Wedding Highlights shot with A1

[Chuck Spaulding]

Sorry Joe,

your work is inspiring. As good as the A1's picture is I'm sure you could make a wedding look great with a Polaroid...

Great music selection. Who is the musician?

[Noel Evans]

Joe, yes very nice mate. You got it working in the wedding shoot thats for sure. Up your prices as of today though, your worth more than that and people will pay it. There arent too many people doing wedding shoots that turn up with a jib to get those beautiful shots.

A1 kicked the ass out of this wedding. Good to see.

Joe, consider something like the steadicam flyer and some serious training. You would be the No1 guy to beat then.

I dont do a lot of weddings (I limit myself to one a month). One cam shoots is all I do, so its a little lower end but I am still charging $2k USD here in Tokyo - and weddings here last 4 hours. But I am using the steadicam Merlin. This is one area your shots could improve. The stabilised shots had plenty of movement.

EDIT: Sorry not saying they arent good - just could be better with better equipment.

[Joe Simon]

Thanks guys.

The music is from Iron & Wine its called "Naked as we came"

Its tough using all this weight with the 2000 Pro, I bought some extra weights but its still handheld. I would love to get the flyer and some training with it, but at $7000 I don't think thats in my budget. I'm looking into the Smooth Shooter, or the VariZoom Pro Lite. I know these are not "Pro" quality but I'm sure I could get really smooth shots with them.

[Peter Chung]

Mike,
Thanks again for sharing your experience.

When you do wear the Aviator at ceremonies, do you stay in the back to avoid distracting the guests or do you walk around at the front as well (assuing the minister allows you to)?

Originally Posted by Joe Simon

Thanks guys.

The music is from Iron & Wine its called "Naked as we came"

Its tough using all this weight with the 2000 Pro, I bought some extra weights but its still handheld. I would love to get the flyer and some training with it, but at $7000 I don't think thats in my budget. I'm looking into the Smooth Shooter, or the VariZoom Pro Lite. I know these are not "Pro" quality but I'm sure I could get really smooth shots with them.

Having a vest and arm support for your Glidecam definitely takes the strain off your back and forearm. If you're looking at the SmoothShooter, you might want to consider the Indicam Pilot as it has a dual articulated arm, as opposed to the SmoothShooter which has only one arm.

I borrowed a Glidecam V-8 before (which was replaced by the SmoothShooter) and while it does take all the strain off, there is a limited range of motion as compared to a dual arm setup.

Anyways, thanks again for sharing your clip. Great work! I am in agreement with everyone else that you aren't charging enough for the quality of work you do.

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by Joe Simon

I shot with 3 cameras at the ceremony by myself. 2- XHA1's, 1 - HVX200.

I missed a litle detail in your answer above, the HVX200. I also have one and had to create a system to edit HDV and DVCPRO HD together. I capture the HDV as DVCPRO HD 1080.
So, How do you edit the two formats together and, Did you use any of the clips from the HVX200 in your demo?
Not that it makes a diference as far the quality and artistic creation. I am sure that you could get same result with any camera you use.
I just want to know how other videographer edit mixed formats and how the two cameras work together.

[Devon Lyon]

Joe:

I am still trying to master my Quicktime compressions and you seem to have created a great quality .mov file that wasn't too big. Would you mind typing your quicktime settings? Would appreciate it. Thanks!

[Chuck Spaulding]

It used to be that you shot on BetaSp, edited on BetaSP and delivered on BetaSP. But now with such a wide variety of new camera's, formats and deliverables that just doesn't work well anymore.

One thing that the HVX200 does is force the user to develop an IT approach to production (provided your using P2) dividing the production into three main categories acquisition, post-production and distribution. A mistake I think a lot of people are making as they attempt to transition to HD is that they treat it like big video instead of more like digital film.

I digitize HD [D5 and DVCrpoHD], HDV [from a JVC HD100 and Sony FX1], and any HD-SDI into a Digital Intermediate that converts all of these formats into the same lossless file format. In my case I'm using Cineform's DI Codec [http://www.cineform.com/]. Working this way enables me to do two things, becasue all of the applications I use in production can share this file format [in my case all of the Adobe applications] I can easily distibute and manage the workflow to create a "look" that differentiates my work from others and can therefore charge more for it and secondly, much of the work in an IT based system can be automated and distributed over a large number of CPU's providing better economies of scale - the system becomes more efficient saving me time and money. Added together this makes me more profitable.

It used to be that no matter what you were producing you made the project conform to the workflow. Using a digital intermediate you can make the workflow conform to the project, every project can have a different workflow which goes against the grain of many in the video industry. They talk like they understand this but then they want you to buy their NLE and claim it will work with any format [making it the center of your production workflow] when the reality is that in an IT based system the file system is at the center of the production workflow. This is a big fundemental difference.

Yes, most if not all NLE's will edit HDV natively but just becuase they can doesn;t mean you should.

It sounds like you've done enough HD(V) to know how much better it is than SD and are looking for a way to be more HD centric. I'd suggest that you do a little research about IT (data/file) based workflow.

[Sorry this was in respons to Douglas]

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by Chuck Spaulding

One thing that the HVX200 does is force the user to develop an IT approach to production (provided your using P2) dividing the production into three main categories acquisition, post-production and distribution. A mistake I think a lot of people are making as they attempt to transition to HD is that they treat it like big video instead of more like digital film.

