Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran a fantastic article about engagements and weddings being captured on video. Enjoy!

Congratulations to Paul Chamberlin at the Music Machine

Paul Chamberlin of the Music Machine, one of my favorite DJs and one of the best out there, got a very nice write up in the Tribune Business Weekly last week! Congratulations Paul.

New New Blog

Welcome to the New New Blog. Some of you may be wondering why all of my posts suddenly say June 1, 2007? Well this is the new new blog for River City Productions. I am now the "ask the expert" at Bridal Films and since it was it's own account I was having to log in twice to access my business blog and the Bridal Films blog. So since Blogger allows you to have two blogs on the same account I just killed the old Wedding Films, moved the postings her and started a new blog. Thus resetting the dates on the old posts.

A Cute VIdeo CLip

This scene from Patricia's wedding is just too cute. The children are bringing them flowers to lay on the Virgin Mary at the Notre Dame Basilica. Oh and I make a guest appearance at the very begining which I'm going to have to edit out when I start editing.

From This Week's Wedding, A Fun Clip

People ask me why do I do video? This clip is one of the answers... It's just too much fun!

A TIme Shift Video

I'm really happy with this video. It's my first full timeshift and it worked fantastically. A great couple and a lot of fun. A note on the fireworks, they were for another wedding taking place at the Century Center but so many of our guests were watching them I caught some footage and used them as a great transition to the exit.

The Thriller Dance

We did not shoot this and I have no idea who the couple is, but I found this on YouTube and thought it'd be a nice fun clip to share with everyone.
A disclaimer, this is not my video, I have no idea who shot it or if it was even a professional videographer. My bet is it wasn't since the camera work couldn't be much worse.


These are the type of moments though that only video can do justice to. A photo of this would never convey the startlement, the fun and the excitement of the crowd cheering and the groom just loving it!

Brian

Video from the Music VIdeo Shoot

Here is a clip from the music video shoot. It's not the entire song but just a section. If you want to hear the whole song check out Greg's MySpace page. The sound quality is crap, but we didn't need that except for syncing the lips to the original music track recorded for the album.



FreeVideoCoding.com


I've been informed that the next video they are planning to do is for the song, "Lucks Gonna Come My Way", which is a love ballad. You can hear it at Greg's myspace account here: Greg Alan


Brian

The Greg Alan Music Video Shoot

Got some stills from the Greg Alan video shoot. Just some images that caught my eye while capturing footage. Marisa and Jessica are both from South Bend.


Jessica goofing off


My favorite, Stalker Fred being stared down by Jessica. Fred was a good guy, just couldn't get this stalker look off his face until Jessica beat it out of him.


Greg Alan and The Dirty Hillbillys




The actresses on stage with the Dirty Hillbillys



Marisa (center) and Jessica (right) Warning Stalker Fred to stay away. You may have seen Marisa in the Elkhart Haunted House ad from last year (2006) as the news reporter.

Brian

Time Shift Video, a creative technique

Well finally got one of my favorite videos posted on the website. The video of Katie and Chris under the Notre Dame Basilica tab. What makes this wedding one of my favorite, the first part is timeshifted. (yah I know not a word.)

Timeshifting is nothing new, it seems like every tv show sooner or later does a timeshift episode shifts backwards and forwards in time and does not follow a linear progression of start, middle and end. Originally this style of editing was introduced in the movies in such recognizable films as Momento and Pulp Fiction.

One of the great videographers David Robins introduced it to the wedding industry several years ago. Another videographer by the name of Loi Bahm, from Blue Core Media, really refined it from what David had introduced.

I love this technique, it opens up a range of creative possibilities when it comes to telling the story of a couple's wedding. But for the most part I have been gun shy in trying it myself and this video isn't entirely timeshifted. It opens with the reception and then moves to the beginning of the wedding day at the Basilica. I was having sever problems editing the cousin who did a song with the band. To me moments like this is why it is so important to have a wedding documentary created. Your cousin singing her heart out at your wedding is a once in a lifetime event and photos will just not do it justice. I wanted her song to pop out and be memorable and not be lost among all the other music used in the video. At the same time the opening was giving me headaches. Because of the time restrictions at the Basilica we never seem to get enough footage before the ceremony to make me happy and the opening was editing short.

So while beating my head against my keyboard looking for a way to spice up a clip that just seemed to drag I decided to open the video with the introduction of the soloist. I love the voice over credits or over black screen intros you see sometimes and the band leader introduced the singer just before she started. Moving the clip to the start, fading up from black and bam I had the opening I was looking for and now the performance stood out in the video vs the rest of the music from the day.

She has a great voice, really talented, wonder if she ever tried out for Idol.

But one of these days I'm going to have to timeshift an entire wedding day...

Brian

Greg Alan Music Video

Wow what a Saturday we had a River City Productions. Yesterday we were at the Little Big Horn bar in Mendelain IL, just north of Chicago, shooting a new video for Country artist Greg Alan with the Dirty Hillbillies. It was for the song Beer Gut, a song that Ugly Betty really needs to license for an episode, it fits it's theme so well.

It was a blast, Greg is a great artist and Beer Gut is a really fun song and we're hoping that comes through in the video.

When dealing with a bunch of non-actors in a video setting though, you have to keep the energy up. We had to run through the song three times for concert footage and everyone was getting a little tired of the same song on cd without the band even performing. Then our actor for the bar pickup scene, poor guy he was so nervous he we named him Stalker Fred because of the look on his face. We had the most fun shooting that, but after 20 tries you are getting tired.

We started at 3:00 and wrapped up at 2:00 in the morning for a long drive home in the first significant snow we have had this winter. But it sure was fun!

Brian