Great audio, bad lighting. good video

Our latest is ready for some constructive criticism. I'm usually a pretty linear editor, but the combination of o much good audio from speeches, and having watched Edward Calabig's example this week...

This took 6 days to edit, but I'm a stay at home dad, so it's not like I'm editing 8 hours a day. Best guess is 20 to 25 active hours, plus a few more passive (copying files, rendering).

We had some white balance issues, and shifting light in the church (Tungsten up front, shaded sunlight with shifting cloud cover on the other side of the B&G for vows), so I tried to stylize things I bit more than usual, giving the 3 spaces (ceremony, outdoors, reception), each their own look. I hope.

re uploaded with the audio fixed. Thanks Noa.

Vimeo

[Noa Put]

Thx for sharing a full edit, I always find it interesting to see how others edit those, I have not the time to watch it completely right now but one thing I noticed immediately is the sound, there appears to be 2 sound sources that are out of sync for the speeches?

[Robert Benda]

Hmm. OK, fixing it. It is 2 source and got out of sync.

Thank you.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Rob

I think I would have left out the few bits where the photog has completely blocked your shot ..it does spoil the opening bit. Maybe I need some glasses but your overall colour seems to lack punch and vibrancy for some reason?? Compare it to Kyle's showreel here and see how punchy his images are. They really are vibrant and jump out at you.

Maybe practice your camera movements a bit? You do tend to lose focus when you follow people ..it's not easy unless you have a autofocus camcorder as you never have any idea where people at prep are walking to and they could easily walk across the camera or away from you and their actions are random compared to the ceremony when you have a much better idea of where they are heading!

Maybe I'm strange but I found the shot sequence strange starting with speeches? I know that highlights are not in sequence but it appeared to me to be very jumbled ... ???

Chris

[Dave Baker]

I found this refreshingly different, using the speeches as a commentary worked well for me.

I agree with Chris about removing the bits where the photographer gets her head in the way.

I found the change in colour at around 11:57 a bit disconcerting since it was in the middle of a shot. I also felt it was somewhat lacking in colour and contrast overall, but then I just don't like this modern fashion of soft images and wishy-washy colour.

It didn't stop me enjoying watching it though! I generally find wedding videos boring, but now and then one stands out and yours is one such.

Dave

[Noa Put]

Finally had the time to watch it :) Overall I enjoyed it, you had some great speeches to build on and I liked that you used life audio as well during the preparations and photoshoot, I prefer docu style anyway and adding life sound makes it feel more real.

I hear you fixed the sync issue but the speech at 05:40 is still slightly of sync, also from the speech at 08:40 you seem to have lost one audio source, from what I hear it's oncamera audio only while the others seem to have a second direct feed from the mixer.

Can I ask what camera's you used for the speeches? Eventhough they provide a sharp image it's very noisy and it looks like there was plenty of light.

It has been mentioned here already but I found the colour differences between the speeches, church and prep stuff to big, Because you switch between speeches and other parts of the day through the film it makes it worse because you see that jump in look everytime you switch.

I also found there was too much headspace when you see the couples entering in the church and too much jerky cameramovements going on in general for all handheld shots.

Also the footage in church is quite underexposed a few times and noisy again but it looks like a challenging light situation with the backlight.

The photog blocking a shot during a speech happens to me as well several times every year but it would be better to use b-roll from the guests to cover that up.

There where also a few focussing issues but what stood out most for me a being distracting was the difference in color and the shaky handheld footage. When I shoot in church my sony"s ( cx730 and ax100) are all in auto whitebalance, I don't have time there to whitebalance as you can have mixed lights so you need different wb settings but the sony's perform so well in automode I only need to make slight adjustments in post to be spot on. That's the reason I don't like to use dslr's in situations where I shoot multiple cameras and where lightconditions are challenging.

When I look at your church footage I think you are better of with a small sensor camera that has a good OIS and deeper dof for your handheld shots, my sony handicams perform very well and dark churches are no problem at all.

But like I said, in general I liked your film, it's only how the camera is handled and set up during the shoot that has some room for improvement. Hope you don't find me to negative sounding, just trying to give an honest opinion and you know what they say about opinions. :)

[Robert Benda]

Thank you, everyone.

I did more changes including color grading, and pushed the brightness more, though I will try another, pushing the ceremony levels more.

It will be interesting to see the difference from this to one coming up in the edit queue once we had more time with the monopod and our new camera and audio plan.

Here is the companion video, from the reception, that I made the morning after. I wasn't payed to film the dance, but was the DJ and wanted the clips. No monopod, but a shortened tripod, which has more weight for walking around smoothly

Krissy and Ryan's wedding dance highlights, June 14th, 2014 on Vimeo

[Chris Harding]

Nice Rob!

The only thing that was off putting to me was those darn DJ lights ... find out who he is and give him a slap across the head ! (Heh! only kidding as you were the DJ)

Seriously maybe the dance footage was a wee bit too dark ... dunno what others think??

Wow video and DJ!! Who says that men can't multi-task?? We have a guy here who gets more works than all the others cos he does the same as you ...he is the DJ and photog and his wife does the video so they can offer a 3-in-1 package and brides love that!!

Maybe you can give me a quick training course so I can become a DJ??

Chris

[Robert Benda]

Ha, ha, Chris.

Actually, DJ'ing is incredibly easy as long as you're not a complete jacka** and have someone to mentor you for a little while. I've been having the problem that I'm pretty bored with it, especially the last 2 hours of the wedding dance, since picking music is something I barely have to try and do well anymore. I might try to find someone to hire and train, and I'll still be the MC, but can leave when there is two hours left in the dance.

I really do enjoy videography and might be spending the next 3 years transitioning away from MC/DJ - I'll be 40 then.

Next, I really want to figure out a light I can use to fill in their faces a bit better during vows and maybe the 1st dance.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Rob

Using a light on them during the vows is usually considered a no-no! but I more often than not use an on camera light for the first dance. You really don't need a lot of light cos you want to keep the ambience and simply just highlight the couple a tiny bit . I have a couple but mostly I go for PowerLED units that are dimmable ...the one I use most has 6 LED's and you can get them for less than $100.00

Nah! I think I'll pass on the DJ side simply because the poor DJ is the one who has to stay to the bitter end and the one thing I really liked was being able to change all my video packages about 5 years ago so they all finished after the first dance instead of at midnight. It makes a huge difference to leave the venue around 9:30-10:00 pm instead of having to pack up in the wee hours of the following morning!

Chris

[Robert Benda]

You have the right of it with DJ'ing.

For the light, I was consider something modest, even camera mounted, *just* enough to fill in those shadows just a little during the vows. I'm guessing it won't be an easy and simple thing to do, though.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Rob

With the dimmable light you can drop it right down to almost nothing if needed so they are quite practical at weddings. However since you are shooting on DSLR's you might not have much space to mount a light but you can always put a light on a simple lighting stand to fill the area you are working ...I find it more handy to have the light on the camera for the rare times I use it

Chris