I digitize HD [D5 and DVCrpoHD], HDV [from a JVC HD100 and Sony FX1], and any HD-SDI into a Digital Intermediate that converts all of these formats into the same lossless file format. In my case I'm using Cineform's DI Codec [http://www.cineform.com/]. Working this way enables me to do two things, becasue all of the applications I use in production can share this file format [in my case all of the Adobe applications] I can easily distibute and manage the workflow to create a "look" that differentiates my work from others and can therefore charge more for it and secondly, much of the work in an IT based system can be automated and distributed over a large number of CPU's providing better economies of scale - the system becomes more efficient saving me time and money. Added together this makes me more profitable.

It used to be that no matter what you were producing you made the project conform to the workflow. Using a digital intermediate you can make the workflow conform to the project, every project can have a different workflow which goes against the grain of many in the video industry. They talk like they understand this but then they want you to buy their NLE and claim it will work with any format [making it the center of your production workflow] when the reality is that in an IT based system the file system is at the center of the production workflow. This is a big fundemental difference.

Yes, most if not all NLE's will edit HDV natively but just becuase they can doesn;t mean you should.

It sounds like you've done enough HD(V) to know how much better it is than SD and are looking for a way to be more HD centric. I'd suggest that you do a little research about IT (data/file) based workflow.

[Sorry this was in respons to Douglas]

I don't see what you do as different from what I do. You use intermediate codec and I digitize FX1-Z1 footage through a Blackmagic card to DVCPRO HD.
What is an IT based system?

[Nick Larsen]

So, slightly off topic. But for songs from major bands like Iron and Wine, do you have some sort of deal worked out with them for using their songs?

[Chuck Spaulding]

Originally Posted by Douglas Villalba

I don't see what you do as different from what I do. You use intermediate codec and I digitize FX1-Z1 footage through a Blackmagic card to DVCPRO HD.
What is an IT based system?

It depends more in how you use it. Many of the projects I take on I farm out much of the graphic design, effects and color correction to artists that are both local and remote.

An IT based system allows me do do several things, one is that it is scaleable:
By using a shared files system over fibre channel, the more drives that are added the greater the bandwidth. So I keep my file system running at approximately 600MB/s for fast access to files and use networked attached storage on the same file system for slower (remote) access.

This enables us to have one artist doing rig removal on the same file as another concurrently composits a scene using the same image file. The compositing artists doesn't have to wait for the paint artist to complete their work before starting to composite. We never actually work this way, we just use this to demonstrate the level of control we have throughout the entire system for prospective customers.

If you own an FX1 and edit with FCP how do you differentiate yourself from everyone else who is using the exact same tools in much the same way? Generally you start out by trying to sell the value in your creativity but it will quickly get to the price. In LA just about everyone differentiates themselves based on price so now most of them are working for nothing.

By moving the application to the data rather than moving the data through the application we can create a look (that you can not create with the tools in FCP for example) and manage that look more efficiently. An IT workflow allows us to work procedurally, if you're familiar with Dynamic Link in the Adobe Production suite where you can make changes in an AE composite that automatically show up in your Premiere timeline, you can take that to the next step by making the information from many of the tools explicite.

For example, the levels command is the same in Photoshop, AE and PPro, so why can't you apply this command across the entire wirkflow that will correct all of the elements the same. Well you can in Adobe Bridge and there is a lot of functionality that works this way. If you think of each of these tools as seperate (explicit) image processing applications "nodes" you can create a workflow that applies this functionality at any point in the data stream you like.

Does this mean that my productions are better than yours? Obviously not. But one of the problems that I often encounter working with customers is that you create something then refine it, refine it some more, make a few more changes, then suddenly they decide we've gone too far and want to go back three revisions. Instead of rendering and saving different versions, in an IT workflow you can just save the parameters of each node (an ASCII file) and then go back to the decision lists that defines what the customer likes and output that version quickly, easily and without a lot of rendering.

If your familiar with Shake, that's a dataflow paradigm.

[Dana Acciavatti]

I'm looking to upgrade to the Canon XH A1 early next year after seeing so many great samples of work done with it. And, now that I've seen your wedding reel, I am seriously considering getting a steadicam to go with it.
I love dolly shots, but can't afford a professional dolly system, and need something more portable for when I'm doing weddings. Do you find the Glidecam 2000 is a good compromise for a dolly system?

[Bill Pryor]

A steadycam device isn't a replacement for a dolly, in my opinion. You can follow somebody around with a steadycam, go up or down stairs, walking through the tall grass, etc. But you can't do the slow precision moves of a dolly. They are two entirely different tools.

[Dana Acciavatti]

Originally Posted by Bill Pryor

A steadycam device isn't a replacement for a dolly, in my opinion. You can follow somebody around with a steadycam, go up or down stairs, walking through the tall grass, etc. But you can't do the slow precision moves of a dolly. They are two entirely different tools.

I appreciate your feedback. It definately seems to make a marked improvement over simply handheld shots at least. I've heard some people have had decent results substituting a wheelchair for a dolly, but I've never tested that method out myself.
I was an extra in The Perfect Storm (Don't blink or you'll miss me), and I couldn't believe the beautiful precision dolly system they had for that movie. I was drooling over it.

[Joe Simon]

I don't think the 2000 pro is a good glide cam for the A1. I used with every wedding I shot with my PD170 and it worked amazing. But the A1 is heavier and the lens is longer so it makes it hard to get acceptable shots. Also your arm gets super tired using it. I'm going to get a articulating arm stedicam when I can save up the funds. They produce perfect shots, but of course you need to be trained on it first.

[Dana Acciavatti]

Originally Posted by Joe Simon

I don't think the 2000 pro is a good glide cam for the A1. I used with every wedding I shot with my PD170 and it worked amazing. But the A1 is heavier and the lens is longer so it makes it hard to get acceptable shots. Also your arm gets super tired using it...

I wonder if the Glidecam 4000 would be a better fit for the Canon XH A1 since it can hold up to 10 pounds.