Brand New Highlights Video - some cool stuff!

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I really enjoyed this one Travis, I thought all was well balanced and well edited to the music. The shot when they all were dancing and you moved the camera from above the crowd to a lower position was really cool.
One thing I'm not so sure about if it adds much to an already outstanding trailer and that is the different colors you used. I would just have used the original colors.
Again, great work, before you know Patrick M. will be asking you tips. :)

Thanks for the comments, Noa. The coloring was chosen based on the bride's wedding colors, and I was struggling to determine the right balance of "themed" color shots with full color shots and the other "specialty shots. I'm still not sure if I got the balance right as some have said it's perfect and others would have preferred more full color shots. I suppose that might just come down to personal preference in the end. Thanks for the opinion, though. I appreciate it.

Oh, and if PM starts asking me for tips that will make my day! I just hope he makes it in here to give me some comments on this video. I'd love to hear what he would have done differently (or the same!). That goes for you too JMag!

[Jason Magbanua]

Travis, sorry I was late for the boat, but I'm glad I swam to go after it.

First, that was just plain gorgeous. It's not the type of song I would use myself but you kept it interesting with the shot variety, solid composition and editing.

Overall the shooting was way excellent. But that angle you had for the first dance, the wide one, that was money. That tilt in the YMCA dance was also noteworthy.

There were great candid moments, excellently composed portraiture and coverage of events which make for a perfect highlights video.

Your monotones are reddish. It's a purely subjective decision. I prefer the sepiash/browner hues.

One thing that has been mentioned that I would change would be the super slomo of the unsteady glide. Perhaps there are a couple more shots you haven't used?

Thanks for sharing! And I'm frankly surprised you don't post more of your work.

[Peter Szilveszter]

Travis, A good variety of shots and editing. One thing I noticed is the slowmo's looked like down cranked film motion (like if slowed down the speed a film projector) wondering is this a style you were going for?

Reason I ask is because there are options like a timewarp/twixtor type plug-in to archive very smooth slow motions. I've been using timewarp and have got some very good results once I worked out how to use it.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Jason Magbanua

Travis, sorry I was late for the boat, but I'm glad I swam to go after it.

First, that was just plain gorgeous. It's not the type of song I would use myself but you kept it interesting with the shot variety, solid composition and editing.

Overall the shooting was way excellent. But that angle you had for the first dance, the wide one, that was money. That tilt in the YMCA dance was also noteworthy.

There were great candid moments, excellently composed portraiture and coverage of events which make for a perfect highlights video.

Your monotones are reddish. It's a purely subjective decision. I prefer the sepiash/browner hues.

One thing that has been mentioned that I would change would be the super slomo of the unsteady glide. Perhaps there are a couple more shots you haven't used?

Thanks for sharing! And I'm frankly surprised you don't post more of your work.

Thanks, Jason. I really respect your work, so compliments from you are like gold for me.

The song was definitely not by my own choice. The couple said they wanted upbeat and edgy for a style and then chose that song. Go figure.

I could probably replace that glide shot with a combination of a couple of other shots, but I don't really have a suitable shot to sustain that full length in the song by itself. Unfortunately this was only my 2nd wedding with the Merlin, and it was breezy, and my gimble was broken, so a lot of my shots just didn't quite work out. I really wanted to use a shot that focused on the couple for the entire length of that last part of the song, and nothing else will be long enough.

That said, I kind of liked the look of it myself, but enough people have expressed comments on it that I probably won't do something like that in the future.

Again, thank you so much for the comments. You made my day (which is good because I'm exhausted from a wedding today). I'll try to start posting more of my work now that I'm hooked up on Vimeo. I think I'm going to post the main feature from this couple's wedding video to get some comments on that as well. It's about 15 minutes though, so it could be a lengthy upload for me. d;-)

Thanks again, Jason!

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Peter Szilveszter

Travis, A good variety of shots and editing. One thing I noticed is the slowmo's looked like down cranked film motion (like if slowed down the speed a film projector) wondering is this a style you were going for?

Reason I ask is because there are options like a timewarp/twixtor type plug-in to archive very smooth slow motions. I've been using timewarp and have got some very good results once I worked out how to use it.

