Brand New "Save the Date" Video
 

Here's my latest "Save the Date" video. The couple wanted to do the same basic concept that I did in my last one, but we had a different location and a different approach to this one. Also, this was my first shoot-and-edit in HD with the XH-A1, so that was fun (took me 6 hours to get FCP to capture 1 tape).

I'm looking for comments of any kind. I do already know that there is a stuttering issue with two of the slo-mo shots, and an interlace issue on another. I'm not really sure why the slo-mo is stuttering, but I think maybe I need to use the 2:3:3:2 pull-down next time when I shoot with the XH-A1 if I'm shooting 24F (any tips here would be GREATLY appreciated).

Anyways, I'll shut up now. Here's the link:

http://www.vimeo.com/1349496

Enjoy!


EDIT: After getting a few comments on the coloring of this video, I decided to try a different color look and see what everyone thought. The following clip is only 12 seconds long (small piece of this video). Here's the link to that:

http://www.vimeo.com/1354985

I'd appreciate any comments as to which look is preferred. Personally, I still prefer the original look over this, but I'm open to all comments and suggestions. Thanks!

Vimeo says: You do not have permission to watch this video....

Oops. Fixed and set to "public" now. Thanks!

Very Nice.
What do they do with this video? Send DVD's around or place it on a Webserver and send the link around?
How do you get people so far to order these extra's? A wedding already is as costly as it is.
I guess you charge them a fair amount extra for this?

Looked great travis, enjoyed it. Also your glidecam moves were well executed, not overdone, just like it should be. I did notice the interlace issue, does that show on the actual dvd as well? I guess that's just a matter of using an other setting when compressing for the internet?
Also great ending were they jumped in the lake, you do have a creative talent.
I already have topic going on about the xh-a1 but might as well ask you now, was it easy to manual focus with your XH-A1? Also did you shoot this alone and if so, did you use 2 camera's (I guess the camera on the glidecam need to stay on there during the shoot?

Hi Neighbour, I would love to do the same thing Travis did now but on this side of the pond people flip every cent twice. I have been trying to sell these types of shoots but once you tell them the extra costs involved it's a definite no. There might be some clients out there that would consider doing this but it's often a matter of the extra costs involved.
Think it has a lot to do with tradition, Americans seem to like this way of communicating, to show everybody how they feel and to tell it as well, visually or verbally in a video.
In Belgium people are not so openminded and most just want a simple recording of their wedding day. Though I know that in the Netherlands that differs a lot your only problem might be the extra costs involved and you know what we Belgians say about Dutch people when it comes to spending money :) (Just kidding)

Travis, You are my kind of guy. That is the cutest "save the date" clip I have seen. The only two things I would have changed is the saturation....just a tiny bit too much orange skin tone and maybe just a tiny bit too long on the canvas painting scene. Your shot selection overall was perfect!!

Your the man dude!

Another thing Travis, I noticed some vignetting in the upper left corner, did you use an extra wide angle lens?

Good work Travis. I liked this one better than the other painting one.

Love the last shot of them jumping into the water and the quick pan to the painting. It would have been good to have the painting stay on the screen a bit longer as it's the focus of the whole video.

Hey Travis,

You have now officially became "The save the date video specialist" ;-)

I liked it. This one had much better natural flow to it than your previous one. I guess this groom was much more corporative than your last one.

Same question as Kees van asked, how do you deliver this video? Host it on a website? Send as DVD invites to guests? Also, are you charging extra for this video or you are including this as a freebee? This could be a great marketing tool for us just like a SDE.

My goal is to get people to send these out on DVD to their guests either with the invitations or AS the invitations. I include online placement as part of the option fee, though, in case they can't afford that.

How do I get people to order these? Well, so far I haven't. This is only the second one I've done. The first was entirely for free, and this one was simply substituted in as a replacement for another option that was in their package for free already. So I've done two now and haven't charged for either.

My hope is that by showing these and offering these to future clients that maybe I'll get some to pay for it. Whether or not this will work remains to be seen.

Thanks, Noa.

I'm guessing the interlacing was there because I forgot to check the "deinterlace" option when I exported from FCP, although I'm almost certain sure I did that. Going to check that later today.

I would say it's easier to manual focus with my A1 than my GL2's. The reason is that I was using the "peaking" feature, and I have my peaking feature custom set to switch the LCD screen to B&W as well, which also makes focusing easier. The challenge is that I don't have zebras visible when using "peaking", so it's harder to keep track of proper exposure when shooting on the fly like this (especially when the sun keeps popping in and out of the clouds as it did on this day).

Yes, I did shoot this alone. I would love to pay an assistant to come help me. I find it very difficult to direct AND shoot with a couple all by myself. But I can't afford to pay for an assistant, so it has to be a one man show.

Also, I only used one camera for the shoot. I switched between handheld, a Merlin, and a tripod depending on the shot and the situation. It IS a pain doing this, especially having to rebalance the Merlin every time, but I feel it's easier than trying to drag around two cameras. There are a few shots I wanted to use a tripod or the Merlin for, but just felt there wasn't time to switch.

