OT: Projecting wedding ceremony at the Reception

eejackson wrote on 3/2/2004, 7:02 PM

Hello fellow vegas users. Within the past six months, I have joined forces with a really great cameraman and we have been taking the wedding video arena by storm. He will be doing all of the shooting, and I will be doing all the editing and post production using Vegas and DVD-A. What we are hearing from brides to be is that the slickest thing out there right now is to project the ceremony at the reception during dinner hour. I basically have two ideas of how I can accomplish this, but I would just like to maybe get some ideas from those of you who are already doing this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Lori J.

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 3/2/2004, 9:27 PM

I did a projection at a wedding reception back in August. It was actually a tribute that had been prepared ahead of time, so I can only answer hafl your question. (I assume that you are looking for ideas on how to quickly edit the cermony and have it available in time to project).

Key things from my one experience:

1. Make sure you can darken the room.
2. Be prepared to quickly set up and tear down the projector. The only place we could set up was in the middle of the dance floor. I would expect that most venues would have a similar dual-use constraint.
3. Bring lots of gaffing tape. You'll have to run your power over the floor where people are walking and it needs to be gaffed down.
4. Make sure you can tap into the PA system. I did this using a wireless system, which saved all sorts of hassles. Using the PA makes the audio much easier to spread around a large room.
5. Have a backup copy, if possible. I had my presentation on DVD, VHS, DV, and on my laptop hard disk as MPEG2. On almost every presentation I've given (including this one), there has been a problem getting video into the projector available at the site (the projector at this wedding only accepted 15-pin VGA input, so I had to use the laptop). You can solve this if you bring your own projector.

As to how you can create something that you can show within a few hours of the event, I would capture directly to a laptop hard disk. If you have more than one camera, you can also get Firewire drives that attach directly to the camera, without needing a laptop. You can also capture to tape as well (just in case). By having the video captured on hard disk, you can instantly begin editing. Using some of the automated tools for Vegas (like Tusnami and Excalibur), and using some VEG templates to start with, you should be able to create a pretty good video in less than an hour.

Cheno wrote on 3/2/2004, 10:18 PM

johnmeyer is right about the aquisition. It would have to most likely be to hard drive unless you've got ample time to capture from tape.

I can't imagine you're printing to tape or DVD to show and that you'd most likely be playing the ceremony right from the timeline (time contraints) - if so, depending on the speed of your proc, RAM and such, you may want to limit transitions. Perhaps cuts only.

as far as techical issues with the projection, johnmeyer has some great suggestions. Not much more I can add there, but perhaps get there extra early and have as much set up and working as you can, just in case.

Mike

farss wrote on 3/2/2004, 11:43 PM

John's pretty much rapped it up but I'd question if you even need to edit the ceremony before you show it, no one expects to see the final product at that point so save yourself some stress.

Record to a HD system, connect to laptop and just mark out a region in Vegas and let it to loop if needed.

Please don't take this the wrong way but shooting weddings for a living, shudder! It seems to be a real dog eat dog business and I've seen some truly HORRID work. Because of cost constraints the wedding crowd always seem to be under resourced resulting in too much pressure and lots of damaged gear. Trying to get there before the couple and at the same time getting them leaving the last venue means driving like a lunatic and gear never properly packed away, result damaged camera!

MarkFoley wrote on 3/3/2004, 4:39 AM

As one who also does wedding videography, your taking on a big responsibility to have editable project ready for the reception...giving all the techno things that can go wrong with just a normal shoot. I for one do not plan to offer this now or any time in the future...but if you can pull it off--I wish you great luck and please let us know how it goes!

PierreB wrote on 3/3/2004, 5:32 AM

Sounds like an interesting challenge (hope you're charging extra!).

No direct experience, but I would guess you would have to shoot to a pretty strict template, if not a script. You could have music already laid down, and any (limited) graphics already done and pre-rendered.

Good luck!

