Wedding Highlights reel

mystico

mystico

Well-known member
I've finally been able to post a movie file to my website. After looking for video hosting sites (trying to get it free), I finally decided to simply put it on my own site for now. Anyway, check it out and bring on the critique. This was my first time using a DVX (100A) ... rented for the occasion, so my technique was a bit off as I got used to its weight and controls. Anyway, this is just the highlights reel.

ALL comments are welcome, including any suggestions for making the video gallery look a bit more eye catching ...

www.cloud9videoproductions.com/samples.htm
 
couple things that I noticed:

1. Shaky shots - better to use tripods for long dances, as anyone could get tired holding the camera for that long.

2. Shots were not very creative or emotional. Nothing displays emotion better than close ups, and I didn't see any during their first dance. The framing of the close-ups during the ceremony was way off.

3. Editing. The Shania Twain song is a good choice, but that second song with the garder and bouquet didn't fit at all. I would incorporate those shots of the cake in the first song, its very abrubt and akward sandwiched between the two fast songs.

4. I would lose the cheasy effects.

got some good ideas, keep plugging away.
 
Did you shoot in 24? I think if you want to use slow motion you should consider shooting in 60. It gets real choppy slowing down 24fps clips.
 
Thanks to all so far for the suggestions and critique. I really need this in order to become a better camera operator and editor.
Cecil: Yes I was quite disappointed with the shakiness myself. This was not my first wedding, but it was the first time I used the DVX. It's much heavier and it took me awhile to get used to it. I think that for the next wedding I will use a monopod for the roving cam. A tripod would leave me too stationary I think. As for non-emotional shots, help me understand what would have been more emotional. Yes, I also noticed as I was editing that I should have used more close-ups during the First Dance. And as dvpixl noticed, that extreme close-up during the ceremony was done in post. Too close on the groom indeed, but I was trying to block the bride out of the shot, as I did the groom on her close-up. As for cheesy Fx, are you referring to the edge Fx during the rings part? If other parts, please let me know. As for song choice, why does the song with the bouquet and garter not fit?

Boomerang, yes I shot in 24p. I ended up asking questions in another thread as well because I realised after the fact that that too was a mistake. This was my first use of the DVX and of ANY 3CCD cam at all. I was excited about making it look so different from previous filmings--which the 3CCD itself would have done quite fine. I noticed during post that trying to slow things down resulted in jerkiness. After many postings, I gathered that it would be best to slow to no more than 60%. And as you suggested, weddings will now be shot in 30p--especially since I will be using a DVC60 as my secondary cam.

Thanks again all. I will actually re-do this short highlights reel. I've already packaged up and mailed the discs for this couple so we'll see what their reaction is. It includes cinematic-type edit of the ceremony, full reception (edited of course), this overall highlights reel, credits and an Easter Egg bloopers reel.
 
Hmmm... I don't know about the 60% slow mo info you got. I do weddings here in DFW for a well known company, I'm the head editor, and I use slow mo down to 20% sometimes. We shoot on XL1's and gl2's, so we're shooting at 30, and you just have to use the slow mo at the right moments... where there's not a LOT of movement going on.

I watched the reel yesterday, and it was good, but there's a lot of room for improvement. After doing this for a couple years now, I basically have it down to a routine when it come's to shooting AND editing. Of course every wedding is different, but I do follow a basic pattern when it come's to what shots I want while shooting, and also what order and how I go about the editing process.

I could break it down for you if you'd like. I'll also throw one of my montage's up online later today and I'll post the link here.

I'm 26, and really just dove into editing 2 years ago. All I know is that when I talk to a bride and ask them why they decided to go with us, they ALL say that my work in post is like night and day compared to most of the other company's they looked at. It's all about catching the emotion, and picking the right song to emphasize it, and closeups are key to this. I've used shots where in "real time" the bride was just turning her head and glimpsed at the camera for a split second. Well, I see something in her eye's in that split second, grab it and throw it into the timeline, slow it WAAAAAAYYYYYYYY down, and just as she looks right at the camera I'll make up a fake camera flash (basically a couple frame's of pure white) and freeze the frame on that shot, then fade the color out and I'm left with a beautiful black and white photo. This all happens in about 10 seconds, but you get the point of the potential of some footage that most people wouldn't even think twice about.

