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Home: Video University Forums: Wedding & Event Videography:
My Very First WDE

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Bauerjoe
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Mar 30, 2008, 3:08 PM

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My Very First WDE	Can't Post

I finally got the nerve to try a wedding day edit yesterday(same day edit for most of you). It was a frustrating experience. I thought I was all set. I picked out the music and put down markers for all of the shots I needed early.Then fate stepped in--It snowed all day Thursday so I couldn't get the outside venue shots I had planned. When we got to the church yesterday, the groom was grumpy, so we got very little groom prep. The 3 hour window for editing quickly became 2 hours when the limo left everyone at the church(!?)..to get gas or a snack..I don't know why!-maybe I should have just nixed my usual limo shot?
But the biggest frustration was trying to find the clips that I wanted as I scanned forward and backward in the camera. I thought I knew approximately where everything was, but I kept going too far and then backing up too fast..etc. AARGH!!! Mad

I did finish it, but since it was a freebie and they didn't pay for(nor want) projection, I just put it on a 24" LCD in the corner. It got a decent audience over the course of the night (probably half to two-thirds of the 500 in attendance) . We got a few favorable comments, but no oohs and aahhs. I think the impact was lessened because of the small screen and difficulty hearing the audio in the large hall with a DJ and band blasting away! If I try it again, I'm going to have to change my approach. Trying to capture clips from tape to edit just didn't work for me.

Here's the link, if anyone's inclined to look: www.yesterdays-memories.blogspot.com

Joe
Joe Bauer

Yesterdays Memories Films
artistic cinematography

glimmer
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 3:59 PM

Post #2 of 36 (592 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

I do all of mine via hard drives and soon to be CF cards, but when I've done some with tape, I hire an extra person to do nothing but take tapes and capture the footage. That way when I go to edit, everything is right there. I usually have 2-3 other people to help with stuff.

JC/DV
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 4:01 PM

Post #3 of 36 (591 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Nice job Joe! Much better than my first one!!!! The next one will be easier.

Jerome
JC/DV Productions - Website - Blog

Technology. It does wonders if you know how to use it.

Scott S
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Mar 30, 2008, 4:10 PM

Post #4 of 36 (584 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

There's another thread on here about finding footage... I will be testing out the index thing in the next week or so.
Cheers,
Scott

2ndMile
Enthusiast

Mar 30, 2008, 4:13 PM

Post #5 of 36 (583 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Not bad for your first one. They do get easier.

To get semi-comfortable doing the SDE you really need to learn to go with the flow. It sounds like your pre-planning may have hurt you a little by causing frustration. If you don't get a shot or something doesn't happen as planned, forget it and move on.

Also, to get the ohhhs and aahhhhhs make sure you are putting in the shots that have a lot of emotion behind them. It didn't look like a very emotional couple and that makes it difficult.

Keep it up! Once you do them for a while, a wedding day without one feels so boring and slow.

Brian Morris
2ndMile Blog

Bauerjoe
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Mar 30, 2008, 4:23 PM

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Re: [glimmer] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

That's the direction I'm thinking of. Trying to capture via tape just adds too much time.

Joe
Joe Bauer

Yesterdays Memories Films
artistic cinematography

Bauerjoe
User

Mar 30, 2008, 4:24 PM

Post #7 of 36 (576 views)
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Re: [JC/DV] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks, Jerome. I'm going to have to rethink the process before I try again.

Joe
Joe Bauer

Yesterdays Memories Films
artistic cinematography

Bauerjoe
User

Mar 30, 2008, 4:25 PM

Post #8 of 36 (572 views)
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Re: [Scott S] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Scott,
What's the 'index thing'?
Joe Bauer

Yesterdays Memories Films
artistic cinematography

Bauerjoe
User

Mar 30, 2008, 4:29 PM

Post #9 of 36 (568 views)
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Re: [2ndMile] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Brian,
It wasn't the planning that caused the problem. I DID move on and use a changed block of clips. That's why there's no groom prep in the video. It was capturing from tape that caused all the frustration. That...and the time constraints. I'm not sure I can take that kind of pressure on a regular basis.

