OK, this is the the rehearsal from Allison’s wedding, which then leads into the signing of the marriage contract.

I don’t really shoot rehearsals (if there are any) but this time I did.  It went by really quickly, so I did not get a chance to get too much footage.  I didn’t have as much as I thought and most of it was just everyone walking down the aisle, which isn’t really all that interesting because it’s just the same thing over and over again.  As a result it’s very short and goes by quickly.  I may wind up not even including this because I did not get enough shots to do what I really was hoping to do.  Not sure at this point.

I do like how it leads into the signing though.  I said no transitions or effects until the reception, but I had to put the dip to colors in there between the shots of her walking out of the room and the rabbi filling out the papers.  If I just put straight cuts then it would of made no sense at all and looked like the rabbi was totally coming out of nowhere.  The dips give it a sense that there are two separate actions going on at the same time and that the bride is making her way to the rabbi.

I broke one of my big rules, which is that you should never see a camera in any shot, but you can see the second camera already set up in the back in a couple of shots.  It’s OK here because it’s everyone rehearsing and getting ready, so it adds to the whole idea of that.

All the music is just from the musicians rehearsing at the same time, so again nothing was added and it’s all just natural sounds. A lot of times I will shoot musicians just playing for a minute or two so I can use what they are playing as background music.

The last person signing the marriage contract, the rabbi moved to the front of the table, so I had to change places and shoot her from behind like that. There was also a big window in the room with a lot of light coming through, so I had to angle it in order to not get the window in the shot, otherwise it would of been completely blown out.

You can’t really tell here, but I really love this rabbi because he projects his voice extremely well. People who project their voices well when speaking to a group of people makes editing a lot easier.