Filmed my first wedding this weekend!

[Nick Reuter]

Will write a lot more later. This is a hobby for me, a couple nights / weekends I do some video work. I have done two commercials before but this was my first wedding and I was nervous as a bastard because of the "one chance" situation.

So far, the footage from the camera I think I'm pretty happy with. I have a lot of editing ahead of me.

For the cermony, I placed five cameras. A DSLR on a tripod. DSLR I was moving around during the ceremony. Camcorder on a balcony. Two gopros in the aisle - one facing down and one facing up the aisle at midpoint.

Reception I used camcorder on a tripod and my DSLR on a slider and / or on a glidecam, which I also doubled as a brace for handheld shots.

I only had three lenses - a 30mm 1.4, 50mm 1.4 and 15-85mm f3.5-5.6. The zoom lens was useful during the ceremony but didn't have enough range to get in close unfortunately, and the higher aperture didn't give me my desired output in terms of ISO, it's gonna be a bit grainy.

The speeches were pretty dark and the entire bridal party was right in front of a window (!!!!) so getting exposure right was a huge pain in the ass. Also I couldn't get as close as I wanted again, the 50mm lens (even on my crop T2i) was just not close enough.

Also used my Tascam for the first time to record audio on the groom during the service plus plugged into the output at the reception.

Really was a crazy weekend and I give you guys a lot of credit. My legs and arms were sore by the end of the day after going from 10am - 8pm and burning through 6 battery packs and 200 gigs of video footage across the cameras.

This is my first time doing multicam editing and I"m stressing a little about getting all that in order but overall I'm happier with the service than I thought I would have been.

Will share more with you guys when I get the video done! I expect it to be at least a few weeks. My sons' 1 year birthday is on Friday and I gotta prep for that first !!! Thanks for all the help this great forum has provided.

-Nick

[James Manford]

Sounds like you covered everything properly.

Good luck with the editing. This is where you can really show your skills so to speak! look forward to seeing a trailer ?

[Noa Put]

James, you shouldn't be quoting entire messages when you answer just below the first post. It only makes the threads unnecessary long. Quotes are only used to highlight a sentence or a phrase to what you are reacting to like below. :)

For the cermony, I placed five cameras.

You are very brave. :) I would never do that on a first shoot, like you said, it's one chance only and the more you set up the more you risk of messing up, especially if you are a one man band. I would use max one extra camera and see to it that I have covered the basic sound as well. That alone is allready a handful, even for a experienced wedding videographer. Only if I would have enough experience and a good routine I"d slowly add more.

Also I couldn't get as close as I wanted again, the 50mm lens (even on my crop T2i)

Allthough just a bit difference I would suggest getting the 85mm from Samyang (or rokinon) which is also a excellent lens for a very cheap price, it's all manual with this lens but if you get the cine version it's a joy to work with.

My legs and arms were sore by the end of the day after going from 10am - 8pm

Most of my weddings start at 08:00-09:00 in the morning until 01:00-02:00 at night and it takes me at least a full day to recover, I had a 2nd videographer trying to get into the wedding videobusiness with me last year who "crashed" around 18:00 after around 10 hours of coverage and we still needed to stay another 7 hours. I even had to take over the reception part completely because he didn't feel well :) So yes, weddings can be a physical torture but after some years you get somewhat used to it.

My sons' 1 year birthday is on Friday and I gotta prep for that first !!!

Treasure those moments, they"ll grow old before you know it and don't forget to film him during every special occasion. I did this the first years with my 2 daughter (they are 18 and 21 now) and I"m so happy that I still have that footage which I combined into a dvd 3 years ago as a present to my oldest daughter who turned 18 then, she found it the best b'day present ever. :)

[Robert Benda]

For crop factor DSLRs (we use canons), I don't mind 135mm zooms, but for full frame, I find I need up to around 200mm in order to get a tight shot for during vows.

For those overexposed windows, when I have the time, I like trying Magic Lantern's HDR filming. Or do your own version and shoot a minute of film exposed for the window, and lay it behind the footage exposed for the wedding party.

Or shoot the speeches from a 30degree angle and try and get out of the backlighting a bit.

[Noa Put]

Yea, windows in the back of people can be a pain if you don't have sufficient fill light. I wonder how it would look if you would use that new raw hack on the canons, that's supposed to give you much more dr but not sure how stable and production ready that would be.
I think for these type of shots that new black magic pocket camera could be a good choice, it's cropfactor would be almost 3 I believe so a 135mm would give you quite a zoom and 13 stops of dr and that for a very sharp price.

[Adrian Tan]

Hey Nick, congrats on your first shoot, and welcome to the madness of weddings. Looking forward to the finished product, especially the GoPros in the aisle (very curious about those).

One quick thought: this is a hypocritical thing for me to say, but think very carefully before you spend any money, including on tele lenses. Make every dime count. Is 50mm really that bad? Do you really need 200mm? Do you find you can see more detail on your monitor at home than when you're looking at the LCD screen at time of filming?

50mm on speakers at receptions, if they're standing next to or behind the bridal table, means you're also getting lots of reaction shots from everyone else at that table. 50mm on vows at ceremony means you're getting some of the environment and majesty of the church.

I guess it boils down, really, to your own personal taste. I absolutely love close-ups; 400mm is not enough to feed my appetite. But my second shooter spends the whole day on a steadicam with a 16-35, and his shots are always beautiful, sometimes breathtakingly so.

