Brand New Highlights Video - some cool stuff!

[Bill Dooling]

First pay no attention I am only a photographer.

Second, you are right it was cool stuff, this would seem to me to be a great highlight reel to show future brides, (and other videographers) it certainly shows what you can do.

The problem is I became aware of the cool stuff, my attention shifted from the romance and poetry of the wedding to this is a videographer who can do some pretty cool stuff.

I think the problem most are having with the quick kissing of the groom is that it seems out of place with the mood of the music which seems to scream for soft slow kisses, it breaks the mood, we are wanting to feel the emotions of their day and then he does that.

I thought that was one of the best spinning kisses I ever seen, I like your mood and distance in that shot, like they were in their own private Idaho. I love the shot towards the end of brides arms outstretched against the door, heavily back lit, would have loved another second of that.

All in all I thought is was a great highlight video, would have liked to felt their romance a bit more, technically I thought your skills were very good, I thought your creative ideas were very good, I personally liked the end I felt like we were starting to get involved with them at a slower pace, personally I was hoping your loop around them would continue until we saw them walking away towards the future.

Personally I would love you to be here in Arizona, I would recommend you.

Bill

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Bill Dooling

First pay no attention I am only a photographer.

Second, you are right it was cool stuff, this would seem to me to be a great highlight reel to show future brides, (and other videographers) it certainly shows what you can do.

The problem is I became aware of the cool stuff, my attention shifted from the romance and poetry of the wedding to this is a videographer who can do some pretty cool stuff.

I think the problem most are having with the quick kissing of the groom is that it seems out of place with the mood of the music which seems to scream for soft slow kisses, it breaks the mood, we are wanting to feel the emotions of their day and then he does that.

I thought that was one of the best spinning kisses I ever seen, I like your mood and distance in that shot, like they were in their own private Idaho. I love the shot towards the end of brides arms outstretched against the door, heavily back lit, would have loved another second of that.

All in all I thought is was a great highlight video, would have liked to felt their romance a bit more, technically I thought your skills were very good, I thought your creative ideas were very good, I personally liked the end I felt like we were starting to get involved with them at a slower pace, personally I was hoping your loop around them would continue until we saw them walking away towards the future.

Personally I would love you to be here in Arizona, I would recommend you.

Bill

Thanks for the comments, Bill.

I know what you're saying about having clips that break away from the slowness of the music, and that was actually intentional. Maybe it didn't work as well as I had hoped, but I was trying to make sure I had a variety of clip styles so the video didn't feel like it was dragging. Too often when editing to a slow song too many of the clips end up in slo-mo and the video drags. I was trying to avoid that.

I too loved the shot with the bride backlit at the end, and actually did about 6 or 7 takes on that to get it right. I couldn't extend that shot any more than I did because where I was shooting I couldn't drift to the right any more than you see in the shot because of a large desk. I considered using that shot in place of the shot right before it where I pan around the couple, but I didn't like the look of it at 25% speed. It killed the magic for that shot, but seemed to work for the other one.

And on that note, my goal with the shot where I spin around the couple was to spin all the way around them and stop behind them and let them walk away. Would have been an awesome ending shot. The trouble was this:

It was breezy that day and I was having trouble keeping the steadicam "steady". The gimble on my steadicam broke about 5 minutes before that shot. And probably most importantly, we were in the forest and on a hill. It's very difficult to walk a circle around a couple who is walking downhill through the forest and I can't look down at my feet to see what I'm stepping on, lol. I was basically tripping over rocks and sticks and bumps as I spun around them. Right about where the shot ends I lose control of the steadicam and it swings wildly upwards as step into a bit of a hole. Had to end the shot and chose not to reshoot it because I didn't really think I'd do any better a second time around.

Oh, and feel free to recommend me in AZ. I travel. I've done weddings in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Iowa, Florida ....

[Jason Robinson]

Great work on this one. More has been said than I can contribute (coming late too the party). I haven't had the artistic inspiration to dive into colorization yet. I don't know if that is a style I can produce. Have you done a colorized production before? If so, what was the decision process? Did you just dive in and say "I'm going to do it?" Or did a shot stick out and inspire the colorization?

[Kelsey Emuss]

So...seems like you got some great feedback/advice here for the most part! I think technical and artistic critisisms are extremely helpful. Some other comments...just seem negative and nit-picky, which in my opinion means you've "made it"! So congratulations on that! ;-)

[Bill Dooling]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

Thanks for the comments, Bill.
It was breezy that day and I was having trouble keeping the steadicam "steady". The gimble on my steadicam broke about 5 minutes before that shot. And probably most importantly, we were in the forest and on a hill. It's very difficult to walk a circle around a couple who is walking downhill through the forest and I can't look down at my feet to see what I'm stepping on, lol. I was basically tripping over rocks and sticks and bumps as I spun around them. Right about where the shot ends I lose control of the steadicam and it swings wildly upwards as step into a bit of a hole.

Thanks for the visual Travis, lol, sounds like it would have been more fun filming you at that point, a real YouTube moment. ;)

Bill

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Jason Robinson

Great work on this one. More has been said than I can contribute (coming late too the party). I haven't had the artistic inspiration to dive into colorization yet. I don't know if that is a style I can produce. Have you done a colorized production before? If so, what was the decision process? Did you just dive in and say "I'm going to do it?" Or did a shot stick out and inspire the colorization?

I've done "colorizing" before, but I don't know that I've ever made the colorized clips the backbone of the video, so this was kind of new. I just kind of fell in love with the idea of creating a theme look for the video that wasn't full-color, which is what I usually do. I also felt the pinkish tone would lend a certain romantic feel to the video that full-color doesn't always do. Sometimes I feel like full-color is too real, thus the idea of using a tint as the theme.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Kelsey Emuss

So...seems like you got some great feedback/advice here for the most part! I think technical and artistic critisisms are extremely helpful. Some other comments...just seem negative and nit-picky, which in my opinion means you've "made it"! So congratulations on that! ;-)

Thanks, Kelsey! I definitely have appreciated EVERY comment made on here.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Bill Dooling

Thanks for the visual Travis, lol, sounds like it would have been more fun filming you at that point, a real YouTube moment. ;)

Bill

That's probably true. Although, I might have one better.

When the couple left the reception I attempted to "chase" the car as they drove away down this hill. I was hoping for a cool shot of the cans bouncing around behind the car as it slowly drove away. However, the lights had been left on and the car battery was dead when the couple went to leave, so they had to get a jumpstart. By the time all of this was done, the groom was really itchy to get out of there so he didn't drive away as slowly as I had hoped.

I actually have a shot (from my assistant) in their deleted scenes with me attempting to chase the car with the steadicam. You can hear the grandma in the background start laughing at the sight of me hunched over and running funny (you have to run funny to keep a steadicam stable, lol) chasing the car. The shot actually turned out semi-decent, but the deleted scene shot is kind of funny too.

The real person to film on a wedding day is my wife (photographer). I swear she turns into a monkey on the day of a wedding and starts climbing and balancing on all sorts of things to get shots. This wedding the groom was quite tall, so at one point she was literally balancing on the top bar of a bike rack with my assistant helping her stay stable. I was kicking myself afterwards for filming the groom instead of her, lol.