I wasn't specifically going for the "cranked down film" look. I really just wanted a clip that was focused on the couple for the entire length of that part of the song, and I wanted a clip that was dynamic since it was going to be onscreen for so long. This was really the only clip I had left that fit the role, and so I had to drop the speed to 25% to make it fit the length. The resulting "cranked down" look was something I actually liked, but a number of people on here have expressed that I should do something else there, so I'm going to keep that in mind for the future.

Also, I have looked into Twixtor, and would love to give it a shot, but it costs money, lol. And I'm already saving up for an HD upgrade, and new tripods, and potentially a vest for my Merlin, not to mention some other business upgrades. So unfortunately Twixtor isn't really an option for me right now. I tried to use "optical retiming" in Motion, because it's supposed to work great for slow motion, but it kept saying I didn't have enough disc space, which is crazy because all of my drives still have at least 100-150GB available each. Maybe I need to export that clip as a standalone movie? Not sure.

Thanks for the comments!

[Peter Szilveszter]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

I tried to use "optical retiming" in Motion, because it's supposed to work great for slow motion, but it kept saying I didn't have enough disc space, which is crazy because all of my drives still have at least 100-150GB available each. Maybe I need to export that clip as a standalone movie? Not sure.

If you could get Motion working then it just gives you that much more tools in able to choose what type of slow motion fits the scene/shot, I actually use down cranked, blended interpolation and time warp because they all have a creative place. Even in the edit you have there some places I think the cranked down look actually works really well just felt some of them a nice smooth slow motion would have worked better.

[Patrick Moreau]

Travis,

I like what you did here. I think you had some very solid and artistic shots, some good concepts and some excellent sequences. The spinning rings shot and the ending sequence were top notch.

A couple suggestions:
-the pink toning really killed it for me. I realize you were going for a theme, but the pink- like a sepia or bw- can be really over used in a way that minimizes the impact of the video itself. If you enjoy the toning, I would try to use it more sparesly and perhaps look at trying to make your images pop a little more with the toning (in terms of more contrast without blowing out the highlights). Some of the images looked like they were toned without fixing exposure first, and it gave them a very dense and almost over processed feel, like the shot at 0:40. The toning at 0:29 is just gorgeous, and to me, I feel the energy and love just come through the shot and it just jumps off the screen- which to me is what the grading is for.

-the really long slomo shot at the end really killed it for me. The sequence after that was awesome, but I think you lose your audience by holding a shot like that so long and so slow. Just my opinion of course, and I would certainly be interested to hear what others thought about the timing and length of the shot. Had it been the last shot with a long fade-out it may have felt better, but it almost seemed like an ending with more after it.

All the best,

Patrick

[Renton Maclachlan]

Nice filming...too much kissing...

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Patrick Moreau

Travis,

I like what you did here. I think you had some very solid and artistic shots, some good concepts and some excellent sequences. The spinning rings shot and the ending sequence were top notch.

A couple suggestions:
-the pink toning really killed it for me. I realize you were going for a theme, but the pink- like a sepia or bw- can be really over used in a way that minimizes the impact of the video itself. If you enjoy the toning, I would try to use it more sparesly and perhaps look at trying to make your images pop a little more with the toning (in terms of more contrast without blowing out the highlights). Some of the images looked like they were toned without fixing exposure first, and it gave them a very dense and almost over processed feel, like the shot at 0:40. The toning at 0:29 is just gorgeous, and to me, I feel the energy and love just come through the shot and it just jumps off the screen- which to me is what the grading is for.

-the really long slomo shot at the end really killed it for me. The sequence after that was awesome, but I think you lose your audience by holding a shot like that so long and so slow. Just my opinion of course, and I would certainly be interested to hear what others thought about the timing and length of the shot. Had it been the last shot with a long fade-out it may have felt better, but it almost seemed like an ending with more after it.

All the best,

Patrick

Patrick, thanks for the comments. In all of the shots I did adjust blacks, mids and whites before I did anything else. The shot at 0:40 was meant to have an overprocessed kind of look, but maybe it's not working well enough. Someone else commented that they really liked that particular shot, so maybe it's a preference thing.