Thanks for the comments and questions.

Thanks, Tom!

Regarding the coloring, yeah, color grading is my arch enemy. I just always feel like I don't know what to do with it, or how to do it. I can do the basics just fine, but creating a color "mood" is so elusive to me. If I'm just a "tiny bit" off, then I'm happy with that! Any recommendations on color grading tutorials? I know Cinematic Bride offers one for $100, but I don't know how advanced it is. I certainly don't want a tutorial on the basics.

If the canvas painting scene is a bit long, it's mostly because of the song. I already edited the song in three places to adjust the length and structure, and there just wasn't anywhere to make another edit without it sounding awkward. In a perfect world I'd have a composer score the video AFTER I edited it, lol.

Thanks again very much for the comments!

Nope, standard lens. I noticed that too, but in FCP the vignetting is beyond the cropped area of the video as it will play on a TV. I guess FCP doesn't crop the video to that area when exporting. There is a vignetted on the final shot sequence that was added in post to try and draw attention away from the couple coming back out of the water after jumping. Not sure if it works or not.

The idea was for the couple to jump off into the water, hold the shot of them disappearing under the water for a few seconds, and then pan to the painting and crop the end of the dock out of the shot. Unfortunately the water was only like 3 feet deep off the end of the dock, so when they went under the water they came back up and out immediately and before I could pull the shot away and crop them out. So I tried to pull the shot out quickly and didn't get the smoothest pullaway like I wanted, and didn't get my framing quite perfect on the painting like I wanted.

I actually had them jump off 2 more times, and the last shot went perfect. The problem was that they were already wet as they ran to jump off, and you could see that clearly in the shot (plus the dock was all wet). So in the end, I decided to just go with shot #1 and make it work the best I could.

Thanks, Matthew .. appreciate the comments. I would have preferred to hold the shot on the painting a bit longer as well, but as I just explained in my previous post the shot didn't quite go according to plan. So instead I had to slow the final part of the shot down to keep it on screen longer, but I can't slow it down anymore without hurting the video quality. As it is, I was thinking of ending the shot a bit sooner since you can see me start to push back toward the painting. Maybe I'll leave it though so people have more time to take in the painting.

Awesome! Now I just need to start getting paid for these!


This one was night and day different. The groom wasn't really excited about the whole thing, but he was in a good mood and was very cooperative. Makes a huge difference.


I answered part of this above, but I'll elaborate a bit. I will NOT be offering this as a free service. I've done 2 for free now, just so I have something to show future clients, but it takes a lot of time to plan, shoot and edit these, so I can't do them for free. I did price them somewhat less than I would a standard shoot because I feel there is marketing potential behind them.

In a way, it's my answer to the SDE. SDE's just aren't a reality in my market yet. Couples are determined to have their ceremony and immediately afterwards have their reception. There just isn't ever any time for me to do an SDE. So this is something I'm trying to push as an alternative marketing product to those.

Very nice Travis, definitely blows the other painting one out of the water, or I guess into the water in this case :) Very cool, the A1 definitely helps the look and feel.

Did you shoot the whole thing in 24f? I was just wondering because of the interlacing issues but you mentioned 24f.

24f slow-mo will be stuttery no matter what you do, but there is a plugin called Twixtor that can help with that, its amazing. I like to use a decent amount of slo mo so I had to get it since I shoot almost primarily in 24f.

So you got vignetting just using the normal lens? no filters or hoods?

Thank you. I agree that this one turned out better overall, although I liked the actual painting in the other one more .. it was more artistic.

I did shoot the whole thing in 24F, but my understanding is that Canon's 24F is still not true progressive. I think that's why both of the 24F modes have pull-down associated with them, because they are technically shot interlaced on the CCD? I don't know for sure. The whole HD thing and 24F/P thing is all very confusing to me. I did read somewhere on here to use the 2:3:3:2 pulldown with 24F on the Canon instead of the 2:3 pulldown. I read that AFTER this shoot of course. Oh well.

I'd love to get Twixtor, but it costs money, lol. Usually my slo-mo looks really good, but this footage I noticed has a double frame around every 4 frames, so the slo-mo ends up with some chop. I really think the 2:3:3:2 mode might solve that, since it drops the 3:3 frame combo (which is probably the duplicate frame I'm seeing).

Regarding the vignette, now that you mention it I did have a UV filter and a circular polarizing filter on. But even so, in FCP the vignette appears outside the visible screen area, so it won't show up on a television because it gets cropped out. It just doesn't get cropped for an online version. However, when I actually post the video online for the couple I do a manual crop to ensure it plays online as it would on a TV.

Hey Travis,
The ccd's themselves are not progressive but the A1 process's it into progressive 24 frames and there actually isn't any pulldown. There are only 24 frames, no duplicates. If you capture as 1080p24 in fcp you should not have any interlacing. Each frame should be clean as clean can be and you shouldn't have to do any pulldown stuff.
Just have the timeline setup for hdv1080p24 and have the render set up for prores422 and its smooth sailing.
On the final Dvd the player itself actually will add the extra frames back in to make it 29.97 suitable for a regular tv.


