Here it is. The preview trailer for the wedding we shot in the Bahamas a few weeks ago. As usual, we tried something a little different. Enjoy.

Jim + Sarah | Bahamas Wedding Trailer | Serendipity Studios on Vimeo

Great Video Travis.

I loved the opening of the plane and boat shots. I also enjoyed the cuts on the beautiful violin music.

Good work :)

Hey Travis,

Nice work as usual.

Why the high shutter speeds? Is that because of the brightness of the conditions?

Loved the low shot of his sandals in the final fade out. A bit of understated humour that worked really well.

Cheers....

hey Travis, how many cameras?

Jawad | Thanks for watching and for the comments! It was tough getting solid shots on the plane because it was a tiny plane and we were bouncing all over, lol.

Vito | The high shutter speed was actually a stylistic choice we made before we even packed our first bag. I really like the look that a higher shutter speed gives. It enhances the 24p look and adds a bit of hyper-realism ... you just don't want to overdo it. Funny thing is that the high shutter helped when we were outdoors, but made things more difficult (as expected) shooting preps inside and at the reception .. which was outside at night.

Buba | We used 3 cameras total for most of the wedding, but everything you saw in the trailer was done with 1 or 2 cameras. We ended up using 4 cameras for the ceremony.

Very nice editing and the color especially at the opening shots is amazing.

Vito | The high shutter speed was actually a stylistic choice we made before we even packed our first bag. I really like the look that a higher shutter speed gives

Too bad it's much more apparent on some shot than on others.

Very nice.

Some beautiful shots in there.

I especially loved the low glidetrack shots. Great colour also.

Thx for sharing.

Dimitris | Thanks for the comments. Glad you enjoyed it.

Vito | Well, that's kind of the idea. The higher shutter really enhances scenes with more motion in them, creating a somewhat 'excited' look for those scenes ... which is what we wanted. I'm sure you've seen this in some feature films. You'll have a scene with high action content that exhibits a higher shutter look, and then some non-action scenes that don't exhibit that look.

John | Thanks for checking it out. The Glidetrack shot on the dock is one of my all-time favorites now. d;-)

Yes, Travis, I understand the look that high shutter speed gives. But I guess I wasn't being direct enough.

My point was that in your trailer, shots with similar amounts of motion exhibit the high shutter effect in widely varying degrees, so your attempt to add excitement is inconsistent. For example, the closeup of him tying his tie in comparison to her putting on her shoe. So for the viewer the intention is unclear.

I left it wondering why some shots had it, and others didn't. I'm sure THAT's not what you wanted.

Vito | Thanks for clarifying, and I did understand your point. The fact of the matter is that there is more and faster motion in the tie shot than in the shoe shot, so it WILL look slightly different. The only way around that would be to somehow constantly adjust your shutter speed on the fly to try and match the speed of the motion that's happening in front of you ... and that's just completely impractical in a live event situation. Even if you shoot at 1/48 shutter you will see the difference in a shot with a lot of motion and a shot with little motion .. if you're shooting 24p that is.

Also, in my opinion, I think your concern about the intention being unclear to the viewer is unwarranted. The higher shutter speed choice was simply to achieve a more stylized look, and I feel we succeeded in that. Having that look vary slightly between shots because of varying levels of activity is totally expected and normal ... and certainly doesn't take the viewer out of the experience .. at least not in my opinion.

If I wanted to I suppose I could say that the elevated 'energy' in the tie shot directly translates to the fact that it took the groom a half-dozen times to get it right, so the extra 'energy' in the shot represents the very real agitation he was feeling at the time.

I wouldn't say that, because it's not something I planned in advance and I can't take credit for the added meaning, but it IS what happened. d;-)

Either way, I think maybe you're over analyzing the trailer a bit. I'm totally open to critique and opinions, and I'm not trying to shut you down, but I really just don't see any issue here. Maybe my eyes are just sun-blind still from the Bahamian sun. d;-)

Actually, it was the shoe shot that exhibited the high shutter more clearly to my eyes....

Anyway, I'm done. Thanks for sharing your clip. I enjoyed it.

