Haven't posted a clip in a while....

[Glen Elliott]

Here's a highlight vignette I completed tonight...

http://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3///RufusMaria.wmv

[David Yuen]

It's amazing how you apply the same principles, same techiques and yet your videos look great every time.

Question: at 3min 20sec, the bride's hair is swept to the left, but at 3min 30sec, the bride's hair is swept to the right and the rings are on her right hand. Why did you reverse the footage?

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by David Yuen

It's amazing how you apply the same principles, same techiques and yet your videos look great every time.

Question: at 3min 20sec, the bride's hair is swept to the left, but at 3min 30sec, the bride's hair is swept to the right and the rings are on her right hand. Why did you reverse the footage?

Very nice eye! There's actually a very logical explanation for it. I sometimes flip the footage horizontally to fit the composition better. Having the bride on the left side fit the composition coming out of the dissolve of the wide shot of the couple framed to the far right. Their faces fill up the "empty" space in that particular composition. Same thing goes for the high chandalier shot...however this time I felt the chandalier was a more prominent object in the composition so I dissolved the couple in on the left side even though it was on top of the wide shot of them dancing below. Does any of this make sense? lol

[Dan Minor]

Originally Posted by Glen Elliott

Here's a highlight vignette I completed tonight...

http://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3///RufusMaria.wmv

Glen,

I am glad you have not posted a clip in a while (so is my wife). I was just coming out of the self loathing depression the last clip invoked.LOL

I appreciate your work more than you probably care to know.

Was the officiant's audio from an I-river or sennheiser?

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Dan Minor

Glen,

I am glad you have not posted a clip in a while (so is my wife). I was just coming out of the self loathing depression the last clip invoked.LOL

I appreciate your work more than you probably care to know.

Was the officiant's audio from an I-river or sennheiser?

Thank you kindly....I think. lol

All iRiver accept for the vows sequence- that was recorded with a UWP-C1 with ECM77 lav mic.

[David Yuen]

That's a money technique right there - moving the eye back and forth from shot to shot. Okay, I think I got it but I need to clarify:

At 3min 25sec, the couple is far left.
So at 3min 28sec, you dissolve in the couple on the right hand side of the frame which juxtaposes the shots of the couple next to each other instead of on top of each other during the dissolve.

When you say that the couple is framed to the far right, does that mean that the couple is far left?

Reading on, I understand that you did not need to flip the footage at 3min 55sec because the prominence of the chandelier at 3min 50sec was enough to consider the couple as part of the background, or empty space, so you could dissolve the next scene right over on top of them.

[Dante Waters]

Originally Posted by Glen Elliott

Thank you kindly....I think. lol

All iRiver accept for the vows sequence- that was recorded with a UWP-C1 with ECM77 lav mic.

Glen what software do you do all this on?
How long did this short movie take to put together?

Also your music selection is excellent... I could not imagine the iriver would be so crisp... What mic did you use might be an excellent idea to go along with my
pricey mic setup.

thanks in advanced.

[Dennis Wood]

Glenn, I've watched everything from you I could find. I have 5 hours of wedding to edit and I find your work very helpful in getting ideas, particularly for the highlights clip. I'm fairly certain that your input here is probably raising the quality level for many others doing the same thing...to the client's benefit. For newbies like myself, your efforts in posting some of your work is very much appreciated.

On this clip I noticed that you interspersed the vows together so that the bride and groom alternated with their responses. I really liked that. Your clips are testament to the importance of great audio in composing a piece. In fact, they have me doing much more work with the audio in my stuff than I may have otherwise done.

Now that the accolades have been dispensed, a quick question. I made the mistake of using my GS400 to record the first dance. There was a live band, and I toasted the audio to boot by not recording the band seperately (on cam audio is crap while the camera was turned away from the band to film couple). So I have pretty grainy video, some good clips, and an intro of the band with good audio. The song was a Sting cover. Your footage gave me the idea to just take the good portions, and edit in other footage from the day (lovey kissy stuff) and possibly overdub the real Sting song after the intro. Copyright aside, is this a dogs breakfast...or doable? Feel free to spit this out into another thread...I don't want to be guilty of a hijack here.

[Craig Terott]

Lot's of style - as always.

I noticed you moved up your branding... smart move.

I'm just currious, how many [video set to music] compositions (like this one you've posted) do you include per wedding DVD? Myself, I include only one, similar to yours, in that it always includes scenes from the entire day. I did a few wedding videos where I broke it into PreCeremony, Ceremony, Reception - seperate videos for each but I found that I just couldn't pack them with as much emotion as you can when I have the entire day to draw from.

