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Lesson Info

Efficiency and Q&A

people look at this work and the first question is let is everything posed and staged and set up and why did they say that because everything looks too good right generally when it looks too good to be true they just automatically assume all must be posed this is all set up I can't set up anything on the wedding day you know I mean I don't set up ceremony and speeches and first first looks and first answers and all that stuff the only thing I can do is to try to control and the things that I can't control are what I'm telling you bride preparations not controlling what's happening because I'm not a makeup are so I'm not going to tell her how to apply the makeup or anything like that I'm just controlling where that situation that's going to happen anyways where it actually happens that's what I do I just I just control where it's gonna happen that's it because everything that happens is unplanned I can't even I can't even direct because I don't even know what they're doing or what's gon...

na happen you know if they're going to exchange gifts I don't even know who's going to bring the gift over I just know that they're exchanging it if the bride's going to right a note to the groom I could just film it I can't say like okay write this and this going is going to look good if you write this you know I already have the word scripted and whatever happens happens and I can't I can't pose that I can't direct that I can only control the environment where that's gonna happen that's if that's what's considered pose then yes you know we pose but it's not posed its control just remember that it's just it's just controlling it's controlling uh area that that stuff is gonna happen we'll talk about this be efficient as possible always remember this we need a lot of content for these films a lot of content you have to think fast sometimes and you have to visualize when you're shooting because how many of us are doing how many of us get in the habit and they had it to do a little mini sequences where we kind of pieced together shots to make it look like there was more than one camera in the room when there really wasn't we all do it so you have to kind of visualize sometimes in and you're you're almost piecing together this puzzle in your mind like okay I have this medium I have to piece it together with this maybe like a like a wider shot or a tighter shot or a macro shot just to just to create that little mini sequence that I'm trying to produce for the film so sometimes you just have to sometimes just have the visualize now when we talk about control I want to get into later on today we're going to talk about first looks first looks are very important to us why number one again we can control where it happens we're going to control the first look like we're not going to tell we're going to tell the bride and groom how to react when they see each other because that would just be fake we can just control where it's gonna happen and remember you want something where there's even light always you know when we talk about lighting always don't just look for light because most of the light that were dealt on a wedding day is what type of light hard light harsh light you know it's it's twelve o'clock light one o'clock two o'clock three o'clock four o'clock five o'clock magic hour is happens one last hour of the day right that beautiful lighting either in the morning which I don't want to get up that early but hopefully it's like a sunset situation where it's like literally the last hour of light during the day so most of the day you're dealt nasty harsh light hard light that cast hard shadows and things like that um you know so it's not that flattering really too to the couple or the image itself so you're always looking for a nice soft light it and sometimes you can do that sometimes you do that you know it's an overcast day you have a nice bed of soft white and things like that but sometimes if you're in kabul mexico there's no clouds you know there's just that orange eagle in the sky killing you so here's uh here's a sample of a first look situation and ah first look I could feel myself and we'll get into um actually camera positions and all that for first looks later on but I just want oh I want to show you this so you can see that nothing is even it's not pose it's not set up it's not directed it's just you're you're really controlling the environment that these things were gonna happen and later on we'll also take a look at some actual first looks from different camera positions so you can get a good idea of what the lighting should be like in all angles because like that if you're if you're shooting a first look from like two three different angles all two or three different angle should have nice even lighting you know or some good lighting that you could work with so this is this this is ah one camera angle from the front and a bright here had a long walk she had a long walk and this is all just raw footage so I have her there I know I have a shot from there and then here I'm going to move and this is just all raw footage there's a lot of moving around because I know she's coming around the corner now so now I'm gonna create another shot instead of just keeping this one shot on the groom the entire two minutes that it took her to walk up you want to compose their she comes around the corner I pan up and now I have another shot and then I'm gonna rack focus here and then I have another shot and then I can rack focus back to her then I have another shot so this whole time I'm just creating content and right there I probably have another shot you know so every now moving don't just stay there don't get tunnel vision like oh my god I can only stay in this one position move around because you're trying to create all these different shots and all the while I have a side camera that's static that has the entire sequence title you know this is just an active camera I'll have a static camera that's just kind of capture everything as it unfolds but I'm able to cut back to this active camera when I can and post so now we'll look at it uh in a second here we'll look at it cleaned up well a shot so this is all raw and now we cleaned up the shots and now you can almost count how many different shots we have we have one they released we have two three four five six seven eight even nine ten and we're not going to use all these shots imposed but we have it in our arsenal and I can cut I cut all these shots together with my white shot that was just static the whole time that's uh so we end up with and this is not even including the audio that they spoke this was just the shots okay but I have all these shots is just visual iconic so when I get in when I talk about um highlights you know producing highlights or trailers or films I could use half these shots in the trailer and half the shots in the main feature and they looked entirely entirely different like it's the same event but they look entirely different questions that was awesome cool that was fantastic really great so I want to take it to our in studio and if you guys have any questions now's a good time perfect then they dio great have one suspect everyone's asking the same thing how how did you deal with the dress that fell