I hope I didn't offend you at all, Vito. That definitely was not my intention. I just didn't see the issue I guess. Anyways, thanks for watching and for sharing your opinion. I do appreciate it.

hi Travis,

Hope you don't mind me having some critiques here as well!

Here is what I thought about your work:

1. Love the intro with the whole plane, boat thing
2. Dislike the text "journey begins" and all but thats a matter of preference. I would probably put something like serendipity studio presents + their name or something
3. I think the zipping bride gown looks staged.
4. putting shoe looks too long and its not really a nice shoe and she looks kinda putting it on in a hassle.
5. the bridge shots were shot in the wrong xy line. you cut back and forth with crossing the line each time makes the viewer a bit confused. one shot the groom is on the left, next shot the groom is on the right.
6. I would probably love to see the person speaking the voice over at the start (just a short shot of him) to let me know why and where he's saying those words.
7. I would probably have the bridge meeting to intercut with the whole bridal prep shots so that it doesn't look so obvious that it was shot in a wrong xy line. and it might look more sophisticated as well :)

There you go, the critiques are purely honest and constructive and they are from my personal point of view.

Santo

Santo | Please always feel free to provide a critique. I'm a big boy and I promise I won't ever shed any tears. d;-)


1. Love the intro with the whole plane, boat thing

Awesome. d;-) Fun bit of info for you. We nearly died on that plane. On approach to the airport the plane suddenly veered drastically to the left, then drastically to the right. I'm talking the wing was pointed up to the sky. When we got off the plane someone joked to the captain "Where you trying to wake us up?" ... to which he dryly responded ... "I was trying to save your life." We later found out that we had nearly hit another plane. That other plane screwed up a beautiful shot I was shooting! d;-) The best part is about a minute before we saw a crashed plane upside down on the ground beneath us, lol.


Dislike the text "journey begins" and all but thats a matter of preference. I would probably put something like serendipity studio presents + their name or something

No problem. The intention behind the text was to drive home the point that this trailer was about a journey .. with both physical representations of that (plane, boat, her walking to him on the bridge) and the emotional representations of that (which are really more clear to the B&G and their particular story). I don't believe that theme would have been as apparent without the text, in my opinion text of our studio and the names wouldn't have added anything. Appreciate the opinion, though.


3. I think the zipping bride gown looks staged.

It wasn't, but I completely agree. Mom was just being extra cautious with the zipper and so she zipped it really slowly. While I was shooting it I was thinking the same thing as you. I just wanted to tell her to zip it up already, lol.


4. putting shoe looks too long and its not really a nice shoe and she looks kinda putting it on in a hassle.

I would agree with you on part of this. The shot is a bit long for my taste, because it takes her a bit too long to get the shoe on. I tried cutting to a close-up partway through and it just didn't feel right after the previous longer shot with the groom. As for the sandal, it's not a Jimmy Choo but it was still a very important piece of the outfit for this bride. She searched for quite a while to find them.


5. the bridge shots were shot in the wrong xy line. you cut back and forth with crossing the line each time makes the viewer a bit confused. one shot the groom is on the left, next shot the groom is on the right.

Although it doesn't really bother me in this instance, I do completely understand what you're saying. I'd normally shoot to avoid that. That shoot on the dock turned out to be the most difficult of the day, and much of it ended up completely impromptu. Long story.


6. I would probably love to see the person speaking the voice over at the start (just a short shot of him) to let me know why and where he's saying those words.

I hear you. This was a point I debated over for quite some time, as I usually like to show the speaker at some point unless I'm using a bona fide voice over talent. The problem is that the speaker is the officiant from during the ceremony, and we didn't want to use any ceremony footage in the trailer. So the compromise was to treat his 'speech' like a true voice over. Personally I think it worked really well, but I can also understand the desire to see the speaker.


7. I would probably have the bridge meeting to intercut with the whole bridal prep shots so that it doesn't look so obvious that it was shot in a wrong xy line. and it might look more sophisticated as well :)

That's not a bad idea, and I may do just that with another edit. My gut feeling is that it wouldn't have worked with this piece of music, though. In case you missed it, this piece of music is basically the opposite of what we usually use for a trailer. Most of the time the music starts with a slower tempo and builds up to a more dramatic ending. This music started with an faster tempo and then cranked down for the ending. That called for a totally different approach on our part.