For the pink tone, here was my thought process. One of the bride's colors was pink, so I liked the idea of incorporating that as a theme into the video. Also, I wanted to try something different, since so much of the time the highlights videos are a collection of full-color clips with toned or other clips as "standout" type pieces. I thought it could be cool to reverse that, and basically make the full-color shots the "standout" pieces, and I thought they'd stand out even more in a sea of toned shots than the other way around.

Now it seems a consensus is building that there are too many toned shots, so I'm going to assume this part of the experiment didn't really work out, and that's good to know for the future.

There also seems to be a consensus on the long slo-mo shot at the end. I still really like that shot, and the length too, so I would really like to hear some more comments on that. I know some haven't liked it for the undercranked look it has, but what about the length? Is it just too long?

Oh, Patrick, your comment about "an ending with more after it" is spot on. I kind of felt like that was how the song went. It felt like the song was ending, but then there's this short musical piece that follows. I actually debated just cutting the musical part off of the end of the song, and having it end with the lyrics. Maybe that would have been a better move?

Thanks again for taking the time to watch and comment. I really appreciate it.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Renton Maclachlan

Nice filming...too much kissing...

Too much kissing? It's a wedding day!! Just kidding. I've actually been working on some ideas to provide more variety to the shots in our photoshoots, so thanks for the comment. It's funny how some couples are just so into each other that they can't seem to stop kissing no matter what you're having them do. These guys were a bit like that.

I don't know that I would agree that there's "too much" kissing in this video, but I totally respect your opinion and agree that some additional creative variety would have been nice too.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Patrick Moreau

Some of the images looked like they were toned without fixing exposure first, and it gave them a very dense and almost over processed feel, like the shot at 0:40.

I just thought I'd elaborate on this shot a bit more. This shot (and a few others like it in the video) were not filtered like the basic pink-tone shots that dominate the video. These few clips were actually corrected for exposure, then reduced to 25% saturation, and then a pair of colored gradients (yellowish and reddish) were applied vertically to either side of the image to create (I hope) a sort of overexposed film type look. Not sure if it was appealing or not, but that was the process behind it.

[Kelsey Emuss]

I'm not worthy! Obviously I loved most of the same stuff that everyone else did, but I still wanted to chime in to say that I LOVED the room numbers, the rings, and the candy (well worth the time spent on it!). How did you time the footage to the music so well? I've seen programs that will do that automatically for you with photo's but I'm assuming that no such thing exists for film...or does it??

Loved it!

[Renton Maclachlan]

Travis - re filming, I doubt I am worthy to undo your shoe laces, and I meant it when I said nice filming. (I've only done a few weddings -which I think have come out not bad - and it is certainly not how I earn my keep)

It's just that I can't get excited about Engagement videos or Highlight videos - and that is making absolutely no comment at all about the creative ability or skill level of any person making such videos. Clearly some of you guys are remarkable in your abilities. Such abilities I would like to possess/cultivate - maybe one day.

And of course if customers wants such videos, well that's their choice, and if your in the business of satisfying customer wants/demands, then satisfying them is your task.

It's the genre that fails to ignite anything in me. The documentation of the day, or highlights of the day (which this 'Highlight' didn't seem to be as I recall), is another matter. Perhaps I ain't with it...:-)

Or perhaps it's a philosophical issue I have - something to do with the fact that at the end of the day, the marriage is more important by far than the wedding.

This has been cast in stark relief for me. A girl we had a lot to do with set her heart on her wedding, and kindly got our three daughters (ages about 6 to 10) to be flower girls. The girls were decked out like gems and I must say enhanced the whole show. (If it was being done today I'm sure she would have had a video taken.) But the bride from virtually day one, set out to make her marriage hell - and succeeded far better than her widest dreams. In retrosepect, I see me daughters were used, were simply gorgeous props for 'the perfect wedding' (which it wasn't but was what the bride dreamed it would be) and this has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I imagine you guys that film weddings every weekend, see ones that thrill you to the bone because of the authenticity of those involved, and others you wonder why on earth you're filming them.

Anyway this is sideways from the quality of your production...which was great.

For what it's worth, it just doesn't seem that endless kissing is what it's all about...

