As many of you know I (Lee Morris) am a professional wedding photographer. I was never a big fan of wedding videos until I saw the work that StillMotion was putting out. Even if you hate weddings you can appreciate what they do simply from an artistic standpoint. Even though I loved their work, I actually found it discouraging because I knew I could never do their style of video as well as they could so I never tried to film a wedding.
I had the idea for over a year of shooting a wedding video similar to how I shoot stills. If I could slow down the video enough I could deal with basically a moving image, something that I felt a lot more comfortable with. It finally worked out that Patrick Hall had a wedding on a day that I was free and 3 days before the wedding I ran the idea by the bride and then called my buddy Mike to see if he wanted to help me film it. Check out the finished product below and the walk-through after that.
Cameras Used:
Canon 60D
Canon T2i
Panasonic AF100
Lenses Used:
Tamron 17-55mm 2.8 VC
Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS
Canon 200mm f2
Canon 16-35mm 2.8
Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95
Panasonic 7-14mm F4
Panasonic 14-140 f4-5.8
Other Gear:
Cinevate Atlas Slider
Photoflex Starlite
Ebay LED Panel
I did a voice over of the video and tried to explain how we shot the project.
If you prefer Youtube you can see the video here.
Hi guys great vids but i must say that i didnt like that it was all B&W, at the first 1 for example i was watching it and when they kiss i just thougt that it would be amazing if from the lips starts to be at color and from that moment on the all video was in color, with some matching music to really make the momento decisive.
Sry my english keep on the amazing work.
Well I've had a vision for this to be black and white for a long time I didn't want people to get distracted by bright colors (like guests in the background). I also think that had I done this in color it would have looks really cheap because I would have struggled to keep a consistent white balance. That is one thing that StillMotion seems to do very well and I'm not sure how they pull that off in dark churches. Also, BW hides noise in high ISO and since much of this was shot at 6400 ISO it really helped out.
I know what you mean totally get it, i'm not even saying it would work well just that i would like to see if it will work, but is not a project to do with so little time as you did, great nevertheless.
Having it flow into all color in one moment? That would have really cheapened the elegance of this video, I think. It almost reminds me of the moms that always ask for dated shots.... "can you make the image black and white and then just make her eyes blue, and the flowers red." That never plays out as anything but cheesy, and the image would suffer for it. I dread those suggestions. This is far more elegant and moving. Changing the dynamic midstream would have just disrupted the flow of the emotion. The consistency keeps you drawn in to the moment without being distracted by cheap parlor tricks.
Plus, keeping that consistent black and white, I would imagine really brightened the church scenes and kept it more visually appealing. Churches never seems to have that beautiful flow of natural light we crave. Beautiful brides, but always horrible lighting!
A great video lee, so inspiring to watch and a joy to view, very well done, looking forward to seeing more.
rob
Freakin-ey... I told myself to never cry again. Damn you Lee! Damn you!!!!
Tears are the best compliment for these type of thing :)
This is your first attempt Lee? I would say it is a resounding success. Well done!
Thank ya!
Absolutely amazing! Well done Lee!
Wow! Stunning! :D
really great work. a new standard in my book.
Nice job Lee! I don't even know those people and that video almost made me cry (figuratively speaking). That bride was mad hott by the way.. anyways. nicely done.. It was done so it almost looked staged.. which means it was pretty damn good.
F@#$% Lee! You're amazing dude!
I was talking with a great Wedding Photog from Chicago last week and asking about his thoughts oveer the industry for the future, once, SO saturated of newbies (like me) being pushing our prices levels so low because the lack of experience, besides the camera gears are getting so cheap. Anyways ... the conversation ended in a "crossroad" to keep pursuing our passion but at the same time bringing home the money necessary for our kids' food ... rent ... new gear ... And he start to tell me about how FUSION (something that other big name in NYC - Groupp - is doing for while, but in his own style) will take place from "just" stills or "just" videos. "Probably" he said "it will be THE thing ... the request from the customers ... in 5 years".OK ... let's change the name of your blog for F(uture)Continuum once you guys didn't "stop" anything but go beyond, bringing 5 years from the future to happen now. Is Butterfly Effect YOUR non-authorized bio?????Amazing dude ... amazing.
Very kind of you Carlos. I've never advertised myself as a wedding videographer but I may try with this unique video style. I had a great time filming it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/gregsvideodotcom
Truly amazing Lee. I love how you told their entire story in 5 minutes. For sure a video they will be rewatching over and over again!
beautiful and different...it's been a while since we had an fstoppers original...
I personally think you just created a niche/signature for yourself and i look forward to see how it's going to evolve.
What shutter speeds were you shooting at? It has to be higher to achieve this slow motion loo right?
Our goal was to shoot as fast as possible to give Twixtor clean frames to work with. Some of the stuff was shot at 1/60 but I would say our average SS was over 1/200
Lee this is the point when inspiration crosses over to exasperation ... STOP IT ALREADY! ;-P
I wasn't sure the slow motion would work for a full length video, but surprisingly, I really liked it. It's definitely shot from a still photographer's pov, gives you more of a feel of the moment rather than rushing through the entire scene. And I love the black and white, works fantastic here. If I could, I'd shoot everything in black and white. Maybe you should throw in a few tilt-shift shots next time - give it that time-less feel. And it doesn't hurt that Mike has all those toys, huh??? Great job Lee!
