I had an epiphany today. Why always use different music when editing a video? Why not do it like they do in film and pick a piece of music each for both the bride and groom and use it as their theme throughout the video? And throughout the video when a moment involving one of them happens, use that piece of music for that particular scene? That’s how movies are scored- it’s their moment, so you use their music.
I think it’s a good idea, but unfortunately the practicality of it when doing weddings just is not there because it would just sound like you are using the same music over and over again. Not sure if that is something people would pick up on. I guess it’s the same idea as the first dance song. That’s the couples theme and when you hear it played, it makes you think of the couple every time. But using the first dance song in that manner in a video would not work. It’s an idea to think about though.
Anyway…
I know I have not been posting lately. Just have not had a chance for a number of reasons. One is that I recently got a new system, so I am now finally an Apple Intel chipset user. Burning disks and rendering effects are so much faster now. But I have officially returned.
This clip is from Nicole’s wedding. It is her coming out of the church after the ceremony has ended. Kind of quick. There is nothing really edited here, I just like the shot. Lots of flowers. I did do some very basic color correcting in the first 1/2 of it because it was night, so the shot had to be lightened up because they were too far away for my light to have any effect.
I am still sorting everything out and going through the footage (meaning trying to figure out what to do), so I am posting this before I have really made the first cut. It’s like they say, the first cut is always the hardest, mainly because when I start working on something I never know what am I going to do. I don’t just cut and paste or repeat everything with every wedding I do, so I really have to think about it when I work on something. But once I have the first 30 seconds or so worked out it starts to come pretty easily after that. That’s just the way I work because it works for me best. Sometimes I will hear a piece of music I really like and I will become inspired to pull something off really great and just cut to that piece of music. Sometimes I just start laying down shots one after another until something starts to form and just hack away and move stuff around until I have something I really like. That’s probably the purest form of editing.
Anyhow, I will be back soon with something that is actually edited.
OK, so I finally have something to show from Laura and Ro’s wedding which I did this past weekend in Wading River and not as far up Long Island as I thought it was.
Everything came out well and it was a really fun wedding. A day one at that, which you never really see anyone have anymore. Friday is the new Saturday afternoon. I want to say a day wedding is a very british thing to do, but I know I am wrong because I’m pretty sure I just made that up in my head.
Anyway, here is the clip…
Just based on how things went during the day, I have a feeling I’m going to wind up taking more of a documentary approach and once I started to realize it during the day I started to shoot things more like that. The clip here kind of reflects that. I did it pretty quickly because I know I was behind on posting it, but it kind of shows what I am thinking. I already know how I am going to start it, which is always a time saver.
I am seriously starting to think that I may no longer put previews up after I shoot a wedding. It takes time going through the footage and compressing it and uploading it, and now that I am starting to hit my really busy stretch of bookings, takes away a lot of time from what I am currently working on.
So I am back from all the way up in Poughkeepsie and Kelsa and John’s wedding. All I can say is thank God for GPS technology. I probably listened to Chinese Democracy five times on the way there and back. Not that I’m complaining, Guns N’ Roses are my favorite band ever and it’s an awesome album.
If you want a good song that’s different to play at your reception, “Think About You” from their first album is a great track. I hear “Sweet Child O’ Mine” at weddings a lot, but “Think About You” is a better song. Trust me, I’m really good at things like this.
Anyway, Kelsa and John are a really nice couple. Great location, photographer was really easy to work with, everything came out well I think.
As the custom, I am now posting a quick preview of what was shot the day before. Usually I do freeze frames, but freeze frames never look as good as the original video they are derived from, so I’m going to post some video instead.
This clip is just some shots from the photoshoot at the hall that I strung together quickly because I don’t really have much time today for posting. Showing it because I just think the view looks great with the river and bridge in the background.
Despite the impression that I may give when I post stuff, I really do not like tooting my own horn, however I must say that the last three shots look awesome!
I think it looks great, but this was actually hard to shoot. I had to point the camera right into the sun almost the entire time, so the exposure levels were through the roof, meaning a lot of adjusting on the fly. Part of the reason I chose to put this up is also because I knew this was going to be a main highlight of the video, so I wanted to go back and see if it came out well. The little screen on the camera is not really all the best way to judge how well something is coming out. It’s more of a preview really.
The sun just came up and another clip arrives! I am not going to be around to post anything this weekend and I was awaken at 6 AM, so I decided to continue working on the Fonzetti affair and posting what I have done now.
