Lessons

Lesson Info

Editing Q&A and Adding Visuals

so when you're when you're building a film I mean your client it's it's for the bride and groom and and they know the story they know who's speaking but when you're building the film are you putting it together as if it's for people who have never seen did they weren't at the wedding I don't know if I'm explaining it right but um it's it sounds like you're you're building the film for people that haven't seen it that haven't that weren't at the wedding well bride and groom they know exactly who spoke they know exactly how it went down does that make sense it does in a sense but remember this the bride and the groom remember getting married but they don't remember any of the words that were spoken trust me if you ask them to remember one word that was spoken from the wedding reception they probably couldn't tell you but they will remember that the maid of honor spoke you know his father his father spoke her mom spoke the maid of honor and that's everything there they're going to remembe...

r the obvious but their new viewers to your film because here's the reality even when you watch one of these films did the wedding really happen that way they didn't at all if you just watched a wedding the way that it happened from beginning to end it probably wouldn't be that captivating right and be kind of long kind of dole it would have some very good spots but in the end it's probably not that great of a view it's probably not that captivating you know if use the the actual audio that was playing at a wedding ceremony or wedding reception and things like that it's probably just going to be vory unwatchable things like that you know very long very boring so really you're couple is going to be surprised even though there were the ones being married they're going to be surprised when they watch this thing back to this is gonna be the first time that they're like wow they said this about us because I don't remember you know they're sitting there and they're just captivated by the whole experience of getting married but they're not remembering anything they've never heard the sound trucks before you know once you laid on the soundtracks with the natural audio there just as blown away as you and you weren't even at the wedding that type of thing so at least I believe that they don't remember the words that were actually spoken at the wedding they only remember the obvious things that this person spoke that person spoke the actual words that they spoke you know like I had a wedding a week ago and the groom he toasted the bride it was the most beautiful words I've ever heard spoken about up bride by a groom and I can assure you if I asked that bride to like you know repeat some of the words I said she wouldn't remember the only thing that she remembered was that he gave this beautiful toast to her you know that type of thing so I don't think they remember little details like that especially it's just too much to remember you know that was just so much stuff going on at the wedding so I definitely think it's going to be surprised even for the bride and groom you know tan to your question I think it's going to be all new to your bridegroom that's everything and they generally are you know when they watch these films were just like oh my god that's just and and you guys have probably gone these comments before where there were like I don't remember that happening you know oh my god when did this happen you know things like that and they were there they just there's just too much stuff going on and that's why they hire you accept those memories to preserve all these memories for them exactly that right I have one more question I want to ask this is actually rodia are y k torres and pro photographer all wanted to know if the couple has a song in mind and you can find it on music bed we you always use the song that they would like you to use as long as you can find it or yeah well you say okay well here's the thing and it's just like we talked about before let's say you are the bride and you said I really love this house song it's my favorite song in the world right can you use it you can use it and then I just like listen you know that song is great to dance to but maybe for the visuals that we've recorded from your wedding it's just not going to fit and visually it's going to be so disrupted because of visuals just aren't going to match this house song or this freestyle song or whatever so I do get a lot of requests and I tell you I love getting requests from bright because I have found my best music from brides music that I'd never heard ofthe that was so unique and so cool and I was able to use so I definitely take suggestions and I tell them please suggest music because if I can't use one of the songs that they suggests at least I know what what genre of music there into or maybe if they select a song from particular artist maybe I can't use that song but I can use another song from the same artist and if it's perfectly that type of thing so there's always there's always some compromise there's some flexibility in there so I definitely love taking suggestions but I if I'm being honest eighty percent of the time I can't use the suggestions just because they don't fit the visuals and I love to use their suggestion because I know it's I know it's personal to them but it's also great to kind of expose them to this new music that they've never heard and how it fits their visuals and I gotta tell you something and this is god's honest truth even the last wedding I was that there's so many of my brides that get married where I'm sitting at the I'm sitting at the wedding and there's music from my films that are on my website playing for even the recessional the first dance songs and all this stuff so they take a lot of inspiration from your website I've heard this all the time you know music that was right on my website you know that was all new to them you know they just fell in love with her when they saw how it laid down with the visuals and the love and the words and all this they just fell in love with the music and now they used it for their own wedding and now it's easy because I just use that same music for their actual wedding foam and it's perfect so cool right that we have one more question before we move on to uh to return to the timeline that you've laid out for us this skeleton looks like it works really really well for a four minute film with one song how would you extrapolated this skeleton to be four times longer would it be this times four with four distinct songs or do employ new strategies in using half songs or um ambient instrumental dad's tie things together with your approach well we're deconstructing right now is a highlight film so what are we doing in the highlight film we're showing everything right in three or four minutes we're trying to show almost everything that happened at a wedding now with twenty minutes you need to spread that out over twenty minutes so instead of