Thanks for your comments,
Joe
Joe Bauer

Yesterdays Memories Films
artistic cinematography

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 4:31 PM

Post #10 of 36 (566 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

I do them from tape exclusively. Keep a shot list in your pocket and right down the timecodes of the shots as you get them. Then at capture time just go to those spots. Works for me everytime.

In another SDE thread DGates brought up the idea of using the Index feature in the camera. I tried it here at home and recorded a whole bunch of index marks onto a tape. Then used the camera remote (have to use the remote) and it easily navigated to each index point. This would have made your capture much easier if you don't want to write them down. I don't know that I am ready to go with index marks exclusively in my SDE capture process but I am pondering it.

With a shot list there is no searching. You go to the clip and upload. It really streamlines the process of capturing. I mentioned to others but I have a video tutorial on SDEs with Edius on the EventDV Video Tutorial site. It discusses the preparations and shot list and how it all works. NLE stuff is similar between all of them so it may or may not apply to you.

2 Hours is pretty tight for a turnaround so the fact you got it done says you can do it when you have more control and the customer is aware of it. I tell customers I need 3-4 hours (minimum) of I won't even attempt it...unless I have a 3rd person with me for the shoot.

You did it! That's the important thing.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

2ndMile
Enthusiast

Mar 30, 2008, 4:39 PM

Post #11 of 36 (563 views)
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Re: [fr0gm@n] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Not bragging (more warning)... but turned one once in 45mins. The SDE was the grand finale to the reception that had no dancing, short toasts, and no alcohol. Had a third person along that day to capture but still. And I will never do that again.

Brian Morris
2ndMile Blog

fr0gm@n
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Mar 30, 2008, 4:52 PM

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Re: [2ndMile] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

I did one once too in 45 minutes. It was someone we knew and we decided to see if we could do it as a surprise. I made it only 1.5 minutes long with the first 30 seconds establishing shots of the church. The bride's step dad had taken me flying in his Cessna so we had to include the flyover shot. The ceremony was only 20 minutes long. I kept all the shots except 2 processional shots from my camera. After the wedding I uploaded the 2 processional shots from my wife's cam and then set my cam to capture the whole ceremony. Since the bride and groom were dismissing guest one at a time I had the capture completed before the guests were out of the church. When I got on site I setup and they arrived before I could get my laptop fired up. Filmed the entry and cake cutting. My wife did the toasts by herself and I edited like a crazy man. My wife grabbed me a plate from the buffet and we wrote to tape. If I had played right from the laptop it would have saved a few minutes. We made it like a movie trailer with a preview screen and coming soon on the end so it seemed to be 2 minutes long.

When I started the montage I told them I had a surprise. When it was over the step dad tough guy with a military crew cut was the first to shake our hand with tears in his eyes. It was totally cool but we won't do that again without more help. We just wanted to see if we could do it. It was a rush but I don't need those kind much anymore. :-)

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

Bauerjoe
User

Mar 30, 2008, 5:33 PM

Post #13 of 36 (542 views)
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Re: [fr0gm@n] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks Phillip, I'll take a look at that. It was a stressful day even though we had not promised the WDE to the couple ahead of time. Does it get easier or do you just thrive on adreline?
Joe Bauer

Yesterdays Memories Films
artistic cinematography

glimmer
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 5:34 PM

Post #14 of 36 (538 views)
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Re: [fr0gm@n] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

I did one last year in about 45 minutes while in the backseat of a limo, heading to the reception dinner. I don't think I've ever been so stressed in my life because it was a destination wedding, I had an assistant in another limo, 5-cam ceremony...so much equipment to deal with, and the footage amount was insane. But in the end, despite it probably knocking off a few years of life, the reactions of everyone were absolultely priceless.

Brackish
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 5:35 PM

Post #15 of 36 (537 views)
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Re: [fr0gm@n] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

I mentioned to others but I have a video tutorial on SDEs with Edius on the EventDV Video Tutorial site. It discusses the preparations and shot list and how it all works.

