FINALLY Posting up my first completed Highlight Reel

[Michael Y Wong]

Sup guys (& girls)

Ive been so busy lately and thus extremely lazy about doing this, but I figure I'm going to post my FIRST completed highlight reel. This was WIP for a while and has been done a few months ago.

I have followed this forum closely these past few months and it has been invaluable for those TRYING to start out such as myself. Some of the wedding videographers on this forum do absolutely INCREDIBLE work that I admire, and would really appreciate constructive criticism and feedback.

I've cut file in 2 to maintain a free download/upload, it is in WMV HD 720p format.

Please follow ALL the insturctoins below to donwload the file(s):

1) click (but dont download from here)

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...jaDNm8UTl5TA==

use

email: myauyin@yahoo.com
password: videoenabled

to log in

2) now click 'Sent Items'
there will be 2 files with the name (ignore any other files):

'Steve & Mina Highlight Reel 720P'

download BOTH of the files (one file is 72 megs while the other is 94)

3) when watching, watch the 72 megfile (part 1) FIRST, and add the longer larger file into the playlist

Thank you 4 ur insights in advance!

Michael

If interested here are some notes about the wedding/job itself:
- Song was strictly chosen by Bride & Groom, it is some quasi-church song (unsure what exactly), they are an extremely religious/conservative couple so that was that.
- Although this wasn't my first wedding, this was the first wedding in which I didn't speak or understand a SINGLE word of the language that everyone else did (everyone spoke Korean and I do not), thus I consider myself EXTREMELY lucky to have been able to score the shots that I did as I didn't know what would come up when.
- Wedding was on the low-end side, in the highlight reel I really cut out any/all the material that exposed this (ie. the reception restaurantl)
- Bride & Groom we're EXTREMELY conservative, no first dance, no alcohal, no party whatsoever, the reception was basically a late lunch (from 2pm-5pm), I had no idea there receptions such as this ever existed.
- Shot with a Sony HDR-HC1 + 501 Bogen head and had to make due with the available lighting @ the time, to be safe I did attend the wedding rehearsal to OK to the lighting before I accepted the job, and I did not use a video light.
- Used Magic Bullet Editors to purposely soften the image as well as colour correction, the colour correction REALLY helped since I used a single chip CMOS camera.
- I was strict upon myself with regards to excpluding poorly framed and/or sloppy/shakey hand held footage from the highlight reel.

I tried to:
- try to tell a 'touching'/moving/moderately paced story of thier day, hopefully capture the emotions of the day, it would have been impossible to take this video in the 'fun & party' direction,
2) hide the lower end aspects of the wedding (ie. restaurant location)
3) exploit the park footage as it turned out relatively well, hence the montage of B&G.

Really looking forward to the comments & criticisms, it my first one so flame away! (so to speak)

[Jason Bowers]

Hi Michael,
I thought overall this was very nice. However, I think the flash transition was really overused, and the picture was blurry sometimes during your slo mo shots. The picture was soft which probably due to the camera, i am guessing it's a sony. The closeups of the bride and groom are some really great shots. The music annoyed me a little and i felt it was holding the movie back. Overall I liked it, your shots are really smooth and the edit flows well.
Good job...

Jason

[Louis Maddalena]

can not download, limit exceeded.

[Rick Steele]

No offense but that's just too many hoops to jump through to view some footage.

Have you considered this:

http://www.putfile.com/

It worked well enough for me until I got some server space of my own.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

I think Jason has very similar findings to myself, although I didn't mind the music. The closeups were excellent, but the blurring was sometimes noticeable as blur instead of an intended soft effect. How did you do the slow-mo? Was it just field doubling or did you use some sort of interpolation software like that found at goodervideo.com?

The bride looked great in every shot, and that is what is important. The first bridesmaid coming down the aisle is adorable!

[Michael Y Wong]

Sorry guys,

Please ignore the original way to download this files, as I have taken care of the bandwidth issues for now and here is a simpler way to download. I do appreciate everyones help on this matter:

First half of highlight reel:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...m8UTl5TA%3D%3D

2nd half of highlight reel:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...4Hz4N5TA%3D%3D

You will need to sign up for a FREE www.yousendit.com account to download the files, assuming u dont have an account already. The free accounts lets you send & recieve files up to 100Megs for free.

As for the blur effect, yes you are right, I was tryign to find snippets of footage where the b&g looked 'attractive' and heavily slowed down some clips causing a huge bluring effect if there was fast motion (ie. a head turning from side to side), I will definately watch out for that in the future.