This is the continuation of the opening clip that I posted last night, so if you have not clicked on that one yet, it might to a good idea to scroll down a bit to watch it first before playing this one. It’s the bridal suite before Jessica puts the dress on.
I like how it came out and just have a pretty good feeling about this wedding in general. Like most weddings, when I sat down to start it I didn’t know what I was going to do. I usually just search around for some music that I think might work, look at what I shot and just go from there.
You know that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George are writing the pilot for the show and they’re siting around and trying to figure out what to write and just keep on going to each other, “OK, now something has to go here”? I always think of that when I’m editing.
The two parts I really like…
Jessica taking the sneakers off, just a nice contrast to the traditional wedding attire. And the last shot where she says she is going to be an aunt in about two hours. In that last shot there is some movement in it which makes it a bit jittery, but I really want what she says to be in there, so it’s acceptable.
Just put up the last clip 30 seconds ago and already have another one to share.
It’s just a few seconds of some raw footage from the photo shoot in the bridal suite after Jessica put the dress on. Putting it up because I just think it’s a nice shot. I love the curtain blowing in the back and how she’s looking down and away. Anyway, here you go…
I haven’t started on this part of the video yet, so the music is just there because it’s what I have underneath my sequence at the moment.
I have finished all other projects and now concentrating on Jessica and Leo’s wedding, meaning I now have something edited to show.
This clip is the opening of the video. It’s pretty simple and just establishing shots of the location before everyone arrives. The music helps set the mood with how I want to go with the overall direction of the video (that didn’t sound too pretentious, did it?). I like the overhead shot inside the chapel and how it shows the wreaths laying on the benches and that there still needs work to be done before the wedding can start. Hopefully people will be able to pick up on that.
I used a slightly different font than usual for the text. Jessica, the bride, designed the monograms and cards for her wedding, so I used the same font she did for all that in order to keep a consistency. I also tried to use the color she did, but unfortunately it didn’t show up well on monitor, so I had to go with another.
I think it gets boring doing the same thing all the time over and over, so with Jenn and Matt’s recap part, I decided to go in a different direction. And also, like I said before, I think it’s important to distinguish your work from others or else what’s the point?
Instead of all the usual slow motion and slow music and romantic shots, I went the other direction and did the opposite. I sped up the shots and layered some film damage effects to give it an old time movie kind of feel. I also threw in some random blurs and glows here and there to add to the damaged film idea. It makes it go by a lot quicker and since it’s the last part of the video, leaves the person watching it with a more upbeat feeling. Plus Jenn and Matt are more of a fun couple and I think it fits better with how the day went.
I think effects and graphics are a crutch to hide poor editing skills, so this is the only time during the entire wedding where I really get heavy and use a lot of effects.
Again, no music under this one because I just want to focus on the look and feel of the clip.
Another Jenn and Matt clip. This is right before the ceremony starts. I have the really great footage of Jenn getting the finishing touches from the bridesmaids before the ceremony and wanted to do something good with it, so I came up with this.
Rather than just showing everyone going to their seats, then cue the bridal party to start walking down, I instead cross cut between the guests arriving and the preps going on in the next room with the wedding party. It captures the commotion and emotion going on just 50 feet away, and juxtaposes well with the calmness of the guests.
It’s not the typical clip you would find in a wedding video, but I really like it and think it works very well. This is a good example of the fashion approach I keep on mentioning. Not final, but pretty close.
I am all about the clips this week. Another from Jenn and Matt’s wedding, since that is what I am working on as of three days ago. It’s 11:30, too late to start anything new, so here you go.
This is more from the preps at the hotel after Jenn puts on the dress, after which she then goes to the rooftop to see Matt for the first time. The part with her I used an effect in Magic Bullet called “basic”, which gives it a nice warm look, but does not overdo it. It then fades into Matt waiting for her to arrive. I am happy with this part because I think the music goes well with the action of him pacing around anticipating her arrival. It’s short shots and the fades between then really add to the feel of anticipation.
It’s not super fancy, ten million effects, it’s just properly edited. There is a time to get fancy and a time to be subtle. This is when you need to be subtle.
