A Wedding Tale

Jason + Blair 2.13.10 from kylee pena on Vimeo.

 I haven't blogged much of my own work lately, mostly because it's been largely work-related rather than personal projects. However, two weeks ago I shot a wedding with Katie and I finished up the edit tonight. We were asked if we could shoot the wedding by Katie's friend Jason (the groom), so it was sort of a thrown together affair for us. He knew that we weren't professional wedding videographers - in fact, I had never shot a wedding, and the only one Katie has done was mine. We don't have enough proper equipment to make a professional living out of this right now, but we decided to go ahead and get the experience of it with a relatively low stress "client". And plus, they wouldn't have been able to afford wedding videography anyway, so we were helping them no matter the outcome.

Now that I've built up that we are noobs, I actually think we did a pretty good job with this considering. We definitely can see room for improvement and the type of equipment we really need if we ever go pro (unlikely as we're both editors but you never know), but for a first wedding where we had no idea what was going to happen next, I was happy with our outcome. Here's the breakdown of our process.

Production

We tried to keep in touch with the bride and groom before the wedding and get a gameplan going, but it seems their wedding was also kind of a tossed together affair. That's totally cool and I can respect that having spent far too much of my life planning my own wedding to death. However, since we had no idea about the order of events, the people involved, or ANYTHING at all about this besides the date, time and place, we were forced to completely improvise the entire time.

Katie has a Sony HDV camera that shoots a pretty good picture and has a great onboard mic. She also has a solid manfrotto tripod and a crappy sunpak lightweight tripod. That was it for our equipment. I insisted that we have at least two cameras running during the ceremony. There was no way to cover even the smallest church wedding properly with one angle. So, with much hesitation, I scrounged up my crappy Canon Z90 minidv camera. I was extremely perturbed that I would be mixing HDV with DV and bringing the quality of the whole thing down, but I figured if we could get good cuts in and really cover the whole wedding properly, that would be more important than HD. Luckily, the groom offered his Flip camera that records 720p for a third angle.

So in case I've lost you, we have three formats for this one ceremony. HDV at 1080i, DV at 480i, and some sort of Quicktime wrapped files at 720p. Yikes. Kind of setting ourselves up for a post production nightmare, but we told ourselves that we could just pretend that we didn't shoot the footage and make it an extra challenge. Yea...

We arrived about an hour before the ceremony was to start to get set up and look over the church space, which was a typical standard sanctuary luckily. We set up the Flip (which we got about 20 minutes before the ceremony from the groom and I had to quickly figure out how to use) at the back center of the church on the lightweight tripod for a wide overall angle. The canon went on the manfrotto on the side, giving full view of the bride's reactions at all times. Katie took control of the Sony and handheld it for closeups and cutaways, as well as nice shots of the action. I realize we could have told that camera to shoot in standard def, but I figured it might be useful for motion stabilization or re-framing to have the large quantity of extra breathing room around the frame.

We got some pre-ceremony shots of everything and tracked down the bride and groom for a quick 3 minute interview about their past and feelings, hoping that we'd be able to work it in somewhere to make the wedding story more than just a simple wedding. Just some simple questions about their courtship, proposal, what they like about each other, etc. While we were in the bridal room, I stole a few shots of the bride and her (I think) mom and grandma doting over her dress and hair, which was nice to round out the build up to the ceremony.

During the ceremony, Katie took the sony and wandered about the sanctuary on the bride's side to get some shots of the groom's reaction, while I made sure the two stationary cameras were running. I was concerned that the Flip might have shot length restrictions that I didn't know about, but I didn't have a chance to think about it so I just hit record and hoped for the best (and it went straight through the 40 minute ceremony, so woo hoo for that.)

The reception was even less planned out than the ceremony (even the DJ didn't know what was going on), so we camped out in an out-of-the-way corner and made friends with the DJ so he would let us know what was up. The reception was pretty improvised in terms of shots because we weren't sure where they were going next, but it was a very small room so we didn't have to worry too much. For some of the events, Katie ran her camera handheld and got in closer while I did an overall shot with the Flip.

One thing I realized during the various ceremonial dances was that it was incredibly difficult to keep shots of people swaying back and forth captivating. I tried a few different things, but when the people dancing don't seem into it at all, it's hard to make it seem like a "moment". The bride and groom had some great shots and I thought Katie managed to get quite a few nice shots of their first dance, especially given the circumstances.

There didn't seem to be a designated end time and we didn't have all evening to sit around and drink all their punch, so we decided to go off-load the Flip files onto my laptop in the car so we could stick the camera back in the groom's pocket before we left. Lucky for us, they decided they had had enough of the reception and were in the process of their departure, so Katie grabbed the camera and got a few shots of them leaving the church in their decorated car.