All slow mo was done in PP2.0

[Sean Seah]

Looks good. Perhaps u can use more fades than the flash.

[Daniel Boswell]

Originally Posted by Michael Y Wong

Sup guys (& girls)

Ive been so busy lately and thus extremely lazy about doing this, but I figure I'm going to post my FIRST completed highlight reel. This was WIP for a while and has been done a few months ago.

I have followed this forum closely these past few months and it has been invaluable for those TRYING to start out such as myself. Some of the wedding videographers on this forum do absolutely INCREDIBLE work that I admire, and would really appreciate constructive criticism and feedback.

I've cut file in 2 to maintain a free download/upload, it is in WMV HD 720p format.

Please follow ALL the insturctoins below to donwload the file(s):

1) click (but dont download from here)

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...jaDNm8UTl5TA==

use

email: myauyin@yahoo.com
password: videoenabled

to log in

2) now click 'Sent Items'
there will be 2 files with the name (ignore any other files):

'Steve & Mina Highlight Reel 720P'

download BOTH of the files (one file is 72 megs while the other is 94)

3) when watching, watch the 72 megfile (part 1) FIRST, and add the longer larger file into the playlist

Thank you 4 ur insights in advance!

Michael

If interested here are some notes about the wedding/job itself:
- Song was strictly chosen by Bride & Groom, it is some quasi-church song (unsure what exactly), they are an extremely religious/conservative couple so that was that.
- Although this wasn't my first wedding, this was the first wedding in which I didn't speak or understand a SINGLE word of the language that everyone else did (everyone spoke Korean and I do not), thus I consider myself EXTREMELY lucky to have been able to score the shots that I did as I didn't know what would come up when.
- Wedding was on the low-end side, in the highlight reel I really cut out any/all the material that exposed this (ie. the reception restaurantl)
- Bride & Groom we're EXTREMELY conservative, no first dance, no alcohal, no party whatsoever, the reception was basically a late lunch (from 2pm-5pm), I had no idea there receptions such as this ever existed.
- Shot with a Sony HDR-HC1 + 501 Bogen head and had to make due with the available lighting @ the time, to be safe I did attend the wedding rehearsal to OK to the lighting before I accepted the job, and I did not use a video light.
- Used Magic Bullet Editors to purposely soften the image as well as colour correction, the colour correction REALLY helped since I used a single chip CMOS camera.
- I was strict upon myself with regards to excpluding poorly framed and/or sloppy/shakey hand held footage from the highlight reel.

I tried to:
- try to tell a 'touching'/moving/moderately paced story of thier day, hopefully capture the emotions of the day, it would have been impossible to take this video in the 'fun & party' direction,
2) hide the lower end aspects of the wedding (ie. restaurant location)
3) exploit the park footage as it turned out relatively well, hence the montage of B&G.

Really looking forward to the comments & criticisms, it my first one so flame away! (so to speak)

I really liked your
piece. It was shot
well..and put together nicely. Good pace. Nice
subtle filtering. I would
hold off on using white flash transitions for
anything other than something
kinda of dramatic..but that's just personal taste.

Was that shot with FXs?

[Michael Y Wong]

Originally Posted by Daniel Boswell

I really liked your piece. It was shot well..and put together nicely. Good pace. Nice subtle filtering. I would hold off on using white flash transitions for anything other than something kinda of dramatic..but that's just personal taste.

Was that shot with FXs?

Thanks everyone for ur criticisms!

In retrospect, everyone is correct about the flash transitions. To be honest I
watched Daniels demo reel and was WOWED by the flash transition and wanted to use it myself, but I went a tad too far.

Nonetheless the clients were thrilled overall and I'll be sure to not make the mistake again.

Also, as flattering as it is, the fact is is that all my 2006 weddings were shot entirely via the tiny Sony HDR-HC1. Some people diss the little camera saying its not pro enough to do weddings but for obvious reasons I disagree. For low light recording, and higher end jobs, my new XH-A1 should be sufficient.

Thanx for the criticisms! =)

[Michael Y Wong]

Standard Definition Version now up for those who are using an older system

SD 360P WMV: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...9CAD354E556CF4

HD 720P WMV-HD (one file now): http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...TH4oB5TA%3D%3D

It should be a simple download for those who are interested, altho if you havent already you WILL need to sign up for a FREE yousendit account.

My apologizes for using such a complicated download system the first time!