being all here and so short in duration maybe the actual natural audio is going to be a little bit longer right to narrate a little bit longer because now we need to start extending some things to fill that twenty minutes now what are what did it let me see if I can find it remember this sequence here I have to be able to show a lot more of this dialogue that was spoken during the wedding so I have I've got all this arsenal to pull from for the twenty minute film you know the little parts that I extracted were literally like two seconds long but for a twenty minute film that's just not going to fly you know they're going to want to hear a little bit more of a reading obviously there's going to be vows involved you know here we just had this reading that the couple did to each other the reason that the couple for each other but I never introduced the vows I never introduced the ring exchange I never introduced a lot of the beautiful words that the fishermen spoke and all these things I have to now introduce for the main feature you know this twenty minute film and you know when I say a twenty minute film it's just because it's our average you know our averages eighteen to twenty minutes for us but we've had films there were thirty seven minutes long and they're every bit as compelling if not more than this three or four minute film because you're really being connected to the entire wedding like you're feeling this entire experience of the entire wedding day you know this thirty seven minute film it was a three day indian wedding you know so I tell clients I said look there's no rule in the length of film the on ly rule that I have is that the film is interesting from the beginning to the end as soon as you start to run out of content the film has to come to an end that's just the way that it is and that's how we kind of approach that but twenty minutes is generally are average you know for for just a regular wedding you know nothing out of the box no two three hour ceremonies no two to three day events it's generally about eighteen to twenty minutes just for us I know some studios that are even fifteen minutes or twelve minutes or even thirty minutes or forty five minutes just it really depends on your deliver bols and what your client is expecting to receive but I'll give you some advice um and I've learned from this if your contract states that you're kind of obligated contractually to deliver thirty to forty five minutes or twenty to thirty minutes or twenty five or thirty five minutes or sixty minutes or ninety minutes or whatever I would highly suggest that you take that stuff out of your contracts because by telling them how long the film's going to be what are we doing before we've even filmed the wedding and know what we're what we're gonna have to work with what we're doing we're making a prediction right without known anything about what's going to actually happen on the wedding day we're saying no matter what happens no matter of nobody speaks at your wedding mill matter there's not even a reception in the end I'm still going to give you a sixty minute film so you're kind of putting yourself in a bad position there because now you're gonna have to produce a sixty minute film and how's the film going to be it's probably be very long drawn out and very very boring so I've totally got away with that I used to do the times you know I had the times in the contract where was you know twenty minutes you know twenty to thirty minutes twenty five minutes to forty five minutes things like that like a range but trust me it always came back to bite me you know because even though I would deliver a beautiful twenty minute film you know you always have one that says you know what my contract says forty five minutes I want the rest that's the thing so if I could give you any advice you know from things that I've learned from just don't have a time limit in there because we just can't predict what's gonna happen on the wedding day so we can't predict how long the film's going to leave without even having film the wedding day yet and I tell clients and they completely understand so really it's just about educating the client you know just let them know say because they're going to ask how long is the film going to be on paying all this money how long is the film going to be and I tell him and it's usually the parents I said ma'am I haven't filmed the wedding I don't even know what's gonna happen on the wedding how can I make a prediction on the length of the film and now they get it they're like okay I can understand that I can live with that but if you don't explain that maybe now there's gonna be an expectation at the end you know and this same conversations that I have with you guys about content that we need content for the film I explained that to them listen I need content for this film I want to educate these clients as much as possible because in the end there's going to be an expectation is are they expecting a short film a longer film of mid range film do they understand about content when it runs out like the film has to come to an end I need them to understand this so we can avoid any types of problems in the end when they received just had a really quick question he said use music bed for your audio uh do you have any other resource is you views I've just have found songs that that would be awesome to fit up a wedding and they're not on music bed or any of the standard music services do you have any other resource is that you turn to to find music that's maybe not in those services they have quite a few I mean they have ah music bed which tends to be very popular they also have song freedom they have triple scoop music you know so there's and there's a there's a few of them out there you just have to look there's there's even other theirs music production sites that's so license music that I've used in the past for corporate commercial work so you just have to search out there it's very difficult when you're talking about licensed music because it's just very difficult to find those songs and most of the music that plays at a wedding is not licensed and if an honest and I tell you this if you follow the let letter of the law as it relates to copyright protected music you're not even allowed to record the copyright protected music that plays at a wedding reception so as wedding cinematographers were placed in a very difficult situation because you have all this copyright protected music playing at a wedding reception which technically by law you're not even allowed to record that so it's it's difficult for us you know it's it's very difficult for us we're big believers here could've live in purchasing your songs it's very very important in an industry to teach us lessons music yeah all this music is licensed through music bad talk calm music dot com so yeah it's such a great selection all yourself it's really good yeah it's really good and it is really a great resource just sometimes you may run into ah little bit of a jam if