Editing Hour for 15min Wedding Film

[Andrew Maclaurin]

when i started filming weddings here in Spain i worked for a company that made documentary style weddings. they weren't the greatest but their clients seemed to be happy. i worked as a camera man for them. they'd send me off with a photographer to cover a wedding with my sony pd170. i wouldn't know anything about the locations, couple etc. they'd only tell me "this is going to be a 40 minute edit" or" this is a 30 minute edit". what that meant was that for a 40 minute edit i had to film no more than 45-50 mins of tape. they sent me to speak to the editor before my first wedding (i edit as well, corporate, tv clips etc) and he showed me what he was looking for. basically he would trim all the in and out points, discard a few shots that did look too good (people getting in the way etc) and as he did this he'd select the interesting shots to copy onto another timeline for his short 1-3 min summary clip. he told me he wanted me to think of the edit whilst filming, a pan is followed by a still shot, then possibly a bit of movement, ws still, cu, ms tilt, and so on. this made his edits extremely quick (1-2 hours for the 40 min edit and clip). i'm not saying it is the best way but i have used this idea ever since whilst doing my own weddings. if i'm doing a 30min docuwedding and short 4-5 min clip then i'd never film more than an hour of material. the key is to film the right material and think about the shots. will they edit together well? do i have enough still shots to link shots with movements, enough CUs, MSs, WSs etc. is it possible to film them in order? and this was just me and my camera, one lcd light and mic and no back-up camera nor any idea of the locations, lighting etc! the point is, you can make your life a lot easier when you film thinking of the edit and don't waste time filming absolutely everything.
oh, and when i started my spanish was rubbish and i didn't even understand what half the people were saying! it was never a problem though. if you know what you are doing and you are prepared ( as much as you can be), relaxed and confident, things usually work out fine!

[Frank Glencairn]

Originally Posted by John H. Lee

Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you direct the second shooter ( or other shooters) to get the footage you have in your mind so that you don't have to go through all the footages from them?

As I said, I usually don't do weddings at all - just for very close friends and family.
So it's a one man show.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chip Thome

I think what you are considering its a great idea and would be excited to see not only your results, but you initial estimation of the project, before actually tracking the time you do spend.

Good luck with it......and expect to be blown away. :-)

This has been a very interesting exercise, like I said I always had an idea how much time I spend on the whole editing process but since I cannot actual charge my real hours for a wedding and have to adapt to my competition I never found the need of exactly checking.

I started a large wedding project where there was a second cameraman present, normally I always work alone but the bride had requests that I could only do with 2 people and since she agreed and paid for a second shooter I hired a second person.

During the legal ceremony we used 3 camera's and during the church 4, rest of the day was with 2 camera's. below a breakdown of the project.

Total hours of raw video footage: 8 hours 20 minutes
Total hours of external audio recordings: 6 hours and 30 minutes

Time spend on the project:

The long version (which ended up to be 1,5 hours long)

Prep time: 3% or 15 minutes
this is the time for importing the footage, converting of some of my audio recordings that are in MP3 into WAV
Rough edit: 29% or 6 hour 46 minutes
This is putting all the footage on the timeline and doing a rough cut of all the parts that are not good (bad cameramoves, shaky footage..) so that only the best footage remains and is cleanly cut.
This time also contains multi-camera edits, syncing up all video camera's, audio recorders and making a rough edit of all camera angles.
Fine edit: 25% or 5 hours and 40 minutes.
Here is when I finetune the edit, add music to it and start buidling each part of the day to fit a documentary style with some "cinematic" eye candy.
Sound: 15% or 3 hours 30 minutes
Color correction: 8% or 2 hours.
Designing and printing my dvdcovers and cd labels: 4% or 1 hour.
Building the dvd menu: 2% or 30 minutes

The short version (which is 7 minutes long)

Rough edit 3% or 40 minutes
This basically is choosing the images or parts from the long versions I need for the edit.
Fine edit: 12% 2 hour and 40 minutes
This means adding music to it and completing the edit, no time for audio and color correction here because that is already done in the long version and just needs some fine tuning here so I didn't bother to measure it separately.

