A Canon T3i Wedding Film (my first)

[Ethan Wise]

Hi everyone this is my first wedding video and I wanted to share it with you all. I hope to get some comments and criticism. I learned a lot from this forum and have been lurking for the past few weeks! I had a great time filming and editing this and hope you all enjoy! (View in 720 HD!!)

Lisa and Lafe - A Canon T3i Wedding Video - YouTube

Also here is my FB film page if you would like to take a look.

https://www.facebook.com/WiseFilms

[Byron Jones]

The film was a lot of fun. There were some good shots. I think your next step should be capturing better audio. Nice logo at the end!

[Ethan Wise]

Thanks for the reply. Glad you enjoyed it! I will be ordering one of those h1 zoom recorders and a couple wireless lav mics for future weddings. I also need a second camera to be un manned during the ceremony. Thinking a panny x9 I think its called.

[Taky Cheung]

Great job! I have been using my T3i until earlier this year. Sold them to replace with 6D. I miss T3i's 3x crop zoom and the articulating LCD screen. But 6D low light performance is amazing.

[D.J. Ammons]

Ethan,

Very nice. I only had time to watch the first half of it tonight but will finish it later. I think the strong points are the pre ceremony (and I am assuming the reception which I have not gotten to yet). You have a good sense of style and have some great shots. I believe the weak part was the ceremony itself where the shortcomings of shooting with a single camera become obvious. Almost all of the ceremony shots were wide shots where tight shots of vows being exchanged, rings being put on, and the kiss are powerful shots and should be there.

Clearly you are a natural and have a lot of talent for this. Good luck in the future!

[Steve Slattery]

Excellent first wedding and great shooting, also good choice of music. Well done.
Steve

[Roger Gunkel]

Congratulations on your first wedding video, although I am not sure whether this is the complete finished work for the client, or a short highlights video.

If you are posting your video on here for genuine comments rather than a pat on the back and congratulations, then I will give you my honest appraisal. The good points are that you have used some good ideas for shots and composition and the choice of music is good. For me though there is much that needs improvement.

Where to start? Well I would assume that you already have a certain amount of general video experience before moving into weddings, but your handling of the camera would suggest otherwise. There are a very large number of shots that are badly out of focus, either as they start, as they run, or before they finish. Pulling focus is one thing, but many just start out of focus or never come into focus at all. I am not a supporter of DSLR cameras for weddings, and the lack of detail in the background of almost every shot is one of the reasons why I don't like them. That is why the focus on the subject is absolutely critical!

There are a number of instances where the scene is unintentionally out of vertical, the ceremony from the end of the aisle being one example. This is easily correctable in post and really should have been picked up. In addition, a large proportion of the video is over exposed and burnt out on the light areas which suggests that you need to spend more time learning to cope with high contrast scenes that are always present at weddings. The low light sequences are very muddy, which again suggests more familiarisation with the camera in difficult lighting conditions. Perhaps an led light would help.

A number of your shots are also very unstable, which for me makes them difficult to watch, so I would suggest that a tripod would make it much easier to get stability and would help with the verticals.

I don't know whether or not this is a final product, but the emphasis on the music rather than bringing in more ambient sound, makes the whole thing very impersonal, but I am also basing that on my own preference for documentary style.

In conclusion, I feel that many of the problems that I see are related to the lack of experience at working with a DSLR and that gaining initial experience with weddings would be much easier and initially rewarding using a video camera, with perhaps the DSLR as a second camera for more creative shots.

I applaud your courage at putting up your work for criticism and apologise if most of my comments are negative, but they are purely my own opinion based on filming around 2000 weddings. Other members may well completely disagree with me of course and give me stick for my comments.

I would love to see more of your work as you gain experience and hope that some of what I have said gives you food for thought. Remember also that it is only what the client thinks that is really important :-)

Roger

[James Manford]

Hi Roger that's a good comprehensive list. But based on the ops facebook page, I believe the bride commented saying it's a fantastic video.

So regardless of your professional analysis the client is happy which is all that counts as you've already said.

If all videographers / photographers start listening to each other right down to every last detail I think we would all produce the same style of film so it's good to be different.

What might look unprofessional to me, will look great to some one else. Vice versa.

That's the beauty of this business ... the client has the choice to use your services or to not use your services.

However, if we start talking about making money and what clients prefer ... then I would say the op should take your advice right down to every last detail as you are obviously very successful with your style of videography having done 2000 weddings.

[Roger Gunkel]

James you are absolutely correct and I totally agree that the only thing that matters is what the client says as I said before.

However the OP did ask for comments on the video from members here, and for that reason I would consider it unfair to heap false praise on it as I am sure that he wanted real input to help him improve his videos. From a professional point of view it falls short on several things and I am sure he wouldn't want to be told they are right when they are wrong, otherwise what is the point of asking.

There are technical issues, but the client is delighted, which confirms that technical issues are what drives technicians not Brides, but excellence is what we all strive for:-)

Roger

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by James Manford

However, if we start talking about making money and what clients prefer ... then I would say the op should take your advice right down to every last detail as you are obviously very successful with your style of videography having done 2000 weddings.