Overall, it was a pretty stress-free wedding, despite not knowing what was going on. I think part of the reason for us not feeling totally pressured to perform well was that we knew we would perform at the maximum level we could with the tools at hand. The difference between me and Katie (and Aaron too though not on this shoot) from 2-3 years ago versus now is simply confidence. Katie and I especially have shot together a lot in the last year as interns, and we have a "feel" for coverage along with our editing sixth sense that tells us what we'll want for cutaways and other fun stuff in the edit. That, and the fact the clients in this case put no pressure on us as they were hoping for a simple video of their ceremony.

Post-Production

I took control of the edit on this one, though I'm sure Katie will be producing her own versions for her portfolio and reel. I decided to do two versions. One would be a full video of the ceremony, and all the highlights of the reception. The bride and groom would keep it forever probably, but few people outside those two would want to watch ALL that stuff. So I decided to do a short version for the web (and their DVD as well) that they can show people to get a feel for their wedding day and the love they share. Their first dance (and "their song") is Smother Me by The Used, so I decided to cut the whole shortened version to that. The song has a lot of movement luckily, lots of opportunity for cutting nicely tot he music.

I listened to the music a few times and placed some markers on the timeline at points where I felt like there should be a cut or a certain shot (colored markers in FCP = the bomb). I didn't use the interview footage in the main video, as I just wanted that to be a straight record of events rather than an introspective of the wedding. I started to lay in footage and the whole rough cut came together very quickly, within a couple of hours. It fell together very easily. I very much liked the structure of the ceremony contrasted with their pre-ceremony thoughts about their life. I especially liked the cut where the bride is talking about how she told the groom she would marry him one day, which leads into a L cut of her putting the ring on his finger and taking her vows. And the shot of her walking up the aisle with the groom musing about how they met. I think this is a really nice way of breaking up a boring generic wedding ceremony, and I like how it flowed in the edit. I wish the audio had been better with the ceremony, but ah well...we need to invest in a mic I guess. Also, I chose to stick with simple cuts and long dissolves since there are a lot of breaks in time and it made sense to me that it be flowy. 30 frame dissolves = romance!

I wanted this cut to be about the bride and groom, so I stayed more intimately with them throughout the whole thing. I put in bits from the best man and maid of honor speeches to further illustrate the bond between the bride and groom - as if to support the idea that they belong together with eye witnesses. Ha! I did put in a couple of shots of them dancing with other people to show the joy they shared, and the bouquet and garter toss to show their humor and how they shared in these typical wedding traditions like a storybook. Katie happened to grab the last shot of the car and moved the camera down quickly before turning it off, and I ended up liking this for an ending rather than a fade to black. It's almost like a film reel running out at the end, and imperfection to reflect the imperfections of relationships? Who knows. All I know is I liked it.

I color corrected with FCP 3-way corrector - a task and a half with fixing dv and hd footage together on this! I tried to take both footages to a somewhat neutral and acceptable match, then grade with Magic Bullet Looks. I won the Magic Bullet Suite in October at Postapalooza and I've used Mojo a lot for quick grades, but I've not touched Looks all that much and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I thought it would be best to go with a warmer and brighter palette on this to draw the viewer in and make everything more romantic and intimate. I just wanted to make everything brighter and less dingy than the original footage - those interior lights in the church gave everything kind of an icky orangey dull look. It was a bit difficult to get the footage from the hd cameras and the dv to remotely match and it might not be perfect, but I think it's pretty passable, particularly for the web. I ended up building off the "Warm Soft Spot" preset in Looks, which ended up giving the footage a nice pop.

I also treated the entire video with a bit of a Misfire Vignette filter from Magic Bullet. It's not a cheesy totally round harsh vignette, it simply gives depth to the video by darkening the edges a little bit in imperfect ways. I like it a lot. It's subtle, and if you aren't really looking for it you might not notice it's there.

Once I finish up the long, less artistic version of this video, I'll be producing a dvd with both versions and mailing it to the newlyweds. Hopefully they enjoy it muchly.

Here are some comparison shots between the original footage, basic color corrected, and then graded...because I love seeing footage evolve.

 

 

  

 

  

  

  

 

 

  

 

Ridiculous Situations in Interning

Last summer, I had the opportunity to be a video production intern for NUVO Newsweekly. It was a great internship that left me and my intern partner (Katie Toomey) somewhat perplexed as to what to do occasionally, but it taught us improvisation in the field, how to deal with issues like shooting in a dark, loud bar filled with drunk people, and quite a few other interesting things. It also gave us the opportunity to go to some events that we'd never been to around Indy to cover them.

Funnily enough, this story from that video internship comes from the one event we covered without video. We were part of the promotions staff as well, which was responsible for having a NUVO presence at events, and they asked us to watch over the table and interact with people at the Indy Wine Fest. We basically were to wear our NUVO shirts, sit at a table with all kinds of NUVO stuff and Indy event information, talk about the latest issue and upcoming events, and just be pleasant. And oh yea, go wander about and try some of the wines. But this story isn't a ridiculous situation in drunkenness - we're more professional than that.