-brown
 
rcbrown23 said:
Hmmm... I don't know about the 60% slow mo info you got. I do weddings here in DFW for a well known company, I'm the head editor, and I use slow mo down to 20% sometimes. We shoot on XL1's and gl2's, so we're shooting at 30, and you just have to use the slow mo at the right moments... where there's not a LOT of movement going on.
Click to expand...

The info I got applied specifically to slo mo on 24p footage. All the slo mo you see in my reel was originally slowed to 40% and was jerking robotically. After reading those posts, I changed them all to 60%.
 
rcbrown23 said:
Hmmm... I don't know about the 60% slow mo info you got. I do weddings here in DFW for a well known company, I'm the head editor, and I use slow mo down to 20% sometimes. We shoot on XL1's and gl2's, so we're shooting at 30, and you just have to use the slow mo at the right moments... where there's not a LOT of movement going on.

I watched the reel yesterday, and it was good, but there's a lot of room for improvement. After doing this for a couple years now, I basically have it down to a routine when it come's to shooting AND editing. Of course every wedding is different, but I do follow a basic pattern when it come's to what shots I want while shooting, and also what order and how I go about the editing process.

I could break it down for you if you'd like. I'll also throw one of my montage's up online later today and I'll post the link here.

I'm 26, and really just dove into editing 2 years ago. All I know is that when I talk to a bride and ask them why they decided to go with us, they ALL say that my work in post is like night and day compared to most of the other company's they looked at. It's all about catching the emotion, and picking the right song to emphasize it, and closeups are key to this. I've used shots where in "real time" the bride was just turning her head and glimpsed at the camera for a split second. Well, I see something in her eye's in that split second, grab it and throw it into the timeline, slow it WAAAAAAYYYYYYYY down, and just as she looks right at the camera I'll make up a fake camera flash (basically a couple frame's of pure white) and freeze the frame on that shot, then fade the color out and I'm left with a beautiful black and white photo. This all happens in about 10 seconds, but you get the point of the potential of some footage that most people wouldn't even think twice about.

-brown
Click to expand...

I would love for you to break it down because i'm getting into wedding as well
 
these days everyone loves the photojournalistic approach. anything that remotely looks cooler than a factory wedding video, people will pay for. but you still have to do it right.

Brown seems to have it down.
I would not slow down 24p footage at all if I can help it. then again, dont shoot weddings in 24p.
 
mystico said:
Cecil: Yes I was quite disappointed with the shakiness myself. This was not my first wedding, but it was the first time I used the DVX. It's much heavier and it took me awhile to get used to it. I think that for the next wedding I will use a monopod for the roving cam. A tripod would leave me too stationary I think. As for non-emotional shots, help me understand what would have been more emotional. Yes, I also noticed as I was editing that I should have used more close-ups during the First Dance. And as dvpixl noticed, that extreme close-up during the ceremony was done in post. Too close on the groom indeed, but I was trying to block the bride out of the shot, as I did the groom on her close-up. As for cheesy Fx, are you referring to the edge Fx during the rings part? If other parts, please let me know. As for song choice, why does the song with the bouquet and garter not fit?
Click to expand...


Well when I was talking about non-emotioal shots, I was refering to the lack of close-up shots, because wide and medium shots do not capture emotion like close-up shots. In the ceremony, the part where the dad gives away the bride is shot so wide that I could not even see their facial expressions. During the first dance, you basically have 5 or 6 shots that are exactly the same. I think you know what I am getting at here. The magic shots to look to slow down are looking at the camera, looking at the groom/bride, any tears being shed, or even a slight smile. When you look at that stuff during real time, it doesn't give the same effect. I can tell you get your music from freeplay music, the song that you used for the cake cutting is a good one and we usually use that for establishing shot montages.

