Brand New "Save the Date" Video

[Travis Cossel]

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!

[Kees van Duijvenbode]

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

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Kees van Duijvenbode

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

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

[Kees van Duijvenbode]

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?

[Noa Put]

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?

Originally Posted by Kees van Duijvenbode

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?

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)

[Tom Sessions]

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!

[Noa Put]

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

[Matthew Ebenezer]

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.

[Ram Purad]

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.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Kees van Duijvenbode

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?

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.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

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?

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.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Tom Sessions

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!

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!

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

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

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.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Matthew Ebenezer

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.

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.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Ram Purad

Hey Travis,

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

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

Originally Posted by Ram Purad

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Ram Purad

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.

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.