Wedding Highlights

Des anyone see any problems with this piece? I have been working at it and I wanna double check that I didn't miss anything:

Private Video on Vimeo

password: test

[Sean Nelson]

The owner of the wedding company I edited this just bashed it saying it looks rushed and not put together nicely. I cant say my blood isn't boiling right now...

[Clinton Andersen]

I think the song drove the video and I thought it was good. Perhaps the colors looked a little "old" but I think more than anything it was because of the lighting inside of the location itself. Not sure anything looks rushed.

Clinton

[Sean Nelson]

My critiques:

Okay, thank you for the work and effort you put into your editing. I love the editing with the music and the flow of it for the most part, but it appears to me like this was rushed and put together quickly. A lot of shots was out of focus from beginning of the reel to end, like you trimmed and drop the clip on the timeline before we actually focused on what we were shooting. All the dance floor shots were steadicam and some were out of focus, nothing from the second camera on open dance floor, which also seemed like a short cut. I'm not saying that what you did and please don't get offended, but it did come off that way. I will list changes needed to be made and send it to you shortly...

• :11 use slider shot of her when she not picking up her phone, if possible
• :14 - :17 all prep shots of her face are slightly out of focus,please replace, keep the last one with the whip pan though.
• replace mirror shot of her when she's in focus, or rack focusing to her
• :42 too similar to shot before and has no action and out of focus, please replace
• 1:55 remove romantic
• 2:00 out of focus, use the same shot, but when she is in focus
• 2:04 sharpen groom's face
• 2:23 random shot of couple with mic, take out
• 2:42 sharpen bride's face
• 2:55 take out zoom out, replace with with romantic
• 2:59 take out zoom in use quick romantic, but definitely go back to a stable shot of them kissing at the ceremony
• 3:14 slightly shake at beginning of clip, trim it and crop me out
• 3:20 crop my camera out
• 3:28 shot is too quick, and looks bad with him looking at camera
• 3:31 replce, everyone is out of focus
• 4:00 whip pan doesn't fit
• 4:06 use different father/daughter dancing shot, where he's not staring in the camera
• Insert a close up shot of the mother and son dancing as well
• 4:08 - 4:22 too many open dance floor, steadicam shots, some out of focus, use some of the other camera shots as well.
• 4:25 steadicam shot is out of focus, please replace
• 4:31 groom and little girl is out of focus, please replace
• 4:40 cake shot slightly out of focus, please replace or use same clip but when they are in focus
• 5:06 show close up of who got the garter, they are blocked and out of focus on the other camera

[Peter Rush]

Lol he doesn't know a nicely put together piece when he sees it! nice work, I like it a lot!

[Noa Put]

Were you hired to do the editing or where you the second cameraman filming and having to do the edit as well? I take it that the owner of the wedding company was the one with the steadicam?

[Sean Nelson]

i am just an editor. As a 3rd job i do it per project. Paid $250 for this. Yes he was the steadicam operator. This is a rough I showed him, by no means a final version. I think the best of us miss some little things at times.

[Noa Put]

So the camera operators provide you with a lot of out of focus material to edit and then complain about it? Where there actually enough in focus clips to choose from?

[Sean Nelson]

I will admit there is a few shots i missed but yeah for the most part the "sight out of focus" isnt unusable in my eyes. Maybe I need glasses lol. But there are situations like why didnt I use the 2nd camera during the reception part. Because the shots were shaky and someone was standing right in front of the camera?
The owner edits most of the weddings and shoot almost all of them. He is the one critiquing. Questioning my effort bothered me. This is a rough so treat it like one. Here was the first message he sent me before the notes:

"Okay, thank you for the work and effort you put into your editing. I love the editing with the music and the flow of it for the most part, but it appears to me like this was rushed and put together quickly. A lot of shots was out of focus from beginning of the reel to end, like you trimmed and drop the clip on the timeline before we actually focused on what we were shooting. All the dance floor shots were steadicam and some were out of focus, nothing from the second camera on open dance floor, which also seemed like a short cut. I'm not saying that what you did and please don't get offended, but it did come off that way. I will list changes needed to be made and send it to you shortly..."

[Jordan Brindle]

This is why i could never give my work to someone else to edit. He needs to accept what you've done and be done with it or edit it himself. Nothing you did is WILDLY out of line or bad. Most of his shots are terribly overexposed so i can only assume a lot of his other shots were on-par. Good luck.

[Noa Put]

My opinion is you did well on the editing part, only I see a lot of operator errors of which out of focus shows the most, but with the cake at 04:40 f.i. it starts out of focus and then you see it slowly becoming into focus but before it gets there you cut away to a dancing shot and a close up of the cake and then we see the same shot as on 04:40 but this time in focus and here I can understand his comment. But as I cannot see what came right after the first almost in focus shot it's difficult to judge it you had something to work with.

I think for us it's difficult to see what could have been done better when we're not able to see the raw material, what you did use has a lot of out of focus shots, so the question is if most of it was like that and then you have something to defend yourself with. It might be a sign for the owner to start using deep dof camera's :) (Are you sure he is not a user on this forum?)

[Sean Nelson]

Delete this thread! lol. I think I need to check my vision I think when things are between fopcus n out of focus I am having a difficult time seeing it.

[Noa Put]

Are you serious? Those out of focus shots are quite obvious to me and that is from a Vimeo compression, you really can't see that?

[Sean Nelson]

My response was on exactly what your saying. Give me an example. There are times where the out of focus is what I have to work with.

[Noa Put]

But the owner allready has pointed out all out of focus shots and when they occur, what do you want me to show you?