When shooting/editing bridal preps, I think it’s really important to focus in on the eyes. If you make it a point to highlight them, you will always get a great shot regardless of where the location is. And because it’s going to be such a close shot, it will give you a great contrast when you go to a wide shot. I think that is why most videos are so poorly done, because they are not really focusing on anything during the preps part. They just wanna slap some music under it and get it over with.
Everyone always plays up the dress, which I understand, but there is only so much you can do with a piece of clothing hanging on the door.
The following clip is the next part of the preps when Jennifer is getting her makeup done and very heavy on the eyes. I am not including the music with this clip, but I don’t think it’s necessary because the shots of the eyes are so dramatic they pretty much speak for themselves.
OK, so I am now starting to work on Jennifer and Matt’s wedding as of yesterday. This clip is from the beginning of the preps at the hotel. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do when I began, so I started to string a bunch of shots together, then I started to add some more shots in between those shots and it started to come out pretty well.
I like it because, again, it’s more observational than just sticking some loud music that does not fit. Do people really like videos like that where the person who is doing it’s biggest decision is what Celion Dion song to use?
It shows what is going on in the room, who’s there, what’s there, etc. It’s a more clean approach, which I think is always better. The audio needs work, but I highly doubt there will be any music added under this. This is kind of the build up to the bride getting herself made up, at which point I’ll add something kind of fast paced that moves a bit.
This is not necessarily final, it’s just what I was able to get done last night. Audio is too loud and needs to be changed in certain parts.
And I love the shot at the end where her sister turns around and you get the big close up of her eyes.
Have some still images from Jessica and Leo’s wedding yesterday at Bonnet Island in New Jersey.
Jessica is the bride who’s designs I posted a few weeks back and everything went really well (click on Jessica’s Design Shop on the right). I have never seen a bride on the dance floor as much as she was. This was just a really fun wedding at a great location along the water. She really knows how to strike a pose and it felt like the kind of wedding they would have a spread of in In Style magazine.
I have a couple of clips from a wedding I did yesterday. It was on a Thursday, but it felt like a Saturday. The couple, John and Nicola, are from both sides of the pond. He is from New York, and she is from jolly old England. You always have this image of British people being very serious and reserved, but this wedding was certainly not the case.
The clips are from the reception at Westbury Manor. The first clip is the mother/daughter dance. Nicola is a professional dancer, so instead of a traditional slow dance, she did a tap dance with her mother instead.
The second video is another dance clip. It’s Nicola doing Proud Mary. It’s just a fun clip and I get so bored sometime always putting up something I edited and then trying to explain why a simple fade should win me an Oscar. Or at the very least an Emmy. This was actually really hard to shoot because it was impromptu and a lot of people around them watching, so I had to hold the camera over everyone’s head, making it hard to get a good angle, but it came out well.
I have another clip from Kirsten and Dean’s wedding. It’s very short, only a few seconds, but it’s of the first kiss at the end of the ceremony.
I’ll be honest, I was kind of worried about how the ceremony would turn out because the room was lit very lowly, but I think it came out well. I can put a light on it, but that would just kill the whole mood because after all, the lights are low for a reason. Someone else had a light on the couple during this one moment (I don’t think it was the photographer) which acted like a spotlight and really adds to the look.
Anyway, here it is…
And I always do video first, so the audio is not corrected yet in the clip.
Finally getting a chance to put some stills up from the wedding this past weekend at Water’s Edge. Crazy, crazy, crazy night- but in a good way. The wedding was a lot of fun I can’t imagine that anyone there did not have a good time.
Jennifer and Matt, the bride and groom, are literally two of the nicest people I have ever met and even asked me out for drinks after the wedding. I told them I couldn’t because I still had a lot of important things take care of that night (*cough*cough* Guitar Hero: Metallica *cough*cough*).
Anyway, here are some stills from the night. Again, they are just still images from video, so the actual footage looks a lot better.
Finally got around to start looking at the footage from the wedding this past Saturday at the Manhattan Penthouse in the city. The wedding went well and the bride and groom, Kirsten and Dean, seem like a great couple.
Below are some stills from the event. I haven’t gotten around to looking at everything yet, so they are all from the photo session prior to the wedding. The session took place at Washington Square Park in Union Square, which lent to some great visuals. It’s just freeze frames, so the frame grabs don’t do justice to how well the actual footage came out.
Walking from the hotel to the park.
Bridal party posing for pictures.
Posing in the streets of NYC.
Another shot posing in the streets.
The low angle really helps to pick up the Flatiron Building in the back.