Wow! I didn't know you had an SDE instructional DVD. It's about time,
what with all the SDEs you do.

Now ... the majority of your instructional DVD would probably apply
regardless of what NLE you use? Or is your DVD more about the
editing or???

----------------------------------------------
"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

(This post was edited by Brackish on Mar 30, 2008, 9:49 PM)

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 5:39 PM

Post #16 of 36 (536 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

It does get easier because you develop a routine. The anxiety is always there and no I don't live for adrenaline. My biggest fear is always playback problems. I encountered them once last year and then at the Iron Videographer competition again in Atlanta last year. After those playback problems I am scared to play back from the laptop anymore like I talk about in that tutorial. I have been playing back from cam or DVD since .... it just adds more time to the turnaround to do DVD. Although if you do prep work and build all of the DVD except the small edit it goes pretty quick.

They do get easier and to a point routine but the stress is always there.

My biggest word of advice for aspiring SDE'ers is and comes from Edit 1 Media's SDE presentation at Video 07. "Remember that even though you are doing a SDE you still have to shoot for the full video as well. Don't lose sight of your complete project and what you need for it."

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 5:48 PM

Post #17 of 36 (534 views)
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Re: [Brackish] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

It's not actually and a DVD but just a tutorial that EventDV asked me to create for their video tutorial portion of the website. You can see it here.

http://www.eventdv.net/...aspx?ArticleID=37841

If anyone thinks creating those are easy they are nuts. It took alot of time and effort. I didn't just sit down and record screen grabs and talk along with it. I recorded the script first then had to record each section to match the voiceover section. Actually the screen recording software was related to my playback problems at a SDE. I had turned the screen acceleration off for the screen capture software and then didn't turn it back on for the SDE. It cause playback issues and drove me nuts till I figured it out. Luckily we had already burned DVDs and just hooked up a DVD player and played from there. Was nerve racking though. The customer is still one of our biggest fans and have become good friends. We're even getting a motorcycle to go on motorcyle rides with them. Bike arrives Wed.

A DVD may be in the making at somepoint. It would be more indepth in preparations and would probably involve some clips of the shoot as well. Since Edius is very popular in the world of SDEs they asked me to do one focused on how easy it is to do with Edius. They are possible with any NLE but Edius is popular for RT playback with no rendering. The NLE techniques shown in the tutorial are easily adaptable to whatever NLE you use. It does show some editing techniques but assumes if you are trying to do an SDE that you are up to speed on certain functionality basics like cutting, timing, capture, filters etc.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

Kenneth
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 7:26 PM

Post #18 of 36 (513 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

My first one was nerve-wracking. I told the clients that it would be shown with an hour left in the reception, like during a break in the dancing, but I got it done an hour ahead of schedule. Mine wasn't even a catholic wedding so I didn't have the big gap between ceremony and reception. So although I was pulling my hair out at the time, overall things went pretty smooth.

We're looking update to the CF cards when it's available. But for now what I did was to just bring an extra camera and another laptop to capture with. So one machine captured while I was editing. And then I just transferred he footage from one hard drive to another.

I also had a third videographer with me so i could edit while they filmed the rest of the reception. For future SDE's I'm going to have a 4th camera so that the third videographer can just go around and get all the shots needed for the SDE. This way, except to the bride and groom preps, all footage needed to make the video are on one tape and already have start and stops to chop them up inside FCP.
......................................................................
Philadelphia Wedding Video
The Kenneth Stillman Blog
Philadelphia Trash the Dress

2ndMile
Enthusiast

Mar 30, 2008, 7:35 PM

Post #19 of 36 (504 views)
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Re: [fr0gm@n] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

I had 4 coasters one night so I dumped the video onto my backup cam and played it from there. Worked great.

Always have a back-up plan to your back-up plan.