the one that hunk is I mean I'm too scared to even moved the plates to esau always a bridesmaid or someone today so you didn't see me moving the bride's dress assuming that you were part of that yeah you just re hang it I mean here's the reality the bride sure is going to get dirt on the day obviously you don't want to destroy the bride's dress that was kind of unexpected it was kind of like a joke clip that I put in there trust me we didn't mean to uh kind of drop address but but things will happen you know think yeah would you explain but if you had to would you say something to the braid or would you just the book that this restaurant faces fade away because there was no there was no dirt on the dress and generally like well we'll pick a spot whereas if it did fall it wasn't like mud or water or anything like that you know so definitely common sense applies like when you're dealing with a bride shoes you know like if she has a twenty thousand dollar pair of shoes and you're in a high rise maybe don't want to be hanging off the balcony for a shot you know things like that or her rings you know doing a ring shot like right on the edge of a balcony um yeah but there's been trust me I've heard worse horror stories where brides rings have been lost you know doing creative shots and things like that and dresses have been set on fire and you know they were too close to a candle and you know it kind of caught on fire not one of my weddings but there are horror stories out there you know so yeah I like really like the point you made about editing makes you a better shooter because I've noticed I'm still doing just stills but I know the moment I shifted to really wanted to focus on album layouts doing that similarly helped me my big question you were saying earlier you don't do the eye piece is obviously to miss the periphery but in a lot of these even the prep there's a moving camera plus a moving subject and you still get that tack sharp focus it's kind of impressed by that I don't know how how I would begin to achieve that is itjust practiced or do you just practice and sometimes hears only thing you're looking for is what we talked about before was a three to five second rule in in the edit honestly I just need two to three seconds so it's two to three seconds that aeryn focus sometimes you get lucky and you hit you nail it you know and sometimes maybe just end up with a second or two you know but you're just looking for that two to three seconds maybe maybe that air just like tax sharpened focus and a lot of it sometimes is just it's practicing the movement like like you saw that string of brought a prop shots I cut out so much like a fight if I got left with a hundred shots maybe like forty shots were no good so even in the bridal prep you don't use like a lens hood or any of that kind of coming it's just literally it's a cameron amount of pot I don't use any additional gear the only additional here that I would uses the camera microphone if I want to start recording some some natural audio thank you yeah you're a first look are you always only shooting up by herself no I'll generally if I have somebody else with me and generally jessica's with me and what she started doing recently was and we'll take a look at the first look that way did to get it together recently we'll leave the side camera kind of static I'll be the main angle and should be with a mono pod off to one side maybe just looking for an interesting shot you know maybe shooting through some foreground or some shrubbery or some greens things like that just things to kind of add content and add interest to the shots but but generally I could shoot I've shot a first look for myself with no problem you know because you have a static camera which is going to cover you the whole time it's not going to move let me tell you something static cameras are better than second shooters number one yeah on serious number one they're free they remember when they're free number two they never move and for a wedding dave you think about it most times that you have a camera set up your bridegroom's not moving and the camera's not moving so why do you even want you once you're in focus and you've set your composition why do you even need an operator there you're having an operator there on ly puts you in a situation where now they might fiddle with the camera they might fiddle with your solid shot so in the main shot when I was kind of like transitioning from shots shot if I had a second shooter there and he fiddled the camera when I needed him to be solid then I kind of like you know I tell you sometimes and we'll talk about this when we get into life shooting the ceremony and reception sometimes it's better just to have nobody than toe have somebody static camera is better than most second shooters I'll tell you most people at home and here we'll we'll agree that at some point you you've dealt with some foot footage where you just kind of wished there was no operator behind the camera you just wish it was just left alone and remain static yeah I had a quick question about when you were talking about preps and you were doing some of the close ups of the brides in the stylist how do you deal with talking heads where the bride or the stylist just will not stop talking and you know sometimes you don't want the lips moving because you're not going to use the audio and I've got to get all of them I get it all the time and and sometimes I have to redo shot so many times because I'm just waiting for the moment where you know cause I can't tell him hey can you be quiet can you not have a conversation with a bride sometimes you get makeup artist that just talk entirely too much you know so but I just I've never encountered a situation where I've told them toe like be quiet I even have one in south for she is a chatterbox on guy still find the the room to at least get a couple seconds worse she has to breathe you know like inhale because you literally see your eyes it's like nonstop so I get what you're saying I don't like thea I don't like the chatterbox either especially when I'm doing candid shots of the couple or maybe like some visual eye candy shot of the bride I would just tell her I said I said I don't need you talking really just kind of be happy you know being happy smile with your eyes things like that but but I don't really I'm not going to use the parts where you're talking because the viewer of your films not gonna be able to see what you're saying so it's always best just to kind of you know just be happy enjoy each other interact and things like that but try not to talk too much you know especially like if they're if they're walking down a pathway and walking back things like that you're just trying to get the candid emotions on sometimes you want to have a conversation like oh my god you know this and that and dave's here you know we were out drinking and this all right all these things that you're not going to see in the film or you're not going to be able to hear in the film but you're gonna be able to see these malls movie it really is I think disruptive to the flow of the film so I'll always tell him in that situation but during perhaps I just kind of I let it flow you know let it flow and hopefully but like my my tenth wasted shot I get a shot of them you know not talking yeah yeah