Wedding short: exercise in editing.

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newtodvx100a

Well-known member
If you have any tips or recomendations please hit me with your best shot! I am working on this just for experience and one of my problems is I tend to be to chronological in order. I lack the creativity to mix it up besides other things, ha ha. Any help would be much appriciated. Thanks


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There are some really nice shots in there. The beginning is WAY too face paced. Slow the cutting down about 200%. I don't think the song is appropriate at all. Think of it as a wedding, not a night club scene:) If you slow it down a bit, change the music etc. I think you will have something good on your hands.

BTW:There were some cool transitions also.
 
I agree that for a wedding video it is a little fast paced. Usually with the content you're going to want to make things gradual and graceful in the way you cut. Your shots look good, but some of the jumps to the shots where you have done some heavy fx are a littl jarring, but I guess appropiate for the song.

These are all small things, and I guess since you are just experimenting, no big deal. I don't like the song for a wedding, but if it's just for practice I guess it works. One thing that did bug me was the abundance of close ups of the musicians hands half way through. I think you went a little overboard at that one part, but otherwise pretty good stuff.
 
Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I have been doing exactly that, I am almost finished on a second version that has the clip length doubled that of the first short paced shots and carries thru the entire length without droping off. It seems I kinda got lazy and lengthened the clips towards the end slowing down the pace dramaticly. Like I said this isn't for anywone it is just for my experience. The orginal wedding video was done by the "A" camera man. The song was used by someone on this web site for a wedding video which actually looked like a beer commerical. But the editing, action and footage were great. I would like to learn how to grab the action and carry it thru. Thanks again.
 
Hey newtodvx,

I thought it was definitely original, and It looks like you did an excellent job capturing the correct exposure in all the shots. I agree about the close ups on the instruments, and it was a little repetitious with the song and footage, but if the bride and groom dig it that is all that matters.

Check out this guys site: http://www.dmbvp.com/
David Mathew Bonner has created a name for himself creating heavy effect laden pieces with similar sound tracks like what you have done, and he is able to basically pick and chose who he wants to have as his clients. He's got a niche and if you hone your skills you might be able to do the same in your area.

I think in general the action, pace, and camera work does not reflect the music as well as it could. There are some really slow zooms and pans that just don't match the tempo of the song. Also this looks to be a highlight of the whole day. I think most brides (this is who your doing the video for after all) would want something more mellow to represent the mood on one of her most important days. I'd be happy to give you some ideas for songs if you need them.

There is no doubt to me that you really know how to use the camera, because that is some really nice looking footage. The little girls are sooo cute. You used a tiffen(or other) soft effects #3 filter on camera, or did you soften it up in post? There are two trains of thought on filters. Some people say don't use on camera filters because you cannot change the look in post. I really like the Soft FX filters, but I have come to the conclusion that unless a bride specifically asked for a video to look the same as one she had seen with a soft fx filter I will capture the footage clean w/o any filters.

There are huge benefits to using a filter on camera though. If you’re sure that is the look you want you are able to give your video that sweet look before it gets compressed yielding an extremely better image quality than doing it in post. On camera you get 12bit compressed to the mini dv, while in post you'd have to add the Gaussian blur or other effect to replicate the soft fx and it would never be as good. Also you have the extra rendering that happens in post which will give you a small almost indistinguishable generation loss. Nothing like analog generation loss, but nevertheless. One more thing it adds is extra render time. Bottom line with any video is to get it as close to what you know you want the image to look like in camera and alter the image as little as possible in post.

Here is a link to a wedding highlight I did a while back to give you an idea of a more traditional example:

http://media.putfile.com/AWJHweb3

-Kevin
 
Kevin, great response. Great help.

Kevin, great response. Great help.

Thanks for the help and suggestions. I almost have a greatly revised version to post. I guess I am trying to grab the energy of the music, and see if I can make the clip fun and interesting. Here is my first solo wedding being the "A" camera with my wife helping on our little consumer camera. This is just a short few clips from the long versioon. It is soft and the family, Bride and Groom loved it. I will improve and your great response will help. Thanks again.

