justin&sharon

The same-day-edit — quite the challenge and pleasure. Another story for this video… stay tuned for that too. see below for the story…

If you followed the twittering that took place for their wedding day (#jswed) then you know my day started at sometime after 5am loading the car with gear. I woke up at about 4:45am trying to think about what I’m going to do for this video. I got the soundtrack from them on Thursday and what I need to do is play it over and over again until I can divide it into logical sections. Then I can start to plan the shots I want to take for the day.

Arrived at Sharon’s place at 7:15am and threw on the iPod to listen some more — the day was gorgeous and I had to get focused. Grabbing shots of the ladies getting their hair and makeup done is quite typical for wedding videos — so I wanted to kind of create the feeling of being there like a fellow bridesmaid. Not an easy task for a guy. The first chunk of the video would need to be moving quickly and abruptly — didn’t do too well with that kind of footage but I think it worked out pretty good.

When I got to the boys, the song didn’t fit with what I saw — hence the different song and feel. These boys are men, and give new meaning to masculine. They were a lot of fun and I just grabbed clips — didn’t think about the soundtrack until halfway thru editing.

The ceremony needed to have clips of family and friends enjoying themselves — how do take footage like that? No, I’m really asking the question, how? It was pretty dark in the church and I hate pushing past ISO1600 on my f4 lens… thought about grabbing my video lights but that didn’t end up being appropriate — you do have to be selective of when to use lights because they can really impact the mood of the ceremony. Anyways… the other clips I had to get was fast moving shots for that part in the song that really rocks.

I’ll skip to getting to my in-laws place, all sweaty from the steadicam-ing, setting up the computer and processing footage (which took forever). When I went through the clips, I had to pick ones that matched and then check whether the audio was decent. I had about 230 clips to evaluate – not so easy. Gave a whole chunk of appreciation for what other studios can do – props! It took about 4hrs to finish assembling and 45mins to render. It was delivered to the reception at around 6pm.

To summarize it, there’s just a lot of pressure but I do enjoy the challenge. Trying to do all that on my own isn’t a strategy for longterm success — but doing these SDEs helps me appreciate the real talent other studios have. All in all, it turned out great – good to know that my blood pressure has returned to more normal, sane levels.