you have a situation where maybe had a famous singer come in to sing at the wedding reception and all his music is copyright music maybe the client doesn't want to hear you know music that music dubbed over that actual performance so you know we are placed in a very difficult situation sometimes but I tell you this especially coming from a law enforcement background if you can do things legally you know certainly try to do things legally when you can yeah all right and that concludes our talk on copper protective we're going teo way have one ahead and drops my candy on top of these words that were spoken and we'll take a look now we haven't color corrected these shots there's been no color grading or anything like that we're just going to take a look at the shots that we've chosen too put on top of this natural audio and the only thing that we've done is basically going to our sequences where we have bride perhaps groom preps you know letter writing candids procession and all this and we've just laid this footage on top of these beautiful words that are being spoken warren can you believe the big day is finally here can't begin to tell you just how happy I am to become your husband don't tell you this often but sometimes I have to pinch myself because I can't seem to believe just how lucky I feel I feel like I've run some giant lottery life throughout everything we've been through you now very important and this and this is really what you have to be on your toes this groom here he was he was writing this letter we don't even know about the letter he was going to write this letter and and he chased me down like after the first look and he said I really want to read this letter to lauren I really want you to record me reading this letter tau lauren and I was like oh my god that's going to be perfect because this guy he's already in the zone you know and that's the beauty of not setting things up because when you set things up there things that aren't natural but this guy naturally was just chasing me down he says hey if you get a chance can you just record me reading this letter to lauren well jessica she was on her toes when she was in group perhaps and she got the whole process of this guy actually reading writing this letter and he was so emotional he's just wiping tears and tears are flowing I mean this guy and he poured his heart out the whole wedding on this groom was amazing for film you know it just makes the film that much more compelling but luckily she had this footage and when he was going to write the letter she told me she says you know I could get some shots of you write in this letter as she did you know so just imagine if she kind of just focused on him getting dressed and then she left you know but she was there while he was in the midst of writing this letter and now we now we have this footage that we can now connect with actual letter reading that he did to the bride and as you can see here he's wiping tears he's very emotional and it's and it's almost a cz if she's not in the room you're not even thinking about jessica being in the room when you're watching these shots and it's very important because like I told you the last two days you should never really do anything that draws attention to you the videographer you know you never want the viewer to think off the videographer you just want them to be so connected it consumed by this beautiful story that they never think about you it's just how lucky I feel I feel like I've won some giant lottery life throughout everything we've been through you've always reminded me of what's important in life can't imagine anyone who makes me feel the way I do when I see you walk through the front door after a long day it's like you like tyra um suddenly everything is okay wait so you see when the um you see when the music started you see what we did we started establishing the location right because we're in napa it's a pretty cool place so now we start establishing the location and then from here the only thing that we're doing is we're going right into broad approach shots right grow up shots for me to find love thank you for precession first look more professional in a morning and then into the reception so you'll notice the footage that we've laid on top it's it's very linear a ce faras the day that happened you know bright preps grown perhaps first look's procession on and then the reception you know the ceremony then the reception in this case we're actually held some of that the ceremony stuff towards it end so that's kind of like the one thing that you didn't see actually see in the film was the ceremony portion because we saved that towards the end he kind of just close it out but all the rest of the footage that you're saying is all very much the way that it happened um in terms of the day so I've done that now what's what's the problem you know we've got we've got all this content laid across our music what's our issue now we've we're we've played everything back the footage looks great the content that we've laid on top looks great it really mesh is well with the ah song what's the next task to do once we're kind of content with r r ruff added here I guess a level audio exactly we can start we can start fine tuning the film we can start correcting audio issues that might have happened maybe we have some some home or some buzz or some hiss that we want to remove from our audio um what else do we do because this is kind of like the refining stage he'd move onto color grading color color correction right are there some issues here there's some issues that you guys have been able to see visually maybe cameras don't match up okay we're gonna we're gonna work with some clips here I want you to take a look at the at the first look do you have some problems what's the problem there there was a few shots with the underexposed exactly so we've got some shots that looked properly exposed underexposed maybe a little bit warmer a little bit cooler color temperatures offering things like that so there's going to be situations where even though you're trying to shoot everything perfectly maybe it was just a little bit off things like that um underexposed camera here is an unmanned camera so really it's an unmanned camera that's not adjusting for exposures and things like that so any time you're shooting with two three cameras definitely try to match up as best you can while you're shooting but sometimes you just don't have the time to sit there and try to get everything sunk up things just happen andi just have to deal with a situation and hopefully it's not shot so bad toe where you're gonna have a lot of problems in post production but here the problem that you have here is you have two or three different angles that all look different exposures all look different so what happens it disrupts the flow of the film that disrupts the one thing that we didn't want to dio disrupts the flow of the film and now maybe they're thinking like oh well this camera looks different from