sure. harperspace1 at hotmail dot com

Very nice. My only criticism is that you might want to get a shoulder mount or other steadying device for your hand-held work. You tend to have a little jerk in your panning motion that is distracting. For those situations where you couldn't help the unsteadiness, you might get some relief from using post-production stabilization, although it is no substitute for a steady camera. See this article on how to use Deshaker:

Deshaker Guide

Thanks John! That is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I agree that if my shooting was steadier and I had some nice camera movement things would look a lot better. I'll check out that Deshaker plau too.

Thanks!!!

great music. but agree the camera work is too jerky. the finished soft effect and slow mo I like, but the jerkiness betrays it.

also in the first half there wasn't enough "narrative". it was all just shots of them standing about. i'd have like to see arrival, moving somewhere etc.

the interior shots really sufferered imho because the hall was basically empty. i think you should have avoided the long shots showing this. it's distracting, makes people think "why did they get a big hall" when we should be looking at the vid.

also i think in the ceremony you shoud have been fading in some of the real audio, even if only for ambience.

the ending was anti-climatic. the car driving away is what we were waiting for !

Ok, I'm going to open a can-of-worms here I know... :-/
But here goes...

The background audio. What legalities/restrictions are we faced with when using background audio that was not composed or performed by us (the videographer)?

I'm interested because I've put together some slideshows of weddings and used pre-recorded audio from comsumer CDs as background audio (some songs were chosen by the couples getting married, others were picked by me).

Thanks so much all for any help you may provide. :-)

simmerheli

Cosmo,

You were probably following this link, but if not, click here to get an explanation of how to hold the camera for super-steady shots. The steadyness of the camera work of the clip he linked to was remarkable.

Camera Holding Technique

yeah..haven't read all of that thread yet...

MUSIC - simmerheli asked I think about what happens when you use background music or whatever. I can't answer this as I compose, perform, and record all of my own music. The background music in this will never be in question cause it's mine -)

Your comments are all great, and Grazie gave me a ton of great advice offline. I should have mentioned that this was a spur of the moment project and the wedding moved very fast. I don't like the wide shots but I didn't have the time or manpower to get the cameras into better position. And they didn't drive away like usual in a decorated car so that's what's up with that shot missing. There were a lot of things I would've changed in a perfect world. Oh well.

PLeasure! . . Wedding videography is REAL hard to pull off well . . Our friend Glenn knows graphics and animation and understands framing and colour theory . . Cosmo, IMHO, you are asking the right questions and are acknowleging the things you want to improve on . . you/we/I don't have it ANY better than that . . in anything .. and there aint a perfect world . .and film aint about reality, well mostly . .

Keep it up Bloke! ;)

Grazie

Cosmo,
I'm late to this thread but as an amateur myself who helps with weddings, I'll lend a couple of things that I've learned recently. First, I really like the music. Obviously, you have that talent covered. As others have mentioned before, the beginning was a little long for the people shots and could be mixed up a little with some outside establishing shots but I like the way you did mostly closeups as that's what is most interesting to the viewer. In the beginning you start with crossfades and slow-mo then switch to cuts when the music is more stacatto. I'd prefer that you stayed with the cross-fades and slow-mo for better flow and also to help with the shaky camera clips. As for in the church, you could have placed a camera in the choir area left unattended with the zoom/focus set on where the wedding party would end up to get some down the aisle shots and even a shot of the groom maybe. Don't know how many cameras you had so not sure if that would have been doable. Also, since you had the 150 hand-held, could you have gone down on the stage to get some shots there? Off to the right behind the wedding party on a tri-pod out of direct eye-shot would allow for some shots of the ceremony especially of the bride and groom saying the I-do's. The shots from the loft were good for cut-aways but I prefer the main shots to come from closer to the action. Maybe the wedding party or church wouldn't allow that so you make do with what you have. I'm sure Grazie has covered most of this but thought I'd offer it anyway. I've learned alot from just helping the pro's around here about audio setup and especially with how to set up shots and use the manual settings on my PD-170 to get the best results. Still have a lot to learn. One thing for sure, weddings can be stressful. The more hands/cameras you have the better.
Randy

Thanks much for the tips. Good stuff. I agree on all of that. Probably need to spend more the 3-4 hours editing the next one too -)

What I noticed most was the hand through the hand strap. (correct me if I'm wrong here) It looked like the camera was almost always at a slant. (a very common occurance when hand held through a strap) the camera tilts and it's sometimes difficult to notice at the time. It could have been intentional but I noticed it a majority of the time so I questioned that.

I'd be interested in using some of your music, and or having you score some of my work if you're interested.

Email me @ dayvids_productions at yahoo.com

There are several places out there where you can get royalty free music. Some have certain restrictions, but more and more are "buy it once and use it whenever, wherever, forever...

Quality is hit & miss. A lot of these providers have immediate download as an option. Titles will run from $20 - $50 each in most cases. You can usually get comps on CD for $30 - $100 each (usually 10-12 tracks each).

This would be for a specific video, etc...