Brian Morris
2ndMile Blog

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 7:40 PM

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Re: [2ndMile] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

I usually have at least one backup plan if not more. I just thought the other day of just rendering to an AVI file and playing from Windows Media Player on my laptop using a standard VGA cable. Would be pretty easy to hook up I would think. That is always another backup plan. I can't ever remember having problems playing video files in the player.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

jones
User

Mar 30, 2008, 8:11 PM

Post #21 of 36 (468 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

It was a frustrating experience.

i trust it was a great learning experience, though. look forward to seeing more.

jones
How to become a better filmmaker blog
Mason Jar
My blog

DGates
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 8:18 PM

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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Don't be too hard on yourself, Joe. That came out fine. If you had a little extra time, you could've fine-tuned it, but I thought it was a good effort.

I know you would've gotten more 'ohhs and ahhhs' if it was shown on a large screen. Small LCD's are for the photogs montage. A decent SDE video shown on a large screen with audio patched trough the DJ will kick the photographer's little montage to the curb.

LKvideo
Veteran

Mar 30, 2008, 9:21 PM

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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Bravo Maestro!!! Wink

Lou K
SI, NYC

videogal
User

Mar 30, 2008, 10:37 PM

Post #24 of 36 (420 views)
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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

We do a same-day edit for about 25% of our weddings.

First - yours came out very nicely - don't dis on yourself Wink

I hope you won't let what sounds like not a great experience throw you off permanently!

Not a lot of original advice, most of what I do has already been mentioned above - I give each of my crew people an index card with 5 or 6 shots they are responsible for, and they write the timecode on the cards and give them to me with their master tape after the ceremony.

We do typically hire an extra person when we're doing a SDE, we charge enough extra to cover it, and it keeps the stress level down. Plus, our typical bride that wants this also wants the works - photo montage, love story, music video, projection at the reception, etc. which definitely brings enough revenue to justify the extra person.

The last one I did, my husband and I really hit a groove - we had the luxury of running home to do it, and both being able to work on it, he captured to one computer on our network, I grabbed the clips and popped them into FCP, we were able to create literally as quickly as we could input. We sent our 3rd crew person with the B&G on a wild tour of the bars of Omaha between the wedding and reception, there was a couple of hours of "down time" that didn't need a lot of coverage.

We are now the proud owners of an EX1, which should help with SDE in the future as well, making input go more smoothly.

When all else fails - use fewer clips, more slo-mo, and I usually keep the color correction and effects to a minimum just for render time reasons.

I have considered doing this right off my laptop, but have been chicken to try it live - afraid it wouldn't play back smoothly on my laptop, and don't really feel like totin' my Mac G5 around with me, go figure !!

One "final backup plan" if all else fails - one time there just wasn't enough time (we told the b&g that when they hired us) but we still did a photo montage for them and projected at the reception - at the very end of the photo montage, we changed to one shot of their kiss at the end of the ceremony - just about brought the house down - we were pretty suprised how happy even that little bit made the b&g and the guest - we just played the tape back, didn't put on computer or anything.

Anyway - hope you have a better experience next time !!
Miriam Moran
Omaha Wedding Video
www.OmahaWeddingVideo.com

Edit 1 Media
Veteran

Mar 31, 2008, 12:51 AM

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Re: [Bauerjoe] My Very First WDE [In reply to]	Can't Post

Good job getting it done, Joe! I can honestly say there have been very few completely 'ideal' SDEs that we've done. They do come along every once in a while. The biggest thing I've learned about SDEs is that you always have to be flexible and stay on your toes! I think 8 years of working in the Emergency Room helped me with that...and I guess that does goes to show that I'm a junkie! The SDE I did last night was 100% from tape (long story) and it was a 1-hour and 20 minute Catholic ceremony so I had a ton of tapes to weed through. It seemed to take forever to capture the clips I wanted and then I had other issues to deal with (lighting, people in the way, etc.) but it worked out OK in the end. I do wish you could have experienced playing it back on the projector and getting that crowd reaction...that would have made you an instant addict!! The good news is that you will gain confidence and rhythm as you do more.
__________

Laura Randall
Edit 1 Media Blog

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