So we took advantage of the faster tempo to set the stage for the journey with the plane/boat shots, and then to capture the energy that is always present in the preps. Then, as the music dropped in tempo we switched to the very intimate moment of the first meeting. I really feel that if we had tried to mix the meeting with preps we would have lost a lot of impact overall. With a different piece of music, I think the results might be different, though.


Anyways, hopefully that gives you some insight on our decisions. I think you had some good points and I definitely appreciate you sharing all of them. Thanks!

I have a couple of critiques as well re: color. I hate to be picky with other people's work, but it's in the interest of constructive criticism, and I know you can take it. I should also say that I'm not looking at this with the best monitor so I'm crossing my fingers that this makes sense.

@ :10, the waves look orange. The previous shot is quite warm, so I would imagine at this point that you're going for a warmer feel, but it looks weird when the sky, boat, and water in the distance is so cool.

@ :11, the boat looks like it has an awful lot of orange & magenta in it. I would imagine that you were trying to keep his shirt white, but I would recommend keeping the boat white if you have to choose since it takes up most of the frame and is more noticeable if it's not white.

It looks like you're keeping the bride detail shots really warm and the groom detail shots cooler the way you increase the cyan. Personal preference, but when you have a two minute clip it feels better to keep everything more consistent rather than jumping back and forth. I understand the logic, but makes more sense in a longer clip where you get a greater sense of their surroundings, vs. opposed to focussing on the details.

Actually, I think a couple of wider shots that show the two in context of the locations could have looked nice. For example, I love, love, love the photography of Jeff Ascough because he is able to stand back and use the surroundings to add to the story of each photo. I try to do the same thing when shooting weddings. But this isn't so much critique as me saying what I like, so I'll leave that.

When we get outside their skin tones look off, and one angle looks a bit overexposed. There is little detail in the sand at 1:00, clothing at 1:06 & 1:17, and wood at 1:26. It's tough when you're dealing with hot Bahama sun.

Other than these minor gripes, I liked it. In terms of the edit, the only thing I would change is adding one or two wide angle shots in the middle section and adding a shot of the speaker like Susanto suggested. Music is good, pacing is good, text is good. Overall, in my humble opinion, a solid job.

Mattew | Thanks for sharing your critique; much appreciated. I totally agree with you on exposures. This was our first shoot with 7D's, and we were using the light meter to monitor exposure. We definitely learned with this shoot to adjust a stop lower for the next time.

I also agree with you on the two color comments. The tricky thing was that on the plane we were shooting through a tinted window, and it really altered the color of the footage. We corrected it backwards as much as we felt we could, but it still doesn't quite match the following shots. We pushed the first boat shot towards a warmer look initially, but we were losing that amazing blue water that the Caribbean is so well known for. So we went with the cooler and more natural look over the warmer look. The following shot could use a bit more correction, I agree.

Also, agree on the shots between the bride and groom preps. The challenge there was that the groom prep was 100% natural light. The bride prep was an equal mix of daylight and tungsten; very very difficult to shoot and grade. We probably could have spent more time matching the shots a bit more closely, though.

Regarding wider shots for the preps, we specifically wanted to avoid that. Our vision was for a tighter and more intimate build-up that releases when you have the wide shot of the first meet. In other words, we wanted to stick with tight shots to create a higher sense of anticipation to see more, which then makes the dock reveal more impactful. As it was, I didn't really want to use the final shot of the groom prep where you see the groom's face. We wanted to keep their faces hidden until the first meet, but alas, sometimes you just don't have exactly the shots you want in the edit room. d;-)

Anyways, thanks for watching and for sharing your thoughts.

what music might that be? very nice.

Hey Trav,

Can't believe I didn't get an email or a FB message that you posted this :P.

I'll chat with ya more about it later but you handled those new toys quite well! Gotta love that slider shot on the dock :).

Cheers bro,
Randy