Sorry James forgot to respond to the above.

I think advice is just that, with different advice from different people which can be followed or ignored. I would also say that making money is not necessarily about quality,otherwise lots of very successful businesses would have died years ago. It is about supplying a need and fitting the budget. My business is successful from my point of view, but whether that is down to quality, good selling or the right price, I really don't know. I do know that quality brings personal satisfaction and that is probably also what Ethan would like. Whether improving technical quality will bring in more money is something only time will tell.

Roger

[Noa Put]

So regardless of your professional analysis the client is happy which is all that counts as you've already said.

Ethan did ask for comments and criticism so he wants not only to hear from the client but from us what we think.

I think Roger's comment where spot on, it's not because a client like's your video that it means you are doing a good job, depending on what you charge you can get away with a lot, as long as you manage to capture the important parts many brides will be happy. But if you want to start charging accordingly I"m pretty sure sooner or later you will hear the first couples complain if you don't manage to get the basics right.

My opinion is that Ethan is using the wrong tools to start with, large sensor camera's are a great way to get creative shots but as a solo shooter they are very difficult to work with in run and gun, something that is obvious in Ethan's video, especially when it comes focus and holding the camera steady.

If you want to get it right the first time, if you work alone and if you are just starting out with weddingvideo, get 2 high end handicams and one dslr, use the handicams to cover anything that could require a 2 camera setup and use them for any event where you don't get any second chances.

Then use the dslr for creative shots when time allows for you to get it right and with that I mean, correct focus, stable footage, good exposure, good whitebalance etc.

Forget about shallow dof, you don't need that to make good video, it does look nice when used correctly but for shooting important "one chance only" events you need 2 manned camera's so you have something to cover you if it goes wrong. And before someone posts a video here that shows some great work of a solo dslr shooter, you can be sure that person has a lot of experience working with dslr's and he knows his gear inside out, he also knows what he can and cannot do and his camera usage and placement is based on his experience.

I showed below video many times as example but will show it to Ethan again so he knows what I mean, not going to embed it in the post (just a link to the video) as I don't want to draw too much attention to it so the focus stays on Ethans video.

This was done with 2 small sony handicams and a dslr, only steadicam is dslr, all static and slidershots are handicam. This was also a soloshoot, here you don't have any shallow dof but also no shaky or unsharp video, if you want to assure it looks good, then these handicams can be a very helpful tool in achieving that.

"https://vimeo.com/51005614"
password: test5

[Ethan Wise]

D.J. I had a hard time filming the ceremony and will have a 2nd camera for my next wedding. Thanks for the comment!

Roger: This is the completed version for my client. I will include on the DVD the toasts and dances but this is pretty much it. I will plan to include more for my next wedding. I agree that I had a hard time keeping things in focus and it was because of a number of reasons. I got a cheap mono pod 2 days prior to the wedding and had no time to test it before so that was a mistake on my part. I will make sure my next wedding has better focused shots etc.

AS for the out of vertical shots, again I am not used to using a mono pod and must have not been holding it up correctly for some shots. I plan to use a tripod for my 2nd unmanned camera and get more stable shots. The over exposure was because I was using a ND fade filter and have trouble getting outside shots to look normal. This is something I just have to learn but I wish I had before I shot this wedding! By the way, I had a 2 weeks notice for this wedding.

This low light shots could have been avoided by changing the aperture a tad. In the heat of the moment I didn't realize how dark the shots were, even with my 50mm 1.4 great low light lens. I would have liked to use more of the real life noise throughout the video but all the audio during the ceremony and reception was not usable because of music that's playing etc. Again, so many factors come up during this type of work. I have a lot to learn but I am excited to get better!

I really do appreciate the criticism though and will use it all to make my next video better.

[Noa Put]

Again, so many factors come up during this type of work.

Which you almost wouldn't have to worry about if you would have used regular videocamera's like I suggested :) I"m pretty sure you will get it right but you are making it hard on yourself by using a dslr, too much to think about during a wedding and then it's easier to use a tool that can make you focus on content instead of camerasettings and trying to be creative. That last part usually gets added once you can assure you got the basics right.

[Roger Gunkel]

Ethan it's good that you recognise why you had the problems as you can now work on correcting them and being aware of when you are likely to encounter them again. Noa's advice is very good and I would certainly consider going down that route while you are gaining experience.

Roger

[Noa Put]

I only hope Ethan doesn't take my comments too personal, I don't mean to sound too harsh but I can only speak from own experience as a solo shooter. Dslr's are a easy choice because they can be bought real cheap and they can give you excellent result but it can also turn into something real ugly if you don't have the experience. It's better to start with a "easy camera" and later on slowly add creative tools like dslr's, sliders, glidecam, jib or whatever. Before you know it you"ll have so much gear in your backpack you start wishing you where back at day one with just one single camera. :D