One thing we frequently had to do as promotions interns was drive the NUVO jeep to and from events. We were told it would be in a parking lot space, so we were very surprised to see it INSIDE the fenced off Military Park sitting next to the NUVO tent. The first shift NUVO interns told us our instructions when the event was over. We were to disassemble the tent, pack it all up in the NUVO jeep, and drive back to the office and drop it all off. We sat under the NUVO tent all afternoon, interacting with extremely drunk people, taking some still photos of the event for nuvo.net, and enjoying a sample or two of wine. We also spent much of the day contemplating how 1) the jeep got in the middle of Military Park and 2) HOW we were to get it OUT.

The event ended and we packed up the table and promotional items. The previous interns assured us that the tent was self-explanatory to take down, so we went to work. 45 minutes later, we were still struggling to figure out where to start with the thing. I got on my iPhone and googled the manufacturer and found a YouTube instructional video on how to do it. However, it was the worst instructional video I had ever seen, and it was for a slightly different model. Finally, we decided to see what would happen if we knocked the tent on its side - perhaps it folded up upside down? So we counted to three, and heaved the thing on its side. That's when suddenly, 3 burly guys came running, yelling at us, and proceeded to take 5 seconds to fold it up for us and tell us how to do it. And no, it WAS NOT self-explanatory. Not even remotely. We're not idiots, at least not most of the time.

So we got the tent folded up, and Katie told me *I* was driving the jeep. Neither of us were used to driving a vehicle as big as a rickety old full size jeep, but I used to drive a small truck back in the day, and Katie drives a cavalier, so I got to do it. Lovely! There were still quite a few drunk people laying in the grass passed out, so I was concerned I would end up committing manslaughter in a company vehicle. We noticed a couple of other vehicles that seemed to be coming and going loading stuff up from the southwest corner of the park, so we decided to head that way. We careful drove the big, squeaky, random-noise-making, old jeep (which is painted in rainbow colors) across Military Park, between drunk people, a stage, other tents, and people working. And the jeep had a problem constantly pulling to the left. Oh, and in case you're wondering, Military Park is incredibly bumpy.

Incredibly, we made it to a muddy vehicle exit, probably spinning mud on people as we made our escape, and drove over the curb onto the one way street and were free.

I did not expect to be driving a rainbow colored jeep around in the middle of a park in downtown Indianapolis during a video internship, but it was surely memorable. And I have to say, driving around downtown in the NUVO jeep with all the windows down (no air conditioning) just before twilight on a warm June evening, waving at excited NUVO readers, was quite fun. Editors don't "get out" much outside their little warm box of an edit suite, so it was nice to take an internship to got us out there, solving strange problems and interacting with crowds.

Professional Fears

I was planning a blog about my "professional fears", just to list them out and put them in the open and acknowledge that a lot of things in my career field give me anxiety attacks. Then I went to a FCPUG meeting last week and understood every word of what was being talked about - knew solutions to technical issues, already understood the technical details of the codecs discussed to a decent extent, etc. Then I was contacted by some really nice guys from Nashville to network, and I realized that while I am pretty new, I am still considered a working professional video editor, someone that might be worthwhile to know. Another weird thing I noticed was I bought a Moviemaker magazine recently and realized I understood and was interested in every word of it. I used to get them when I was 15 or 16 and most of it was beyond my comprehension.

But then I started thinking about the content of this blog that I began and realized that none of that changes my fears whatsoever.

I'm afraid:

-that I don't know as much as I should know right now. Like maybe I'm not reading the right things, studying the right books, finding the right projects.

-that I want to be an assistant editor yet I would have absolutely no idea what to do.

-that I will get a great project and totally blank out and screw up the edit.

-that I don't know Final Cut well enough to compete.

-that I'm spending too much time learning Final Cut and forgetting Avid. Should I dig up Avid and some books and dig into the technical side of it? Or will it become natural?

-that I don't know enough about After Effects. Do I need to learn more? I want to for my own interests, but if I want to edit movies someday, how does this play in?

-that the fact I don't have 3D experience will bite me...somehow..

-that I will get a freelance gig, go to their edit suite, and get performance anxiety. especially in front of a producer.

-that I will not be able to edit at the caliber in which I want to edit.

-that I'll start being told that my work sucks.

-that I'm not going to get to edit the stuff I really want to edit.


I think all this stems from seeing what a huge learning curve I have to get through that school didn't teach me and I've missed along the way. It's insecurities, some legitimate, some stupid...I don't let this stuff ruin my day or my work. I just have been considering where my professional skillset goes from here and how I can keep from hitting a plateau in any way.