that at a wedding. just try to expose properly and have good composition.
 
I have liked the grading results I get with a Cinestyle S-curve lut applied to a Cineform ETTR intermediate. Don't know if you could do something similar with DSLR footage shot with a moderately flat log profile or not, but the first step would be to transcode your original to a high quality 4:2:2 DI format like ProresHQ or Cineform before grading it.

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