I would take the reel down to two songs instead of four. Basically in a wedding you have two things: formal emotional events and fun events. Take that cake cutting and put it into the first song montage and take the bouquet toss and add it to the second dance song, it will just make a better viewing experience, rather than 20-40 seconds of one song.

As for the cheasy effects, I would make the rings section into a standard letterbox look. It seemed during the dancing you were throwing some video effects out there(color reversal, mossiac) just to show you had them. I don't think they serve any real purpose to the presentation or feel of the video. I guess my motto is less is more, especially when it comes to wedding videos.

I am going to dig up a montage clip that I just did recently and I'll try and post it here soon. Hope that I was some help here.
 
Definitely could have used more CUs. And I hate to admit it, but I DID use the Fx just to show I had them. As I remember that editing session, I was pulling out certain dance shots and realising I WANTED some of them to look different. I actually went into Adobe PP's Fx gallery and looked for something that might fit, trying stuff until I got something that was different enough. Will definitely take your advice re: the songs too during the do-over.

You know, I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but part of my problem during THIS particuular wedding was that I was bored. My first wedding where I saw myself as "the videographer" was my niece's. Did it as freebie just to get the experience and footage ... and of course to give her and her hubby a nice gift. (hee hee). Anyway, for the 5-6 months prior to the wedding I spent my 45 minute drive to and from work envisioning how I would frame shots, getting editing ideas and getting song ideas. (I listened to Shania Twain's CD a million times, envisioning where I could fit it in.) Then their wedding was fabulous! It was a mid-budget wedding and reception, but their personalities (and probably the fact that I knew 1/2 the guests) made the whole experience and the post-production so enjoyable.

The couple in this wedding served as bridesmaid and groomsman in that wedding, but their own wedding and reception was a snoozer (for me). Editing it was also boring and I kept trying to do things to spice it up (for me). I'm realising that probably also affected my shooting in some way.

Anyone else experience the thing of being bored?

Anyway, thanks to all for the suggestions and critique. I have learned so much since starting to read this forum, and although I have a F/T job that is faaaarrr removed from the film industry, I log-on whenever possible throughout the day. Can't get enough. Anyway, thanks again ...
 
I'm also anxiously awaiting all that have offered to post examples! I learn lots by example.
 
Can't do this for a living if you get bored with it haha. There are slower weddings than others, and one thing I do when there is not much going on is to take some very creative shots that you normaly don't have time to take. When I shoot a wedding I have a shot list of the things I know I need to get, and the things that are "eye candy" shots for montages (such as doing alot of establishing shots at different angles, or shooting with different shutter speeds.) We do 2 hour wedding videos so you have to get different elements or it will get boring real quick.
 
as mentioned above, slow-motion is difficult with 24p, but it can be done. Like rcBrown23 said, you have to pic shots with little or no movement. If you have a good stream of shots with very similar picture, the slowed down transitions do not have to jump much to reach the next shot.
 
Update. The couple loved the video! I'm at least happy for that, but as we all know, we as professionals and budding professionals see horrible things in our and others work, whereas the lay public remains enthralled with how we spice up what otherwise would have been simply raw footage.

Anyway, I'm going to redo this highlights reel and add footage from previous wedding for more of a "this is what I do" type reel rather than "these are the highlights from one previous wedding" type reel. I will post notification once it's on the web.
 
As a side note, you can slow down 24P footage and have it come out looking very nicely. You do have to put more effort (read: cash) into it, but it can be done. I use After Effects and Twixtor to create slowed down sequences that look great. I've shot some weddings in 24P and some in 30P, just depends on the venue and how much motion is involved. Either mode gives really nice images, which is ultimately what it's all about.

On a more related note, I wanted to see your video too but it has been taken down. I'll await the new cut. Best of luck on it.
 
Well I said that I would put up an example of my work, so here you go. I have to state for the record that this was not shot with a dvx, but rather an fx1/z1u combo as my boss is a sony guy. It was converted to standard def to get put on a dvd plus severely compressed for this web version you see here, so please forgive the poor quality. I think you will get the idea of some of the things i was talking about.


http://media.putfile.com/Campbell-Highlight-Montage
 
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