Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Dressing & Bridal Session

Here comes our bride and she's in her dress and again for you know we're just shooting for a little shots little cinema shots here mom helping her out so I'm gonna roll my camera here and we usually just let them do exactly what they're doing like just keep fluffing her you can don't zipper up quite yet but just keep adjusting her dress just getting my exposure again through my live you and then here I'd like to guide a little bit so don't just look over your other shoulder down there that way because I want her to look towards the light beautiful and I know we have people in the background of some of these shots but that is normal that they're always going to be bridesmaids and other people taking pictures so I love it I love using you just keep doing what you're doing it's perfect nice yeah I love using this time to get a few headshots of the bride as well especially for running short on time so just look down that you're dressed that way beautiful and then you can look up towards me...

nice just kind of hiding people in the back oh I love that you're looking at it it's gorgeous it's very bright on then head down khun looking this way all the way very nice and then we want to continue kind of the three sixty you know you've got mom there and they will usually turn turn your back towards me so we could get a shot especially actually just go back to where you were gone for just a second and this is what'll happen I'll do this once in a while just kind of like correct because I didn't get my sequence yeah so I'll just wait and I'm just gonna have yeah don you look just like you are perfect ladies that's great just delete that very good like that and they kind of looked towards the window again don pretty and then looked down it's a lot of direction so I know rob's looking for a little bit of movement they're perfect that's great so very happy with that so now we can zip up the back of the dress to turn your back towards us a little bit and if I really want to get ambitious here which I think I'm going to show off a little bit all right stop my camera for a second switch but why the wires difficult we'll make it work so I always love this shop we have specially if you have more than one person zipping up the dress is just such a fun fun shot and this is one of those times where we might ask them to do this more than once because a lot of people very super happy who when they come to zipping up the bride so they just kind of were there and they will ask them to redo this or they'll do it when you know they're back is towards a really you know, dark light and dark side is on there and I think rob's getting his slider shot already um typical let's go right into the dress moment actually another thing that'll do during this time let's start to get details as well so I'm gonna let you hold this stone well, they're zipping you up just hang on to that and I'll get little details of the flowers at this point just things that I know if anything is taking a long time that I want to do it it's just a little dark over here I grabbed a few details are holding it little details of the baby's breath nice. All right, that works while rob is running around like a loon over here. I know what he's doing he's going to give you guys some really nice foreground there that is going to be really, really pretty and a nice wide shot. So you do this out of your way nice. And if that works, that works just like that that's totally fine that works. All right, so, mom, we're gonna let you just stay there, I love it. I love the reaction well joke around, but seriously, but seriously, you should move this is really, really pretty shot and during times like this, you know, we just let them kind of hang there and it does take a second sometimes it's well worth it seem kind of like show her your flowers and just kind of play around like all brides should in a dress. Good, you know what I'd love if we could have the bride turn her back to the window and let mom unzip the dress and re zip it just kind of play with it. Mom, we're goingto think works too nice and if rob's, we're doing shots like this, this is also a really good time for me to get maybe some shots that I didn't get before that works with nice and just kind of smiled you love getting dressed. Teo gorgeous did you get that shot in there? Up? Alright, perfect. So that's pretty much it for a ce faras fusion goes that's about as faras ina's I would go with the broad getting dressed for five shots in sequence really nice we got mom working the dress we got reactions from both the bride and the mom and we didn't nice wide shot with slider alright, I don't know if we're gonna go ahead put the valin, andi, I think we're getting ready for questions, okay we're just setting up a little bit. Yes, let's go ahead and put the veil in. So here I might take a little bit of an unorthodox approach. Levin turned towards mom a little bit love that last one's dated right there, ladies, you guys are doing great, I think rob's doing nice rack, focus their eyes can see that your mom gave her a little kiss on the cheek. We should probably be going to submit this the academy okay, great way should probably don't is not yet married, right? No. So this is first time on a senior in the wedding dress and she looks awesome. Mom, give her another kiss on the cheek, would you? I'm sure you don't mind. Yeah, great. Another thing I looked for when I'm shooting, especially if this fast amateurs if you look for light in the background that gives you that special boca, you know, that's what I'm really looking for so if I was close upon our bride here focus on her, those lights in the background really broke