Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: First Look

You're going to start off with the first look, followed by a bride and groom photo session, and then we're going to end the day with a beautiful ceremony, so we're going to get our bride and groom to come on over. We're gonna bring him over. Yeah, we're going to set them up for the first love they actually come peeking around here on this. Come on and get one one from one door on one. Yeah. That's. Not their first look right now, by the way. Okay, so what we're gonna do is and if you guys don't know what the first look is, have you ever seen a first look? Okay, a lot of times bridegrooms will see each other before the ceremony. You know, it's in some markets, it just depends on a lot of markets are still very traditional, and they don't want to do that. But in this case, we're gonna pretend like you are seeing each other before the ceremony so we could do all of your photos ahead of time and get it out of the way so you can enjoy your ceremony in your reception. Okay, so what we're gon...

na do, we're gonna hide. You and we're going to bring the groom over to our window where he's just going to kind of in a space waiting on going kind of walk you through this right when you guys see each other for the first time it's just kind of going that reaction we go oh my god, you look beautiful you know that let's do that then don't you go ahead and hide where you were but I can take you right over here by the window you're gonna break to that first window right there I'm going put him in position eso generally what we're going to do with this first look is we're just gonna have the groom stationary because we are doing this for fusion and I'm not going to get too crazy with this first look, but I do want to give you guys a good idea of how we can use, um reenacted reenactments to kind of make this more than what it actually is, so I'm gonna move back into the light that's a little more than a couple steps back just like that looks pretty good. Light looks pretty good on this space ghost back another step right about there that's great so we're going to do this in like three or four shots and the first shot is going to be our bride who's going to appear in the doorway and dong is then going to walk up to him. All right, so basically, what she's doing right now is what I was going to happen when we shoot this and obviously, if this was a real first look, we would not let them see each other before. I mean, this is it's just, you know, simply for illustrative purposes, so the first shot will be her walking up behind him, and vanessa and I will both be able to shoot that for photo and video, and then we're going to move to this angle here, where he will be able to turn and actually see her for the first time. We want to be focused on his reaction because remember the first time he's seeing her in the wedding dress? So once that's done that's the whole first look, but we're going to re enact it twice for different camera angles dis first, so we have more options in the editing, and it looks nicer in the sequence. Okay, so the minutes go talkto our bride real fast and kind of prep her on what we're gonna do it if you want to take over. A lot of times when rob is doing this, this is a good time for me to take some pictures of a group, and I'm actually gonna have to take one step towards makes the like a little bit more a little less harsh on your face right there nice it's funny actually rob and I will sometimes differ on what we think is good lighting on the bridegroom so that you can imagine those kinds of conversations so I'm just getting my settings here my calvins air set to forty four hundred I'm eight hundred one pointy and my shutter speed is that a thousand so you're just going to stick your hands in your pants pockets take a lick awesome love that get a nice view going to turn your by a live it towards a window there you just your head back towards me perfect and I've got some stragglers behind and then just go ahead and button up I love that you can look down connolly just futzing with your button perfect love that get a little close up of him buttoning they're nice and they're taken step right there and then but up and then we'll get ready for a writer want write dawn is prepped and ready to go and in a real situation this usually happens right after the bride's prep so you know she'd be upstairs or or wherever it is she's getting ready or if we're doing this in a park we've sort of brought her to the location but kept her in the car so she's not seeing you know so he can't see her so let's just assume that that is a case here and I'm gonna put myself in position and you gonna be able to tell by the screen okay let me get a look this way that's it could turn your body more toward us that's good something to have him walk right up to uh here walk right up to his shoulder there so I'm just trying to get my exposure here now what's nice about the first shot is she's going to appear in the doorway behind him and it's gonna be pretty cool to be very dynamic on I'm just trying to set my shot here because I'm on lower ground than he is on and you want to be at eye level for this you want to be a high level all right so the first shot is and we just get my camera rolling for the folks at home is we're going to see our bride appear in the doorway so dom whenever you're ready hon walk up to that doorway you can hear her that was absolutely gorgeous look at her silhouetted back there oh my god she looks amazing so now what we're gonna do is I'm just going to continue this shot and I'm gonna let I might have just a little bit of my move to my right just a touch that was rob's nice would it be like and dawn you're gonna slowly walk up to his left shoulder you're looking at him stop all right now at this point there's stage for the first look so I'm now going to move to the other position so I can get the actual reaction you guys just stay right where you are perfect normally it's to be just a small movement but we're moving around think stuff okay, so at this point I'm gonna frame up my groom so I got him sort of in the background and I can't really let me turn my how do I turn the focus assist on this road is that it? Hey look at that okay, so what I'm going to basically do here is counted off and normally it haven't talked to each other I normally have the groom sort of miked up at this point but for this one we're not going to do that I'm just