Dennis
 
I didn't see the first edit but the second one was good. The shots neede light, did you have an light on the camera?
 
Here is the unfilterd remix. I think it carries the energy all the way through to the end.
I hope it's better :-). Spent my weeks vacation working on under 4min of video and it's not for anyone. I'm ashamed to say.
 
I think you used all my favorite transitions in that... the 3D box, the fly-in, and who can resist the ever marvelous page peel?! Seriously though, you should try doing the whole way through with just cut editing to really hone those timing skills... and
to just keep away from super cheese-ball transitions. Although a lot of the footage was good, it definitely reminded me a bit of one of those consumer editing programs that automatically puts a random transition in for you.

So I know this was just an exercise for you, but in truth, the goal of a wedding highlights video is invoking emotion, which this, for me, absolutely didn't do.

Some good shots, but again... the silly transitions detract from the content of the shots. Also, some of the diffusion effects were a bit heavy for me.

...just my thoughts.
 
Kevin I really liked the softness of your video

Kevin I really liked the softness of your video

That was a very touching and sensitive wedding edit. I loved it. Great work and thank you for sharing. I want to excell at this and your input has helped me. Thanks again.
 
patsywhiteboy

patsywhiteboy

Your so right about the transitions. I was throwing them in eveywhere. Check out the remix with almost all straight cuts.
 
newtodvx100a said:
Your so right about the transitions. I was throwing them in eveywhere. Check out the remix with almost all straight cuts.
www.e-motionsmedia.com/remix.mov
Click to expand...

Cool. I like some of the timings on the cuts... not all right on the beat which keeps it different and the use of other transitions were a little bit more tastefully placed.

I'll certainly never like that song, but some interesting editing that I don't necessarily like, but it looks like you learned a lot from, so I guess that's really the point.

-pasty
 
Some really great looking shots in there, and the editing was pretty good. I like how you sort of turned it into a music video. Now, the one thing I didn't like about this...it's a wedding. You did a really good job timing everything up with the cuts, but it's still a wedding, and not a lot of people are going to want to watch this kind of wedding video. But still a neat idea though.
 
patsywhiteboy, how would you edit it differently? The song, thats another story but did it keep the energy or get boring?
 
newtodvx100a said:
patsywhiteboy, how would you edit it differently? The song, thats another story but did it keep the energy or get boring?
Click to expand...

Well, for me it really lost it when you started trying to do the Tarantino thing and mix the continuity around. It made me feel like you ran out of clips so you had to drag old stuff that we'd already seen in to fill the gaps. Rearrangements can be good, but for weddings I don't think it works... unless maybe the rearrangement is planned out to form a new sort of storyline (ie: group of shots from the beginning followed by a group shots of the end... back and forth like that until both work back to the middle to form the climactic ending with them kissing at the end of the ceremony... or something like that). Continuity in weddings is usually a good thing.

Aside from that, the song just felt plain old long.

If you are interested, I'll post a highlights that I recently did... it's much slower paced, but you may enjoy it (although I don't even like parts of it!).

-pasty
 
Patsy, I would like to see it. I did try to mix the mix. I tend to see everythin in cronological order and for me mixing is painful :-) and requires creativity which I don't
have but am working towards. Joking but true.
 
Can't take any credit for the idea, got it here on dvxuser.com

Can't take any credit for the idea, got it here on dvxuser.com

So far I am just trying to learn. This idea was here in an awsome video. I know, not for weddings but it was a powerful edit and camera work. I've only had my Mac for six months and trying to work my way thru all the FCP tools.



Lawsuit_Boy said:
Some really great looking shots in there, and the editing was pretty good. I like how you sort of turned it into a music video. Now, the one thing I didn't like about this...it's a wedding. You did a really good job timing everything up with the cuts, but it's still a wedding, and not a lot of people are going to want to watch this kind of wedding video. But still a neat idea though.
Click to expand...
 
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