The Still-Motion comment was a compliment. Patrick does exemplary work. Nice to hear you are on A1's as well. I thought the imagery looked great.

If you are going to grade it is, indeed, best to shoot flat out of the cam and tweak in post. As I described in the other thread, I do the exact opposite of this.

A lot of nice shots there Travis and nice Steadicam work. Do you wear a vest most of the day or are you going handheld with the stabilizer?

Also, there was no DOF lens used on any of these shots?

I just did my first event a couple days ago for my cousin (he had a professional there, but I got permission to shoot my own) and I wish I can get to this type of quality soon.

EDIT: I realized you are the one who posted in my topic about my first shoot, so you are a little more familiar with my situation.

Thanks then. I'm loving the A1's. Do you have your gain set to -3 usually? I have mine set to 0, but I know a lot of people set it back to -3 and I'm wondering if that really improves the image clarity. I thought your imagery looked a bit more sharp than mine (although I did diffuse mine in post a bit to soften it up).

I'm going handheld all day, and it's a back-breaker for sure. I don't own a vest yet. I'm not sure how well the Merlin vest works with the Merlin in terms of shot improvement. I know the Flyer and Pilot are excellent systems, but I'm not sure about the Merlin vest.

No DOF adapter on any shots. I try to use the space I'm in and subject distances to create DOF when I want it, and sometimes I enhance the DOF in post. Thanks for watching and commenting.

For anyone interested, the final version is now online on my website: DreamBIG Productions - A Different Kind of Wedding Film

The intro titling is now slower-paced and gold instead of white. I switched a shot out and actually reversed another shot, and adjusted coloring on some shots. Nothing major, but there you have it.

Why not use it?

1. because it isn't original, and originality makes our jobs more meaningful and our products more valuable

2. it is rather offensive to encourage copying our look just because it is 'fabulous'. I hope we inspire others and it helps them to find their own look- not simply imitate ours

3. we put our work out there to share with others and hopefully inspire many who view it. as it gets copied more and more, we need to hold more back, and as a result those who enjoy our work and our inspired by it lose out

4. as an industry, i think we will develop much slower and with much less diversity if we all look to imitate whats hot at the time

5. our shots are thought out to fit into the sequence, to mean something to the couple, and to add to the overall piece. all of that context and meaning is lost if you take a shot and try to replicate it in another scenario.

6. StillMotion wouldn't be StillMotion if they imitated Jason Magbanua everytime they went out. We have a great respect for his vision, unique style, and amazing talent but for us to imitate his look would have been a disrespect to both him and ourselves. Do you want to be the original or the knockoff?

For the record, I think your demo is awesome Travis. That second shot is something else. Personally, I can see that we have inspired you within that demo but it certainly doesn't scream StillMotion to me, it screams DreamBIG Productions.

P.

Hey Travis...very nice. I didn't watch this before reading the "other thread". I thought it was very well done. Very nice shots.

Patrick, thanks for saying that. If there's anything I've ever tried to duplicate with my films it is the "mood" that you guys create. You can't do that simply by duplicating shots or using the same music or anything like that. It's a full process, and over the course of time I've realized that the "mood" I'm trying to create is different than the "mood" you guys try to create. The biggest difference I see is in color grading. Your work tends to be on the less saturated side, whereas I tend to lean towards a more saturated look. I also think my editing style is different, since I tend to edit more with the beat of the music and you seem to edit more to the shot selection. This is why I was initially confused when people started saying my promo "screamed StillMotion". I'm just glad you know that I'm not trying to duplicate what you guys do.

John, thanks for watching and commenting.

That was an excellent trailer Travis.

I am amazed at how you are pushing your talent, drive and creativity.

I love your black and whites (especially of the third or so shot of the bride inthe bird's nest veil).

Try to watch your reds as they tend to be too saturated.

"Lincoln" lends itself well to actual audio, did you consider using vows or exhortations? I think that would help with the emotional build-up.

You are going to book a lot of clients with this demo.

Cheers!

I would agree with you on the "red" comment. I've heard it from several others and I see it myself. I'm still trying to nail down a way of changing the look of the video without changing skin tones as much.

I didn't want actual audio in this piece because I felt it would slow the video down too much. My target for the video is wedding show brides, and they have a tendency to just keep walking unless something grabs their attention. So I tried to create something that could grab your attention no matter what point you happened to look at the screen.

I hope you're right about booking brides!