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Kelsey Emuss

I'm not worthy! Obviously I loved most of the same stuff that everyone else did, but I still wanted to chime in to say that I LOVED the room numbers, the rings, and the candy (well worth the time spent on it!). How did you time the footage to the music so well? I've seen programs that will do that automatically for you with photo's but I'm assuming that no such thing exists for film...or does it??

Loved it!

Thanks, Kelsey. Glad the candy shot was worth it. I ate the M&M's afterwards, so at least that part was worth it!

Timing footage is just an exercise in patience. When I want to place a cut on a beat, I just play until I hear the beat, pause, back up the playhead with the arrow keys until I hear myself passing the beat, and then go back forward to catch the start of the beat exactly. Sometimes I scrub (with the arrow keys) back and forth over the beat to get a feel for exactly where the "meat" of it hits. Then I usually go 1 or maybe 2 frames past that to place the cut.

The reason you generally want to go a frame or two past the beat hit is that light travels faster than sound, so if you place the cut EXACTLY on the start of the beat ... well, you end up SEEING the clip change before you HEAR the beat change, and that's not what you want. You want to feel like the music is driving the cuts, not the other way around. I hope I made sense of that for you.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Renton Maclachlan

Travis - re filming, I doubt I am worthy to undo your shoe laces, and I meant it when I said nice filming. (I've only done a few weddings -which I think have come out not bad - and it is certainly not how I earn my keep)

It's just that I can't get excited about Engagement videos or Highlight videos - and that is making absolutely no comment at all about the creative ability or skill level of any person making such videos. Clearly some of you guys are remarkable in your abilities. Such abilities I would like to possess/cultivate - maybe one day.

And of course if customers wants such videos, well that's their choice, and if your in the business of satisfying customer wants/demands, then satisfying them is your task.

It's the genre that fails to ignite anything in me. The documentation of the day, or highlights of the day (which this 'Highlight' didn't seem to be as I recall), is another matter. Perhaps I ain't with it...:-)

Or perhaps it's a philosophical issue I have - something to do with the fact that at the end of the day, the marriage is more important by far than the wedding.

This has been cast in stark relief for me. A girl we had a lot to do with set her heart on her wedding, and kindly got our three daughters (ages about 6 to 10) to be flower girls. The girls were decked out like gems and I must say enhanced the whole show. (If it was being done today I'm sure she would have had a video taken.) But the bride from virtually day one, set out to make her marriage hell - and succeeded far better than her widest dreams. In retrosepect, I see me daughters were used, were simply gorgeous props for 'the perfect wedding' (which it wasn't but was what the bride dreamed it would be) and this has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I imagine you guys that film weddings every weekend, see ones that thrill you to the bone because of the authenticity of those involved, and others you wonder why on earth you're filming them.

Anyway this is sideways from the quality of your production...which was great.

For what it's worth, it just doesn't seem that endless kissing is what it's all about...

Wow, that's a pretty deep post, lol. I do totally agree that marriage is about much more than just the wedding day, but how a couple acts on their wedding day also is a decent indicator of how their marriage is going to unfold. If a couple is very into each other (doesn't have to just be kissing .. maybe the groom can't stop holding her hand or whatever), then I believe they have a better road ahead. If a couple could care less about being around each other (I've seen some of these, trust me), then I would put money on them having marriage troubles shortly. We're pretty lucky in that we tend to attract couples who are truly in love and are committed to each other.

So although endless kissing isn't what it's all about, it does have significant meaning. I mean, there's a reason you choose to put your lips on someone else's, right? My wife heads the photoshoot and does probably 90% of the shot direction. She usually has the couple kiss quite a bit because it helps them loosen up and have fun, which allows for better non-kissing shots. My goal has become to take the 10% of the shots I get to set up and do something totally different. Still working on my list, though.

I totally understand the genre thing. I took this video over to show my mother-in-law today (father's day get together), and a group of 5 or 6 people ended up watching it. I think maybe 2 or 3 of them were actually interested in it. The others either didn't really care (can't blame them since they don't even know the couple) or just weren't into watching something like that right then.

Anyways, thanks for the thoughts.