Jim + Sarah | Bahamas Wedding Trailer | Serendipity Studios

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

[Jawad Mir]

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 :)

[Vito DeFilippo]

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....

[Buba Kastorski]

hey Travis, how many cameras?

[Travis Cossel]

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.

[Dimitris Mantalias]

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

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

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.

[John De Rienzo]

Very nice.

Some beautiful shots in there.

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

Thx for sharing.

[Travis Cossel]

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;-)

[Vito DeFilippo]

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.

[Travis Cossel]

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;-)

[Vito DeFilippo]

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.

[Travis Cossel]

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.

[Susanto Widjaja]

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

[Travis Cossel]

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!