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by David Yuen

That's a money technique right there - moving the eye back and forth from shot to shot. Okay, I think I got it but I need to clarify:

At 3min 25sec, the couple is far left.
So at 3min 28sec, you dissolve in the couple on the right hand side of the frame which juxtaposes the shots of the couple next to each other instead of on top of each other during the dissolve.

Precisely. Try to balance your compositions even going in and out of dissolves. Try doing it both ways. You'll find that the one that is set up to allow the B clip subject to dissolve into the "empty" space of clip A's composition will have a much more natural balanced feel about it.

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Dante Waters

Glen what software do you do all this on?
How long did this short movie take to put together?

Also your music selection is excellent... I could not imagine the iriver would be so crisp... What mic did you use might be an excellent idea to go along with my
pricey mic setup.

thanks in advanced.

It was edited on Vegas 6, and Soundforge 7.

The entire piece including the time to pick all the clips, to final color correction including audio editing took about 8 hours spanning 3 evenings. The color correction process alone took over 2 hours.

The audio isn't that clean directly out of the iRiver but pretty close. I ran several passes of Sony Noise Reduction in Soundforge to clean up the officiant audio. The mic I used on the iRiver is a really cheap Azden mic. If you do a search on B&H for Lapel Mics under manufacturer name- it'll be the first (cheapest) mic you'll see under Azden. I believe it was $15.

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Dennis Wood

Glenn, I've watched everything from you I could find. I have 5 hours of wedding to edit and I find your work very helpful in getting ideas, particularly for the highlights clip. I'm fairly certain that your input here is probably raising the quality level for many others doing the same thing...to the client's benefit. For newbies like myself, your efforts in posting some of your work is very much appreciated.

On this clip I noticed that you interspersed the vows together so that the bride and groom alternated with their responses. I really liked that. Your clips are testament to the importance of great audio in composing a piece. In fact, they have me doing much more work with the audio in my stuff than I may have otherwise done.

Now that the accolades have been dispensed, a quick question. I made the mistake of using my GS400 to record the first dance. There was a live band, and I toasted the audio to boot by not recording the band seperately (on cam audio is crap while the camera was turned away from the band to film couple). So I have pretty grainy video, some good clips, and an intro of the band with good audio. The song was a Sting cover. Your footage gave me the idea to just take the good portions, and edit in other footage from the day (lovey kissy stuff) and possibly overdub the real Sting song after the intro. Copyright aside, is this a dogs breakfast...or doable? Feel free to spit this out into another thread...I don't want to be guilty of a hijack here.

No need to split into another thread. I post work for critique and/or to help inspire others and generate conversation about technique.
During dance sequences I'll often cut back to "flashbacks" of the wedding ceremony to help break of the otherwise lengthy non-eventful portion. Granted, the first dance is indeed a very important event in the wedding day but it doesn't always transition well into the video medium if they aren't doing some coordinated dance routine.

A suggestion would be to try cherry picking the very best shots from your grainy dance footage and throw some filters on it. Maybe work WITH the grainy look of it. Make it monochrome, richen the blacks and diffuse the highlights a bit- use natural breaks in the song (or during a chorus) to cut back to cleaner footage as a flashback. Maybe have this portion be in color.
I did this exact thing not too long ago with a first dance portion. It was quite a dark reception and it was shot before I had better on-camera lighting. Thus the gain I used caused noticable grain in the footage. Like the old saying- if life gives you lemons make lemonaid. I took the grainy dull-colored footage and pulled the rest of the color out of it and used some filters to compliment the grainyness. It turned out looking like the grain was intended.

You'll find the wedding genre to be very flexable. You don't have to edit linerally and can place sections with others that don't occur anywhere near the same timeline. In fact if done correctly it can create a very interesting edit.

[Craig Terott]

Glen,

I'm a bit baffled. I have one of those Azden lapel mics. My I-River 790 has a stereo jack and that Azden mic you are refering to has a mono plug... I don't use a mic with a mono plug because if I push the plug all the way into the stereo jack the mic will cut out completely. If I leave it not pushed all the way in, the slightest touch will cause the mic to cut out. This is why I posted previously "stereo mic for stereo jack." How are you getting around this without any problems?

[Edward Troxel]

The Giant Squid mic has the wires backwards so that their "stereo" plug will work with the iRiver's "mono" plug correctly. Using the Azden mic you'd be better off leaving the iRiver in Stereo mode. The Giand Squid mic was specifically wired for use with the iRiver's mono mode.

[Jeremy Rochefort]

Glen

I must ask the question - its been burning me ever since I saw your first clip.

Where do you find your music? I've searched the net high and low for dramatic pieces like the ones you use but just cannot seem to find appropiate music - the type with a crescendo or which builds to a crescendo which you use and cut to very aptly.

Again, well done on another Elliot masterpiece.

Cheers