Thursdays Same Day Edit

[Mark Von Lanken]

What a week it has been. We had three weddings from Sat-Sat, which is not typical for us. Two of them had SDEs.

The three couples were all very different, but at the same time, similar. The first couple were the typical early to mid 20s, young and in love type. Great to work with. The second couple were in their 30s, Harley-piercing-tatoo-rock&roll types. They were great to work with and the SDE was for their 10th anniversary. They were such a gracious and giving couple. The third couple, who did not have SDE, were in their early 20s, country music type, complete with horse drawn wagons bringing their guests to an old western town for the wedding and reception.

While looking at the outside, all three couples appeared to be very different, but on the inside, they had this common thread. A deep love for their other half as well as a great deal of love for their family and friends.

Okay so on to Thursdays SDE. It was for the couple celebrating their 10th anniversary. Shot with two Z1s. They also added 200 DVDs of the SDE for their guests as Thank You's.

http://tulsaweddingvideos.com/video/GSDE.wmv

[Richard Wakefield]

Originally Posted by Mark Von Lanken

While looking at the outside, all three couples appeared to be very different, but on the inside, they had this common thread. A deep love for their other half as well as a great deal of love for their family and friends.
http://tulsaweddingvideos.com/video/GSDE.wmv

Mark, shouldn't that be the norm for every couple getting married? :)

just seen the clip..good stuff, always impressed by people who do SDE's

love the decor in the main room.

that's nice too to get that intimacy of the first dance..was everyone out the room, or hiding behind you?!

[Mark Von Lanken]

Hi Richard,

Yes, it is true for most couples. My bad. I did not communicate how they were so open with their feelings and thoughts with each other and their family and friends.

Every once in a while you get a B&G that are over the top. The type that not only make the wedding day a great experience, but the edit process as well. We had three of these "over the top" couples back to back, and I guess I'm still on a high from it. We feel very blessed to get to make a living at what we love doing.

[Richard Wakefield]

i'm jealous then, i can't recall a really OTT couple willingly expressing their deep emotions infront of an audience... i live in hope :)

keep up the good work Mark

[John Moon]

Great work Mark. I am anxious to do my first SDE.
John

[Joe Goldsberry]

Hi Mark,

Very nice shooting and editing. One observation though, you said you shot the video with a Z1. Did you shoot it in 16x9? The wmv you posted is in 4x3 and looks squished horizonally.

Joe

[Mark Von Lanken]

Originally Posted by John Moon

Great work Mark. I am anxious to do my first SDE.
John

Hi John,

I'm glad you liked it. Do you have one booked or are you looking forward to booking one?

[Mark Von Lanken]

Originally Posted by Joe Goldsberry

Hi Mark,

Very nice shooting and editing. One observation though, you said you shot the video with a Z1. Did you shoot it in 16x9? The wmv you posted is in 4x3 and looks squished horizonally.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Thanks. It was shot and editing in 16x9 using Edius on a laptop. I have watched the web clip on three different computers and it looks 16x9. Do you have another system you can watch it on? If so, please let me know if it looks 4x3 on that system as well.

[Patrick Moreau]

Mark,

As I know you just grabbed some Z1s, was this shot in HD and the SDe done in HD as well?

We just did our first HD SDE this past weekend so I am very curious to hear your experiences from that end if you did cut it in HD.

About the clip, I really liked the variety of shots you got in there and I think the straight cuts to the music really came out well. I also really like how well you told the story of their day and really got a bit of everything in there. I think several of the shots could have a had a lot more punch if you had worked with the colors and curves a bit more, but being a SDE, there isn't always time for that.

Patrick

[Mark Von Lanken]

Hi Patrick,

We down converted to DV for the SDE. At first we considered doing the SDE in HD, but the hotels projectors could not take advantage of HD, so there was no point in going through the extra work and time.

We didn't have time to do anything at all to the colors in post. We used a custom picture profile with the Sony's. There was one shot with the Canon A1 that I forgot about. My son was shooting a wide shot with the Canon. His shot was when four people were on stage lighting a candle and the colors looked really flat.

I set the Canon on a low light preset to brighten up the picture. While it may have brighten the shot, it washed out the colors.

If we would have had more time I would have added some vows over punching up the colors. The reason I say that is because everytime we add the B&G's vows or VO it really gets the crowd. You can hear a pin drop.

On a SDE back in December, the S-Video cable running to the projector went bad and the whole presentation was in B&W, but it had the wedding vows. The crowd went crazy. We apologized to the MOB that it was in B&W. She said she didn't even notice. She said it was wonderful.

That event convinced me of the power of heart felt words in a SDE.

[Patrick Moreau]

Hi Mark,

I totally agree about dding in the VO. I would have mentioned that but I thought the song choice was not the best/easiest fit to add in audio overtop. I usually try to lay down a general story of the day, then go to the voice overs, then, if there is time, try some more color effects and what not.

I found that editing the SDE in HD was not as bad as I thought it would be and it did offer the advantage of letting me use the firestore to get some footage right away. I too didn't have access to an HD projector so I downconverted on export, but now I can at least deliver the SDE in Hd down the road and I am getting closer to the Hd workflow.

Regarding the Canon, I have found that working with the custom presets really goes a long way in making the footage tremendously better right out of the cam. I have managed to get a pretty good looking preset for using 12 gain in low light and another with 6 gain.

Patrick

[Mark Von Lanken]

We haven't editing anything in HD yet, and didn't want our first project in HD to be a SDE. I'm glad you had success at it.

I haven't had the time to do much with the Canon. I did some initial testing with the presets I download from the A1 forum here on DVInfo. What I saw from shooting around the studio in a simulated low light setting was a lot of grain at 12 dB, so I backed the max gain to 6. I would like to know what you are doing to have a usable 12 dB of gain.

[Matt Trubac]

Hey Mark,

looked great! It was in 4:3 for me also. I am on a mac using the flip4mac quicktime plugin.

Have you come up with a preset on the Canon to match it with the Sony Z1? I have a Canon A1 and 2 sony FX1's. They match up ok on the default settings if I pull down the mids and boost saturation a bit on the Canon in post.

[Peter Jefferson]

great work Mark and family :)

in regards to HD for an SDE, edius, SHOULDNT have a problem with straight cuts work, but i'd recomend running an externaul USB Bus powered HDD with at least 5400rpm
From there, use the render and replace function for transitions and crossfades etc etc

this should alleviate the buffer lag in edius when runing live

[Oleg Kalyan]

It looks nice, great camera moves. How long is your SDE normaly?