PeterB

eejackson wrote on 3/3/2004, 5:59 AM

Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond. I really appreciate your input. The time constraints between the actual ceremony and the reception ( especially if if the reception is one of those that is immediately following) is my biggest fear as we all know that "Things Happen". I will seriously take all of your thoughts and suggestions into consideration before I jump in and start offering this to our wedding couples.
Thanks Everybody.....and if my patner and I do end up doing one of these anytime soon, I'll let you know how it went!!1
Lori J.

eejackson wrote on 3/3/2004, 6:17 AM

Hi PeterB:

Thank you for the response. I was thinking the same thing as you mentioned in your post. I could basically have a timeline template all laid out in Vegas. No special effects, no fancy transitions just simple fades and a music track already laid down. . Then after my cameraman shoots the wedding, he gives me the tape, I run it over to the reception and start capturing key scenes. Parents being seated, bridal party procession, the vows, the candle-lighting, the kiss and the exit. I did do a test run of this with a wedding that we just shot and it basically took 25 minutes to render. And that was on my Dell Dimensions 8200 desktop, however I did add some slo-mo. I have never done any laptop editing, and as of right now, I do not own one, so It is hard for me to determine if this 20 minute render would be realistic or not.
Thanks,
Lori

Don B wrote on 3/3/2004, 6:50 AM

I've been doing weddings for 20 years and only in the last 2 years have I been asked to do a wedding ceremony recap at the reception. This is very hard work and requires several pieces of equipment and a certain amount of time. It also works best if you have 2 shooters.

Immediately after the wedding shooter 2 stays and continues to shoot whatever would normally be shot while #1 takes the footage from the wedding runs to a location that is ready to edit. I use a laptop with a FW HDD, fast forward thru the footage to mark in/out point and capture only what I feel I need for the project. I already have the basic idea in my head and the titles are already rendered to AVI's-load the footage FAST and I mean FAST editing, still well done of course but you're talking about a 3-5 minute recap only, after it's the way I want it then out to tape. I use a little 1 chip camera for that, and I play it off that tape thru the 1 chipper to my projector to an 8 foot screen. (same way I do love stories and montages) Like I said I've only done a few and it's very hard work as there is generally only a couple of hours between the ceremony and the reception and I still have to get there (drive time) BUT, if you keep a cool head and have a plan before you start it's very doable. I also charge extra for that as I have to have another cameraperson, plus the equipment needed plus the time needed to do it. OH yeah, make sure you try it BEFORE it's supposed to play just to make sure it works.
Wedding work can be a butt kicker but it's allowed me to make a very nice living for many many years and frankly the only thing more exciting is fast breaking news. (at least to me)
Sorry for the long post,
Hope the info helps
Don

PierreB wrote on 3/3/2004, 3:56 PM

Lori,

(Glad a real pro also thinks it's doable ! I'm just a brand new amateur)

Your post reminded me of a vacation my family and I took a number of years ago to Maui. On the way back from a dive tour, couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 hours, the tour operator was editing and dubbing tapes of the day, and these became available (for sale, natch) as we got off the boat. I'm sure they also included some stock footage (of the boat, cutaways, etc.)

And this was in the days when they were editing from tapes!

Anyway, best of luck

Peter

johnmeyer wrote on 3/3/2004, 5:35 PM

RFP has some really good ideas. If you can't use a hard disk for capture, then use the batch capture facility in Vegas or Scenalyzer to capture the tape in five minutes. Figure out what footage you need, and then capture only what you want.

Also, having a second shooter stay behind to keep shooting while you do the editing is also a great idea. I have only done a few weddings, but on Sept. 12, 2001 I was asked to do one for a wedding, only two days away, where most of the guests had to come from the East Coast (I live in California). All the planes were still grounded, so they wanted to put the whole thing on the web as soon after the ceremony as possible. I did almost exactly what RFP suggested, and it worked out reasonably well.

eejackson wrote on 3/6/2004, 11:15 AM

Hello Fellow Vegas Users:

I just wanted to post a real quick note to say THANKS for all of your tips and suggestions, I really do appreciate all of the input you have given me on this topic!!!!
Thanks Again
Lori J.

corug7 wrote on 3/6/2004, 4:41 PM

I didn't see if you said how many cameras you were using, but my advice would be to pick up a switcher on ebay and use that to do a live switch between two cameras at the wedding. You might even try to capture it to your hard drive so that you cut down on editing later. Rent a video projector and you're all set!

If this is something you are planning on doing full time, I would suggest picking up a Focus Enhancements (formerly Videonics) MX-1DV. In one word, excellent.