out, which is really nice. She looks great too. So that's always help, okay? And then we're going to start the battle sessions from here. Actually, I love how you just kind of turning looking down that direction because that boca looks awesome in my shed do you know what I'll do here from a cinema standpoint, it start looking for different things to do maybe when she's done maybe set up one or two beauties video shots with some motion because her standing there right now I mean she looks beautiful but it's kind of moved for me just shoot that she's a standing in one place and we've got all these other shots that are static, so I'm gonna look for something a little bit more emotion oriented. So while he's doing that, this is kind of my photographic time with the bride and this is really great light I'm just having step up one step right there is perfect and then we're gonna put the reflector on this side so I always take a few traditional pictures first of the the bride mom is going to want them, so all you do is you turn your body this way so I'm going to turn her away from the light. This helps highlight the detail in her dress you put your weight on your back legs like you're standing there just like you're pissed off perfect on dh then you want to flip your flowers and turn your shoulders towards me and that is the basic way that hypos breads and most of them respond to it perfectly and her veil is really nice I do not need to do anything slimming down to don by any means but it's a trick just to kind of stick the veil teo halfway cut down our arm so it cuts straight down and it really helps helps from them out if that's necessary like I said in don's case not necessary so I'm actually gonna have you this reflector up and try to get the light coming from this direction because again that's going to slim down skin cast a shadow below her neck which is going to look also on her signal great at me perfect! I'm actually gonna take a little step this way and you turn your head this way a little bit nice and then just your eyes back towards me it's still just getting my exposure a little bit very nice perfect and then go ahead look down at your flowers and losses a pretty shot to get a little bit less of a traditional shot here and then you can look right out the window nice and just turn your eyes back to me love that and look down a little bit just despite that and then I zip to me and you're going to just breathe through your mouth love that is up to me is right there keep breathing through your mouth this is what really happens when you will go there when she's done I have a couple shots I love making them breathe through their mouths and itjust relaxes the lips and it kind of gives a very nice pucker look to them I also take this time and do some of the details as well so she's holding your flowers there could get a shot of those and I'm going to have you just take him out and hold them this way I like separating them a little bit so I'm going to lower them probably write their separate him from the dress of it and I can get a lot of the the detail of the hands there and also detail of the whole of ok, which is a really big awesome okay just like that. All right, cool. I would love to put her next to this window okay, just do a couple shots of that so I'm going to be shooting from over there so I'm gonna use this whole entire area all right? So right in here you have a right up against the window. Let me just move the camera to your way, sweetie, before you step over here. All right? So go ahead, take a walk cable and you want her to have a flowers um yes you can we'll be back there, I'm gonna use this whole area here so so I usually have an idea of what rob is doing and I want to pose the ride for her because traditionally of tyre for is a little bit more about posing and how to make the bride look a little bit more flattering so I'm gonna have you just given lean this way you can just actually hold the fliers in the other hand yes exactly and just drop him by your side yet we'll move the lens since that's not part of the day a way to pose I really just like to mimic what's going on because although I am and was a school teacher I somehow just don't verbalize poses very well so I'm gonna have you just hear new kind of relax and then till your shoulder up a little bit get a little shoulder action and this would look really good I'm just gonna add some veiled warmer time nice that she's got this nice line and if you keep your head that way just keep that there and you're going to notice the light on her face we'll take a quick picture so you guys can see how gorgeous the light is on her face and I've moved closer to the window so I know that my exposure is a little bit different well just adjust that accordingly in my live you gorgeous and just look down uh this way look down at your hand beautiful love that and then turn your eyes up and then turn your eyes to me love that did that former time will do that breathing through your mouth technique so just eyes down and a nice to me gorgeous okay, so what? I'm going to ask everybody what I would do is if there's people in the room like, say, some relatives or something just ask everybody hey guys, would you mind taking a few steps back so I could just have this whole area here and that includes you also also you'll see when you see my shot here in a perfect world, this light scream would not be here the flag so I mean just pretend that's not there because we wouldn't be lighting anything like this this is for the live broadcast, so this is basically the shot I'm getting back here through the door and I'm a magnifying and my bride is to make sure my focus is set it looks pretty good and don't honey, you know what I would