[Steve Bleasdale]

Congrats Nick and welcome to the mad wedding world where you never ever stop or else... Try a 100mm f2 prime and also i have the new 50-150 sigma and its amaze balls...As a matter of interest? How much did you charge and was the extra work load worth it for the money? Sometimes we go over board when two cams is good enough, well for me anyways. Bare in mind the next wedding the priest may not let you move around and thats a pain so be ready for all your plans to be thrown out of the window and then get ready to think on the spur of the moment without plans..

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Nick Reuter

The speeches were pretty dark and the entire bridal party was right in front of a window (!!!!) so getting exposure right was a huge pain in the ass. Also I couldn't get as close as I wanted again, the 50mm lens (even on my crop T2i) was just not close enough.

Badly lit receptions are a constant PITA - this is a grab from a wedding I did last week - A shaft of sunlight on half of the top table coming through an open door - when It first happened I locked my camera and closed the door but people were in and out too much. You learn to live with it - expose the best you can - and do what you can in post. I did manage to get them to draw the curtains behind the couple however but it resulted in some of the table being blown out plus the B&G faces lit from underneath as there was virtually no other lighting in the room. I have a couple of LED lights i sometimes use for speeches but in this instance the tables were way too close together plus loads of kids running around - even with my standbags something would have got knocked over :/

For my Sony EA50, when it comes to speeches I use the LCD viewfinder with peaking and Zebras - plus a shoe mounted 5" field monitor.

I also use a gopro for mainly ceremonies but they do suffer in low light - how did yours do?

[Nick Reuter]

Well, here goes. Would love feedback.

David + Marina Wedding Day Highlights on Vimeo

- A couple known issues: gopro and my zoom lens introduce some noise on the image
- My flycam work needs some more practice :)
- My ceremony audio was a Tascam DR-02 but it wasn't directly connected to the DJ's equipment so it's not as good as it could be
- Some shots are stabilized by hand and those are pretty obvious. Tight quarters where the bride was getting ready made it hard to stabilize and I had the tripod downstairs

Huge learning experience, I picked up a TON of information doing this and already know how I would improve things next time, but I'm still overall pretty happy with the way it came out.

[Nick Reuter]

Originally Posted by Steve Bleasdale

Congrats Nick and welcome to the mad wedding world where you never ever stop or else... Try a 100mm f2 prime and also i have the new 50-150 sigma and its amaze balls...As a matter of interest? How much did you charge and was the extra work load worth it for the money? Sometimes we go over board when two cams is good enough, well for me anyways. Bare in mind the next wedding the priest may not let you move around and thats a pain so be ready for all your plans to be thrown out of the window and then get ready to think on the spur of the moment without plans..

Sorry I missed this earlier. This was actually my wife's hairdresser and it was my first video ever contracted, even before I did a few commercials, so it wasn't that much. Some cash but mostly a barter for hair cuts.

One thing is for sure, next time my price is going way up, because the amount of work in post was crazy. I think I spent almost 20 hours total just on the highlights reel, although probably 3 -4 hours was messing around and learning Pluraleyes so I could sync up my camera footage. Then probably 2 - 3 hours of color grading, 5 - 7 hours of straight editing, 2 hours or so of audio cleanup, final touches, etc.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Nick,

The video looks great, nice job for first time and looks better than a lot of stuff from "veterans" ;-)

You mentioned not being able to get in close enough with your lens, and there is a post-workflow to fix that, at least somewhat. If shooting 1080p, edit in a 720p sequence and that will allow you to zoom in closer during editing, without quality loss. It is nice being able to frame things up differently during the edit if need be.

Thanks

[Robert Benda]

Pretty good work for a first time. Some questions:

did anyone else notice a purple hue to her dress at :35?

Did I miss the vows/rings completely somehow or were they not included? I can't recall having heard the B&G's voices at all, matter of fact.

[Noah Ruderman]

I think this is a great job, especially for the first time!

For me I look at these factors the most when judging a wedding highlights:
Overall quality of the image
Camera movement (as in is there enough, I always like the keep the camera moving, stagnant shots bore me)
Audio quality
Pacing
Meaningful shots
Exposure (absolutely hate overexposed shots)

I think you did a great job with most of these. Sure you can improve on audio & exposure and your gliding shots, but that is nitpicking when this is your first time. Having the overall quality high, the pacing & meaningful shots all done well you are on your way.

I agree with others who say that 5 cameras is a little too ambitious and leaves you with way too much work in post. I just did my first wedding with 2 cameras and it was more than enough work. Even though having that many allows you with a few extra creative shots, I think you'd probably be less stressed with less.

Good luck.

[Nick Reuter]

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the feedback. I am actually photographing a wedding in 2 weeks so that will be an interesting comparison :)

Appreciate all the comments!

[Nick Reuter]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

Pretty good work for a first time. Some questions:

did anyone else notice a purple hue to her dress at :35?

Did I miss the vows/rings completely somehow or were they not included? I can't recall having heard the B&G's voices at all, matter of fact.

Yeah i had the groom micd during the ceremony but didn't put it in, they used the standard vows. I was sort of "templating" my video of a friend's video they did, at least in terms of scene layout. I don't have much usable audio from the prep work either which I wish I had. I still have to pull together a longer video that has full dances, etc.