gonna have to assume that he's miked up so on the count of three you're gonna turn and see your bride for the first time ready one saved three go you could read her that's why and here guys we would let them really have their moment way wouldn't say much we would let's let them talk to each other let them have their moment and they just did that so that's beautiful we're really happy with that so that's the master shot so to speak that's the first look and I'm very happy with what we got there so let's stop recording and what we're going to do now is and I have already explained the bride that we're going to re enact it a couple times just so we could get different angles. So what we're gonna do is reset you guys exactly where you were again, and this time I'm going to do a slider shot, and I'm gonna just get more dynamic angle so over here, hammer there, and they're two different ways that you could shoot this, especially when he's by the window, I'm going to definitely get a silhouette shot and then flip over and change my exposure very quickly to get the actual shot here. So just sending my exposure do you guys want to see some settings if I want the shot where I see him exposed, so not the silhouette. My white balance is set to forty, two hundred my iso's at one thousand shutter speed at one hundred and my aperture at two point two, and this is a great shot of just the groom by himself here waiting for his bread and let it okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm looking for a wide shot here of her walking up to him from the side, so I'm focusing my camera on the bride on the group and one hundred to five that's a little bit too shallow for me. For this wide shot you could even do it as a silhouette if you look at the screen if I actually dark in that down it might be a really cool silhouette shot so I have to make a decision here no, I wanted to a cilla white or do I want to do this wide I think I'm gonna do it wide with the light so with him focused there okay right and I'm gonna make this a pole so it's almost like a reveal so I focused on that point back here when the cameras in the furthest most positions so when as I'm pulling back as she walks up to him we're getting into focus yeah and I gotta move some wires here because it's kind of stopping me from organ way well shaky but we'll deal with it all right so dawn when I say go you're going to start walking up to him and when you walk up to him just do the exact same thing you did before hon okay all right so one second and demon you're going to turn around you won't wait till just turned around when she gets close to you we'll let you know when ready guys one two, three go ahead on you can turn around my focus is there look at that all right great so I'm gonna stop recordings I'm going now change to my glide cam that was great we're going to react it one more time and we're good, and this time I'm gonna do it with steadicam or the black camp, and I'm going to just walk with the bride, so at this point I would pretty much ask everybody else who's shooting just step away for a few minutes and just let me just one shot, so I'm just getting so a lot of times when rob is doing reenactments, andi is tends to be a little bit more for film than fusion when he does the reenactments so you could do them if you have time just to get a few different sequence shots with us for fusion but it's nice because it allows me to get different shots myself. For example, I mentioned there's a silhouette there as well as theirs regularly exposed one, so I voted to do the regular exposed one right exposed for the groom's face. But now, since we're doing this again, I'm going to stay on this side, which will be out of rob's way and I will get the silhouette shot instead. So it's kind of nice when you re enact things as long as the bride and groom don't mind and they usually don't, um, that way I can get additional shots and a lot of great things for their album, for my client as well. And honestly if you're forjust a fusion piece I mean the first two shots that I did the one that we did from the front with dawn walking up behind him and then the actual reveal shot when he turned and saw her and we were on the mount upon those two shots alone would have been great for vision piece we're just taking it to a new level and I know some people out there want to see me use this so they want to see the toys right so I'm just gonna use like groom here's a focus just get my light here so you're focusing about how many feet there's probably gonna be somewhere you know try not to shoot two shall I want to be about three five at I'm gonna bump my eyes a little bit just because I want to get more of a shutter speed in their fiftieth of a second it three five eight hundred on the and I'm focusing about three feet three and a half feet from my subject and that's pretty much where I'm going to stay when you know when the bride walks in so at this point on we're going back out I have my bride walk up again and while he's doing that I'm going to get my exposure for the silhouette so I've warmed up a bit I'm fifty eight hundred right now which is matt to more of what's going on outside and I like to boost my aperture when I'm doing so what's it just makes them sharper, so I'm at five point and still at one hundred on my shutter speed and five hundred I know that may have been a little hard to hear a throb talking to, so I'm gonna I'm going to repeat that for you guys five hundred on the I s o again, my aperture is up at five point out because I want to sharpen look on silhouette and my shutter is that one hundred don't start walking up. That was beautiful. Good. Okay, so you take three steps forward one, two, three and you're gonna do the exact same thing you did before you're just gonna walk up to him. So what I'm doing here is I'm staging her in position so she's, exactly at that distance that I need her to be checked my exposure, make sure we're good and I'm going to have a walk up to him, so go ahead, don't do the same thing you just did for him, it's maintaining an equal distance here go right up, and that would be it. I'm happy, I just got a beautiful slider, beautiful glide cam shot, and I've got two really nice loft down mono pod shots, actually three because we did, too, from the first angle, right? So that worked out really great. I'm I'm thrilled, and at this point, we would just thank them for being so cooperative. So thank you for being so cooperative.