love for you to do to be really beautiful it is about that have you just start here and then walk to that position when you get here just kind of doing he looks so nice and feminine when he did it just it wasn't I can verbalize poses, you could have the flowers and everything kind of deal is that the flowers is holding let's do one of these hold it down like that so I'll tell you when you'll hear that a lot too, because a lot of times when rob gives direction, he needs to say I'll tell you when because if he doesn't say that they'll do it right away robin even be back to the cameras all right? So when I say go honey on the count of three, one, two, three go so pretty yeah, I'm a little bit hot on my exposure's gonna drop it down and I would ask you to do it again. Don would you mind just doing that again for me? All right, real quick. On the count of three, you could walk over there at your own pace. Ready? One, two, three go I love it and that's good. I'd be done right there. That's perfect. Thank you so much. All right, so I took a little extra time there to set up a shot that I knew would be really beautiful and, you know, minus all the things the background we knew that was gonna happen, but just to give you the sense of that's about how much time it would actually take me to set up that shot. Okay? So while she's doing something, I'm doing something else and it really just works well together, so if you working, if you're working to do fusion and you've got somebody working with you, that's the dynamic that should be taking place he shouldn't be standing there leaning on his model pub waiting for something to happen should be proactive you should be thinking looking at light looking at the environment, trying to find something that looks really good all right, I think we have a little bit of time do you want to just do one male shot? So you do the close ups andi again somebody had asked like what are master shots are or our staple shots as we call them and we're kind of going through those with you so you're going to have a seat don and I'm going to change to my fifty millimeter lens um and I should let me pick up your veil for you perfect on the bag is right over there so I'm going to change to my fifty what we're gonna do is get this close up close up shot of her eyes on the movement here is going to be the veil we're just going to either put the veil over her or I'll just kind of shake it on the side for rob like this and let it fall and it just creates a really, really pretty pretty movement shot because a lot of times the poses that we do that air mostly for the bride don't translate so much to video because it is a little bit more of still motion no pun intended all right, so again, I'm just getting my exposure, looking through my live you and for this, I really like to do a very shallow depth of field tensile really, really pretty get my wife bounce and you're in the perfect spot. I love that and we're just going to get a little intimate underneath the veil together. This is good icebreaker point, so you're going to put your eyes down just in that direction, gorgeous. And I just get a beautiful shot like that one. I love that I direction gorgeous, nice and then look out towards the window a little bit and I'll move with you. Beautiful smile nice and they don't have anything just eyes to me. Perfect and I know rob is gonna want to get either under here. Would you want youto flop? The veils let it fall down over her face from my camera too, so you can kind of bring you don't bring the whole thing over here, big fan and you could look out the window honey, don't do that one more time, you know it's, good test and just throw it up on the count of three one, two, three go good let's, do one more time perfect look at me one more time and not the window again so really quick shots and I'm going to get well rob shooting and doing his thing there and look down when we're ten live that book in the back and one more time and if you could just step back and then yep there you go one two three go see if you had to flow a little bit more separated a little bit out pretty good all right so that is that's how we do the broad getting ready that's I mean and I mean cinema I'd probably do a lot more with dialogue and talking yes, there is one more thing I want todo card let's do that one abby stand out is actually this is a glimpse into the fourth wall um because we like to do something that has story and you know, if they wrote their own vows we'd have them kind of each in their respective places going over the vows and that sort of thing I'm going to camera battery john they're plugged in somewhere on that wall but I think that far outlet over in the corner of the room there all right? So you're going to come sit over here and I'm just gonna move the makeup can we have our makeup artist this year? Well if you just want to grab that I'll take these honey we're good with these for right now you know what way beautiful jewelry jewelry that's perfect switched camera so this is something that rob is one always looking for is the steeple and something having to do with audio truck yeah, speaking of audio so what you're going to do, you're going to have a seat and then you're going to open thiss your that's right there and it has a table and prepping her has a a card and a pen and you're taking it out, taking the card and the envelope and sitting down as if you're writing to your groom. All right, so you know, if you want her to start standing here, the half are just reach into the drawer when I say go once again, can you open that? George is a little bit just to see how it perfect good, you can close it. Thanks. So when I say go, you just going to reach in that drawer and pull out the