When Lee says Mike has everything, he means everything! If you ever need to rent pro gear for pro projects in charleston, Mike is your man.
Nice wedding video Lee, i like the concept of black & white.. i was wondering about the compression file of the videos because 2 canon hdslr with compression video file of H.264 and 1 AF100 i guess the compression is AVCHD did you use mpeg streamclip before importing to Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro?
Uhhhgg I'm really not technical with that stuff. I just dropped them into premeire and started editing
its alright, it doesn't matter.. the video resolution looks good.. well the thing is when dropping the clip to the time line with different compressions it will drop a few frame rates of the video.
oh, i like the video... Great job Lee.
Hi Lee
Great as a Wedding photographer/Filmmaker myself i see the value you give to the Bride how long will it be in final and i wonder what makes you took the canon 60d over the nikon d7000 you seemed to have ?
Canon can shoot at 60fps, nikon can't. I WISH I could have used my own gear.
Score one for Canon! :)
Good job Lee and nice music choice (bet that took some time to choose!)
Carl
What I like about this video is the fact that there
aren't any 'filling in" shots, "Fast & Furious"
overkill editing and/or "I'm so pro" lame grading
... every shot describes a relevant
step in the lovely/dreadful process of getting
married and I like the fact that I have time
to digest what I'm watching without feeling
that I'm missing out on something, just to find
out when watching it back that I wasn't really
missing out... I was just tricked by an epileptic
editor..
If you could carry out a heart transplant in
a stills camera it would pretty much look like
this video
Look forward to see more of your videos !
Fantastic, awesome job Lee
Fantastic work Lee! The slower speed and overdubbed music really gives it more of a photographic effect ather than that of a standard video! Awesome!
Holy wow Lee!! That is fantastic!! Such a great idea, and your execution was amazing!!! Really impressed.
Awesome! But how did you stabile your shots that weren't on the slider? Did you use a stabiliser or is it all a steady hand and is/vc?
I own a steadicam but I didn't bring it. Everything was hand held or on the slider. Except for the 200mm kiss shot of course.
Do you have any tips for handholding while filming and focusing? Perhaps you could do a video on filming techniques, including hand-held while focusing?
BRAVO!!!! BRAVO!!!! WONDERFUL!!! LOVED IT!!!
excellent work man! yes the grain was present, but sometimes that's what adds a little more realistic to the footage. 5 stars!
Awesome, Awesome!! Totally Awesome!! What frame size of jpeg did you use?? Will try it soon with my D3.
You may have just inspired a photographer to try video, absolutely awesome. And the beauty of it is how simple you make it look. Also, I've never watched my own wedding video because I can here my voice in it - it's a simple thing but I've always said that if I ever did try video I'd deliver it like this with just a soundtrack. Whether I could ever produce this quality of work is another thing entirely!!
Stunning.
PS, I like the fact that you list the gear used too. I'll be following your goings on from now on, cheers
Great work, simply beautiful! Very clean and simple, yet powerful. It's not an easy task to capture and document a wedding, a lot of pressure to get it right and give the couple a lasting memory. I'd say you nailed it on all accounts.
When I first saw it, I thought it was done at 12FPS. I suppose with the EOS 1Dx or Sony A77, you can do this direct with burst of 12FPS of small jpegs and good primes. The Sony maybe quieter and less interruptive!!
I'm not sure how this would translate if you used images instead of video. I think you might want to use flash for usable sharp images in twixtor.
Beautiful, inspirational work! For me, the black & white combined with the slow motion is a defining characteristic of timeless beauty. This is -simple.beautiful.photography- in motion.
could not tell its your first wedding video work!! being fan of fstoppers i gotta say great job!
Nevertheless, being slow motion through the entire 5min or so may still be too much. very inspiring & looking forward to see your next attempt to capture the wedding moments in motion!
Very Nice! I love watching these short cinematic wedding "trailers" but is this the final product that would be given to the bride and groom, or is this something you would give in conjunction with a longer video? I think this makes a great promotional item for any wedding video business and a wonderful add in to a video package but I can't imagine it being the final product?
Again, very nice work!
Well I'm not a wedding videographer so I don't know if this will really work in the marketplace but yes, this is the finished product and I will not be creating a longer cut. It was nice being able to do whatever I wanted because I was not hired to do this so there were no expectations.
Understood! I've been doing wedding video for about 3yrs now and I see these short videos as a very strong promotional tool but I don't know if I could hand a five min video to a client without getting shot haha.. I've always been curious about how others use them though.
So I guess if there is anyone reading this that does wedding video, in what way do you use these short videos? As a promotional tool, part of a wedding package, or the final product?
Seems like it's all in the marketing. If you tell brides this is the type of video you deliver then you will only book those looking for this.
I kind of like this approach because I feel like I will give this bride too many photos (the gaps lee did not include) but those photos will never be printed probably. This video will be watched and show for a very long time.....who ever shows people their wedding video?