The vignetting could actually be an issue if any of your clients have lcd's or plasma's. Flat screens don't really overscan like a Tv will so the vignetting will be visible just like on Vimeo.

I just discovered what part of my problem is. Although I captured the footage correctly, and my rough cut sequence had the proper settings, when I created a new sequence for the final edit it somehow reverted that sequence's settings back to non-HD settings. Now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to get a sequence edited with the non-HD settings into a sequence with HD settings. I'm worried I might have to re-edit the whole video. I made another post regarding this dilemma:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...325#post908325

If you or anyone else has any suggestions, please please please let me know. It seems to me that I should be able to just copy and paste the edit from one sequence to another, since the clip files in a sequence are really just pointers back to the original footage. However, this is not working. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I found this quite enjoyable, however not as much as others here! why....

For the most part it was straightforward and well shot,I did not look at it and say 'how was that done, I would like to be able to do that!'... I definately think the colour balance is wrong with far too much orange in the skintones.

Otherwise, yes it was ok.

Cheers
John De Rienzo

Thanks for the comments, John. I'm going to look at the coloring and see what I can do differently.

As for straightforward shots, well, I guess I wasn't really trying to come up with shots that make you guys scratch your heads. My goal isn't to impress other videographers, it's to create something that's meaningful to the couple and the average viewer. Although the shot of them driving together from outside the passenger window SHOULD impress you a little bit. I was literally hanging outside the backseat window filming them while they were driving 50mph down the road!

I was actually looking at that shot thinking about what you had to do to get it. I've found myself hanging out of a moving vehicle way too many times. that shot was great.

lol, thanks. The funny thing was I was more nervous about filming with my brand new A1 on a 6-foot-wide dock over water than I was about hanging most of my body out of a moving car, heh.

I created a different color look and would like some feedback. The clip is only 12 seconds long, so it's a quick view. Here's the link:

http://www.vimeo.com/1354985


Thanks!

Hey Travis,

That looks way better! I loaded both of them in Firefox so I could flip back and forwards - the new clip is a big improvement.

It has a much cooler vibe (not colour temp but cool as in .... well ... cool!) - and the red/orange tone is gone.

Good job!

Cheers,

Matthew.

Well, I guess that's good then. I really wanted a warm, tropical feel to the video, and I feel like the new version doesn't give that, but maybe I was just over the top with it before. Coloring is going to be the death of me!

What a awesome save the date video! Rather than take the couple to location and take a nice shot, you put a story into the video that the viewer (not just the B&G) would like to watch it till the end.

I really enjoy watching this Save the Date and I believe that you gave lots of us a direction to produce their Save the Date.

There is so much I can learn from you!

Thank you so much for the kind words, SiuChung. I'm trying to develop more ideas beyond this painting concept, so that I keep a variety going.

Any thoughts on the coloring of the video?

I've got an idea is the couple draw their date on sand. In my area, there are many beach can do that...

I never did a Save the Date before but if I've got the same footage and footage, I would go for a colorful style, increase the sat and try to bring out the blue and green. Anyway, what customer prefer is very important as well.

Awwww.........mushy girl here..........I LOVED it! Definitely had a more "fun & relaxed" vibe than the first one you shot (which I also loved!).

I liked the second color correction best!

That's funny. I was actually going to ask this couple if they wanted to do that, but she was REALLY set on doing the painting, so I didn't bother. I think it'd be cool to draw it out in the sand and then fill it in with colored sand or something like that. The trick would be getting a good overhead shot of it. Maybe with a ladder? On sand a ladder might be a bad idea.

In my area, we've got a place can over look the beach. I think it would be cool to draw a super lager "date" on it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rewa_Beach.JPG

Thank you for being a mushy girl! Seriously, I really need opinions from both sexes (which is why I drag my wife into my office to check stuff out). Thanks for the comments .. oh, yeah this one was more fun and relaxed and I think it shows.

Oh wowwwww. That's a perfect spot. I moving to New Zealand!

I think I've figured out what was bothering me with the new look. The blacks were lightened in the process, so there is less contrast. I'm going back through and readjusting every clip with increased blacks so that the images pop more.

I deleted the other videos and placed the final edit online. Here's the link:

http://www.vimeo.com/1356111


Also, I can't edit my original post anymore to change the links, so if a moderator could do that for me I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Same boat. Different person paddling. In other words, I shooting my first STD video this Sunday.... and with my new Glidecam (which I should get tomorrow).

I'll look for other threads regarding the creative process behind these , but I have been story boarding all evening.

In other news, the Vimeo videos are not available (though I have not finished reading through the rest of this thread.

editjust read you posted the final version.

Check the post above yours. I posted a link to the final edit with an explanation there.

And I thought I was the only one up late. :-) If it wasn't for your new STD post that I just noticed, I would be Ken Burns-ing a few dozen photos for my wedding clients this weekend. :-) But nooooo. Now I have to go check out your cool shots. :-)

Glad to see I'm not the only one that works insane hours. I've been up past 2am working for the past 4 or 5 nights, lol.