things that come on the table? I'll tell you what, wait for the truck to go by again, you should call that audio and god good before you take it out hold on one second. So what I'll do is that now I'm working a sequence here, so I want to keep continuity, so I stopped to read before she took it out of them in an envelope and I'm gonna switch to my fifty you want this one I got and then while he's doing stuff like this again, this is another opportunity for me simultaneously to be taking shots of her leva even look down love the whole setup here, okay, now you can go on him, put the tip, put the pen down and then you could take it out of the envelope and you could see the nice shallot up the field that rob is using it. Yeah, everything like you normally do you put it down, pick up the pen and then just start writing on it. Dear dear demon getting a different shot there with her face and then just read something like love you can't wait to see you at the altar, you can see rob continuing the sequence of the reading by taking a few steps around so he was in front of her first and he came down and he used the foreground of the clock and now he's getting a different angle, using the foreground of the veil and getting that, and then the last thing we're going to have her do is actually read the cards that we have some audio all right, more something more and you just pretend like you're you're writing salty it's also a good opportunity and sequences to show off little details they didn't get the film before taking the shot here, maybe look up, look down again and now look down gorgeous I think you guys were saying exactly what brought this filming right now so you can really really see him and your creative mind's set crazy we're going to go ahead and just a little bit more and that was a nice pan he's doing this with just the mono pod so he's panning over and that does take a lot of practice field to do that with the mono pod I think you're he's using the stability of the handle from the mono pod up against his elbow to really just kind of move his hips almost to keep that stability there. Beautiful that's great, honey. So I won't have you actually read what you wrote, but I want you to kind of read it instead of reading it to me like you're reading it to me you're just gonna be like reading it to yourself like your proof reading it. Okay? We're just gonna kind of film you as you do that absolutely and it's not gonna make any sense because it's not like a to a bride card it's like a well, we should heal pushing you're well on your wedding day that's fine actually want me to rub your vows? You can do that so we have yeah, you wantto okay, perfect. Can we get her sheet that has the vows on it? So what rob is going to do when we're filming the audio he's going to be really, really close, you can see that he already took the external microphone off of the camera and he's going to point it directly towards her mouth. Remember, we talked yesterday about the importance of clean audio, and the first thing that you want to do is make sure you have a clean, direct line from the source of your audio, which would be the bride's mouth to the microphone. So it's going to take it off in the whole point right towards her and I usually preface this by saying, this is like the most up in your grill I'm going to be the whole day. This is it right here and, you know, if you allow me to do this, you'll thank me later, that sort of thing, and they never mind they really never mind. All right, you want to read the card? Yeah. God, you just read the card for now. Hold on one second. I'll tell you what, mom. Perfect. All right? You're in russia there's this there's the second page that is continuation issue that yeah, it would have to that there, so when you see where I am, so whenever you're ready, honey, I can't believe this day is finally here I'm so happy to be marrying the man that I've always dreamed of since I was a little girl I always imagined it would be you although I hadn't met you yet good, I wrote that this morning, by the way, uh have you do it one more time again? He's going to sequence with the audio as well? Different shots I can't believe this day is finally here. I'm so happy to be marrying the man that I've always dreamed of since I was a little girl, I always imagined it would be you, although I hadn't met you yet that's it all right and that's audio that I know that we're going to use felipe put in our fusion piece leader what's even nicer is those of her actual vows and they continue on so we can use that part of it for with this, you know, for the prep when she's kind of going over everything and then the actual reversing the vows when we're showing her standing up there. All right, so that's really cool we do have a few more minutes, maybe we could just open questions just about this one particular statements I'm sure there's people out there way had to kind of do segments questions at the beginning in the end, it's where we haven't been ignoring you know you're still there so do we want to take questions from the audience first we want to move over there what do you guys? Yes all right, so let's go ahead, tonto and we're going to go ahead and get some questions there. All right? So, uh first question that several people are asking about if you were just one person s o say it was just you vanessa, would you snap stills during the during while you're doing the video are how did you manage that that's that's a really good question and different cameras handle taking pictures during recording time differently the best thing I could tell you to do is take your pictures first then do your video clips first because you want them to both match because you are going to be putting them