this camera maybe there was more than one videographer there that's not the thing so remember now it's drawing attention to the videographer instead of just flowing it's now drawing attention to to us go uh do you color correct with the end final cut seven or da vinci right and final cut seven do you want to see that okay um uh yep there's somebody question okay I thought you raise your hand okay another thing I wanted to show you was um okay so you'll notice especially for the procession the procession is one of those areas where I always see jump cuts in the edit and jump cuts are definitely visually disruptive to a film jump cuts that have kind of like the same the same scenario same composition and same type of thing going on and you'll see that here how we kind of covered that because you have a procession and what happens there in a procession it's one person after another but what happens is if you just show one camera same composition of everybody in the broader party doing a procession it just can become visually disruptive to the flow of the film because it's just it just creates so many different jump cuts so what I'd like to do is I like to allow for for passage of time especially for procession so what we'll do is we will go from a shot like you have here of the groom and then we'll jump teo a reaction shot because now what have we done we've allowed for a little bit of passage of time now the viewer has digested that information of the groom coming by he's like okay oh now we go to a shot of the parent's reaction and maybe there's somebody else now female and from here we're jumping to the first look right and now by the time we go back to another bridesmaid doing the procession it's after the first look sequence so visually it's not so disruptive as having just everybody in the I brought a party lined up in your head it and just you know using that one camera angle it just it ends up creating so many different jump cuts that it's just it's really visually disruptive to the film so this is why you should always have something that allows for passage of time even when the bride and the groom are finishing with bright props and groom perhaps you don't want to go from maybe you know a shot of the bride getting her dress by a window it's all of a sudden her walking into the first look you know you just you want allow foursome passage of time you know maybe cut to some details or some location shots or a procession and then jump into that first hook which is what we did here essentially you know we showed some procession some reaction shots and now you're seeing the first look which visually it's it's visually pleasing so I you know it's not so disruptive to the film and this one is from kobe does ray adds sounds to his films like people clapping or birds chirping and I'll add on for myself do you do any of your own fully work that's very good question because I'll show you some right now in the senate do you guys remember um a sound effects in this film the train absolutely knife so the train was an actual um ah so yes we do we use the one in the senate so is a great question at a great time awesome and you and you and just cover do your own like create your own like people want like just your own going out or recording myself yeah that's too much work okay because there's so much available yeah online right yeah person even built into ah lot of editors alright have sound effects folders and things like that so awesome I'm generally just able to find sound effects a lot of them come with like adobe edition you know your editor you know some other software programs that I have it just it comes bundled with a folder full of sound effects so I've always been able to even people applause ing I've always been able to look into my computer and my my benz and find exactly what I was looking for yeah and if I can just there's there's definitely plenty of all my resources to download any type of song I was I can't find the person's name that someone had asked where did when did ray have a fine time to go down to the train tracks and videotaped train going by oh yeah no you know I tell you that in you have to maximize destination weddings you know if your article location and one thing about us we never used to travel ever and I use a man really really cool to maybe go to new york and film a wedding in new york and then what happens is like we got one wedding in new york I ended it I put it on the block and then another new york client came so I want you to feel my wedding too in new york and I think what happens is if they never see any destination work on your website they automatically assume that you're just a local wedding videographer and they think that maybe you don't travel maybe you don't do destination work and things like that because now if you go to my website you're going to notice probably like eighty ninety percent of the films are all destination work I mean there's like there's two or three local weddings and the rest are all destination and we can't stop traveling now it's ah it's amazing you know we love it you know we love to travel andi love to create these beautiful unique film because what happens when you're always filling at the same locations you just kind of you know you just kind of they become dull even in south florida and you have beautiful beaches you have some beautiful venues but it just becomes kind of repetitive you know you're at these venues you know every every week or every other week so it's always cool to goto a unique location and one of things that we try to do is show up a day early not only to scout but also get some nice establishing a location shots this stuff helps you because sometimes on the wedding day you don't have time to go out and get these location and these establishing shots so it allows you to kind of breathe easy and really get creative with a location shots if you do it the day before where there's no pressure there's no timeline there's no schedule that there's no clock that you're trying to fight on dh that's why we don't you know we try to get these things great location shots wherever we go I saw the shots that you did in bali indonesia and actually that was the one that was in bali indonesia I wanted a shot of the temples that was the thing and there is only one spot to get the shot of the temple which was like five hours away and I wanted to get a sunrise to so literally I went from the end of the wedding day on saturday night and we just started driving because I had to catch the sunrise so and it was all worth it as you could see you know those shots of the temples and things like that because it really kind of symbolized where we're at but where the actual wedding was there was no temples or anything like that it was there was nothing that really told you hey there in valley you know here's the temples in all this there was nothing around there so literally had to take the truck and if I wanted that shot I had teo take a little drive by was rough it was rough