Total time spend: 23 hours and 20 minutes.

I was very surprised it only took 23 hours because my initial thought for a project this large was around 35 to 40 hours. Note that above times do not include render or transcode times or times I spend viewing the footage on my tv (just once) to see if some mistakes are made. Render times are no loss as I do other stuff while my pc is working, only the reviewing part is actual time but not included. I edit with edius so all the edits I do is realtime and so no time is lost here.

[George Kilroy]

Well done Noa, that puts things into perspective and shows that anyone taking months to complete the DVD is either too slow and or indecisive to work commercially and make a good living from their time, or working with equipment that's not up to a commercial standard.

I've always provided a quick turn around service with delivery within two weeks, the typical amount of time couples are away on honeymoon which gives me time to review it coldly after a few days to see if it needs any further tuning or corrections. It's always amazed me that people who claim to be full time professionals are taking sometime six months or more to deliver their work. What do they do, an hour a day, or sit on it for months before deciding what to do with it?

I'd have thought that a pre-planed 15 minute cut shouldn't take much longer using your method. Preview and log the clips to be used. Then sequence those clips, lay down the soundtrack. Any image tweaking and grading would then need only be applied to those clips and audio tweaking the same. Where does a six month, or even a three month completion time come from?

[Noa Put]

and shows that anyone taking months to complete the DVD is either too slow and or indecisive

I don't think some work months on one project, they just take on so many weddings during the year (like every friday and saturday) they end up with a backlog in edit (since they can't finish a wedding every week). The longer the wedding season lasts, the larger the backlog becomes. I have a backlog of 2 months now which is about the max it has been the past years.

I think if your backlog is 6 months then we're mainly talking about wedding videographers that have to edit all through the winter when almost no-one gets married to clear that so they can start with a clean slate when the season takes off again. But I can imagine clients don't like this approach. It might also be videographers that have a second main job.

[George Kilroy]

You may well be right there Noa as I think that many who shoot weddings also hold down a full time job so can only edit during the evenings or days off. As for shooting two a week, if that is a regular and consistent situation I'd be inclined to employ or buddy up with someone to do do the editing as the income from that number of weddings should surely cover the cost. Though even with two a week, and some times three a weeks in the past I've still managed to get work completed by efficient time management and a lot of 'lost' nights. I just couldn't bear the thought of stockpiling work for months before I got round to working on it, the footage would be so mixed in my mind not remembering what happened at which wedding, by doing it in the week after the wedding it is still fresh in my mind and I don't have to keep reviewing. Also I like to get finished to collect the final payment as I couldn't expect to have been paid and then tell couples to wait until it suits me before they could have their DVD, the lure of the money is a great incentive to get on with it.

This last year I have only shot one a week, not every week but have also managed to shoot and edit an average of two industrial induction videos a week (38 in all so far) and fit in a number of stage shows, edit and duplicate and deliver the discs, just a matter of time management. I can then take a couple of months off during the winter to establish my new venture for next year without a single thought about weddings.

[Adam Deierling]

Originally Posted by John H. Lee

Recently I've edited 15min feature film for the wedding and it took me about 36 hours. Here's the breakdown for each process. I'd like to know how you guys are doing for the same length of edit. I appreciate your feedback.

Project Preparation : 0.5
Footage Screening and Loggin : 6
Music Selection and Mark : 2.5
Editing : 15
Multicam Sync and Logging : 2
Color Grading : 8
Audio Sweetening : 2.5

I have been doing wedding videos for about 4 years now, and when I edit a 90 minute video it takes about 15-20 hours. If I want a 15-20 minute highlight "cinematic" clip I extract the good from the full 90 min video. Only takes about an hour at the most. My web clips are a little faster. Feel free to see them at Saturn Entertainment Studios Wedding Videography & Commercial Video Production Services. I edit on an AVID. In case anyone was wondering...