side by side but because although we're all probably pretty good multi taskers snapping pictures while you're doing video clips is not going to give you the most effective video clips and it's also not going to be as clean because you're going to get camera shake towards the end of that part of the video clip when you're taking the picture so I would do it separately thank you and then kelly sullivan asks how do you direct on them to be aware of the camera without being aware of the camera turned towards and interact without looking at the camera? I just tell me norman don't look at me don't look at me unless you know, there was that one instance where I had her bringing her eyes to me, and I wouldn't do that not only in a film of a refuge in peace, yeah, absolutely could have her look into the camera. But I just, you know, most of the time I preface my bride's by saying, you know, the day of the wedding, just sort of ignore me unless I ask you to do something for me. And a question from cali girl is do you ever back up your sound with a second device so that there's no chance to miss important important moments like vows during the ceremony? I have four or five mikes sources running at the same time. I have a mic on the officiant. Unlike two mikes on the groom, I double mike the groom. I'm tapped into the system and wherever there is a speaker, somewhere in the room, we run a mic up with speaker and record directly into unit. So yeah, some four, sometimes five sources, and we're going to get into that in the next segment's both for the reception and the ceremony, because it really is very important, too. Back up back up your audio because with audio there are so many different things that can get messed up I mean here we have to worry about you know, our lens and our memory card and that's pretty much it audio has a lot of variables, right? And so for the reception's, you know, same thing mike's directly on the maid of honor and best man whoever's giving speeches you'll see today that we have the mother of the bride is gonna give a speech going by corrupt we really do this during cocktail hour we'll get into how we do that later on dh then well obviously tap into the band of the deejay and then we'll also run mikes on the speakers from the p a system so we really are fanatical that you have to accept had it burned so many times great thank you and sandy p kumar asks in a real scenario do you get two really direct to this extent and then someone else asked how much time do you spend doing this just exactly like you saw it it's pretty much exactly how it goes and yes, we do do this often my bride's when they come to me on they want a film where they want our fusion pieces they like them for what they are and we tell them in the consultation flat out okay, well there's a certain way that we have to do it in order to make it what it is so if you don't mind bearing with us just one or two times throughout the day this be most probably the most heavy time in the morning we get there about two hours before rob gets actually about three hours before the bride is planning to leave for the ceremony so we do have a good amount of time and yes this part we're definitely directing a good a good deal of it yeah another parts not so much what you're hanging out with the girls and stuff I'm not bothered him but if I get the bride alone a minute to do this this is my story this is what the day is all about the days about the ceremony is about the vows I want to show a little bit about how that comes together instead of just showing your hearing the thousand and showing abroad getting makeup done which is ok but I want to seymour I want to like you know I want to make it more compelling than that this is a great way to do that so pauline the f l is concerned about the groomsmen and did they get the same love from you and did you do the same with the groom honestly assume whenever I send my second shooter to the groom's prep a lot of the times they're just so excited to see like what they're doing with the slider and they get so like the gear envy it's kind of like that is so cool man you show me how that works and that usually by the time we break out the steadicam they're just like so in love with what we're doing that they're really kind of into it it's not as much direct sting because there's not as much going on so a lot of the directing tends to be hey stand here by the window and face that way for a while you put your tux on right and you know maybe we'll make the best man type out his speech the great thing about making like the maid of honor investment do work on their speeches is there always has it in the beginning but I tell them look, if you do this, you're gonna feel more confident going into it at the end and the ones who already are confident are happy to do it because they feel like it's an opportunity to practice again. So either way it's a win win and usually at the end they're like oh, I'm so glad we did that I feel so much better, you know, helping them that helps out a lot there's been lied maybe one out of one hundred that I just just flat out denied or do you know who said they don't want to do it that's why we respect that and, um, not in photo, cube asks, do you use a list and follow the list throughout the day, and do you review the shots that you were wanted by the bride and the groom? Oh, that's, a photo, yes, for cinnamon? Well, no, actually, the only list I actually accept are usually family, isn't even them. I tried to deter them from giving me family list. I just asked him for everyone's family names, and I make the list, so try not to do that. The rest is all mental note. Yeah, we don't have shot lists, we don't go down the line and ok, david, we get this.