How "cinematic" are your highlights/trailers compared to your full edits?

[Arif Syed]

Looking through a lot of your guys work, the highlights and trailers are cinematic masterpieces that seem like they were made for Hollywood. I always wondered if your full edits were just as cinematic or are much more low-key and documentary style with much fewer quick cuts and more drawn out shots.

[Bill Vincent]

I'll bite on this one... although I do try to present a cinematic approach throughout the longform ceremony edit, when I am shooting the ceremony I am fairly conservative in how I shoot - in other words, I'm not going for big signature shots or moves - I'm focused on getting the ceremony. I shoot with the idea that any one of my three cams could be the only one that worked - so with that in mind, every shot and every cam is critical. I do this so that if something did happen to go wrong, I'm covered.

In more general terms, I think the shots that people tend to regard as "cinematic" (low depth of field, jib or crane shots, steadicams and gliders, etc.) lend themselves better to highlights clips, because you are choosing the most dramatic and visually interesting shots for those edits. For longform storytelling, the shots are subservient (or should be) to the story you are telling - in this case, the unfolding of a wedding ceremony. Not every shot is going to be dramatic or grandiose. Sometimes a simple close-up says everything you want to say.

[Kren Barnes]

"cinematic" is a very subjective term..i've seen documentary type wedding videos that i would consider cinematic. As for us, outside of the reception speeches all parts of the video are edited as highlights (which we consider cinematic)..Our samples reflect what the final edits are.


Kren
Vertical Video Works | www.verticalvideoworks.com

[Chris Harding]

Hi Arif

I'm at the other end of the spectrum and tend to shy away from the "slomo video set to music" concept and concentrate on recording the brides wedding accurately. If I do make a trailer then it reflects what the main content will be not just a slomo version of the couple with a love song on the audio track. I tend to use real life events, interviews and feelings from the couple and guests themselves to bring out the emotion. It's hard to really describe but as one bride put it "I like your videos because there is a lot of talking" What they see in a trailer is what they get in the full programme so there is no nasty surprises. I used to offer to shoot in either a documentary or cinematic style and I think over the last 3 seasons I had just one bride that wanted the cinematic approach and supplied all the songs too!!

Chris

[Sarah Pendergraft]

This might be slightly off topic, but it brings up a question I've been wanting to post for the past few weeks.

What makes a piece "cinematic?"

We're going into our third wedding season, and we've finally found our niche. We do less slow-mo and fewer dissolves, but still use them when appropriate. We lay music under EVERYTHING (and by that I mean the kind of music beds you would hear under the majority of a real movie, not the grandiose or lyrical song played at the end) and most of our videos last around 35 minutes. Our average ceremony is cut to around 8-10 minutes. Bits and pieces of the minister & toasts are scattered throughout. We want it to flow like a movie, which would be "cinematic" right?

Yet within the wedding industry it seems cinematic refers to lots of slow-mo and dissolves, and anything that plays mostly in real-time and utilizes mostly straight cuts is considered documentary or "new doc."

Having not been in the industry very long, I'm curious as to how others define these terms.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Sarah

To me cinematic appears to be slomo and long dissolves and, as you say, shortened ceremony and everything is set to music. There might be a sort piece of the vows to add extra romance but again over the music.
That's the way I used to describe it to my couples at the first meeting and they seem to immediately say "no thanks, we want to see the whole day as it unfolds"

It seems that plenty of fade to white is used as well as monochrome images in the ones I have seen and they tend to be very short snippets, fade to white then another short bit etc etc and seemingly lots of Magic Bullet FX.. strange colour and over contrasty too. IMO that's great to maybe promote your services in a 30 second clip but here the brides are not really impressed at all with the style and want to see their special day as it unfolds and don't want to miss anything.

Where your market is impressed with the cinematic style then I would say that the order of the day must be dreamy romance so slo-mo and long dissolves need to play a part... you know the ads where the girl in the long flowing dress runs thru the forest in super slo-mo with everything else hazy towards her lover!!

The bottom line is how YOUR clients interpret cinematic!! If your present method works then why change????

Chris

[Aaron Almquist]

What makes something cinematic.... STSTS (Shoot The Shots That Sell) To have a cinematic wedding you need to plan your shots. Proper composure, use of a Glidecam, Glidetrack, using the correct lens, use of lighting, these are all things that make for the cinematic wedding. There is only so much slo-mo I can stand to watch in a wedding trailer. If your going to shoot something cinematic you need to know your equipment, know your tallent, and know how to STSTS.

[Kelly Langerak]

I get 80% of our couples who also want to hear the talking. So what I do is do cinematic for the introduction, highlights, and dancing. The remaining is documentary style where they get to hear their friends and family say "congrats" "we love you" "you looked beautiful coming down the aisle" etc during post ceremony, cocktails, chats on the balcony. In the end most couples don't just want a MTV style video. In the end for us this is easier to edit. We try and balance it as best we can. We explain to each couple that picking up audio during the reception, in a small room, with 200 people is very difficult, it can sound like mush. If we do capture a good story or somebody saying something good we will put it in for them to hear.

I think all cinematic is only an option is that's what they DEF want.

[Scott Brooks]

Originally Posted by Bill Vincent

I'll bite on this one... although I do try to present a cinematic approach throughout the longform ceremony edit, when I am shooting the ceremony I am fairly conservative in how I shoot - in other words, I'm not going for big signature shots or moves - I'm focused on getting the ceremony. I shoot with the idea that any one of my three cams could be the only one that worked - so with that in mind, every shot and every cam is critical. I do this so that if something did happen to go wrong, I'm covered.

This is pretty much my approach as well. I never assume that the other camera has the shot. So yeah ... I feel like I should be able to use any camera for the entire ceremony if necessary. Conservative ... that's a great way to put it.

[Cody Dulock]

When I think of the word cinematic, I think of a movie that uses tools to create an epic scene/shot. Feature films have cinematic moments in them, video games have "cinematic" moments in them, and so on.

When I see slow motion, black and white, sepia tone, and other filters on videos I wonder to myself how those effects move the story forward and if they don't, why are they being used? Are we still in the 1990's? You don't see slow motion and black and white used in every movie or even every fairy tale type movie for that matter, why is that? I hope that more of the wedding guys start pushing the bar and changing the industry so we can get out of the old cliche slow-mo/black and white stuff and into something that will be more timeless, epic, compelling, and story based with a documentary edge. I do appreciate that a lot of people are raising the bar by doing this "cinematic" style, but I think we have a long way to go as an industry. IMO.

If you are doing "cinematic" edits for short form stuff and that is your style I think that should reverberate in all your edits no matter the length (unless you primarily do live cuts).

[Chris Harding]

Hi Kelly

Yeah me too!! In fact my intro (all 30-40secs) is sorta cinematic and if I do the photoshoot that's also cinematic ...all the rest is an accurate record of the day which is what the bride is looking for. On of the most popular bits is always the short interviews I do just before the reception when the guest are having pre-dinner drinks. The bride loves the comments and congratulations that are recorded as that's the one part of the day she never sees so it's always special!! I try to get the couple away from the photog before the photoshoot and do a special sequence with them including recording their own feelings (more talking!!) It seems so ridiculous when I see videographers following the photographer around like a puppy dog shooting the photographer taking photos of the bride and groom!!!

Dunno about where you are, but here I listen to the bride and what she wants. The groom doesn't really ever have any comment and ideas and his idea of a good wedding is getting married and then seeing how many beers him and his mates can get thru!!!

Chris