Saturday's Event, Karly & Patrick

It's been a busy summer of video production and while Mark and Mike have been busy DJing (yes I know not a word) I haven't done many myself. Saturday was a change of pace for me as I was the Disc Jockey and not the videographer. It's always nice to get my toes wet in my first love and this was one fantastic party to do so at!

Karly and Patrick had their wedding reception at the top notch Windsor Park in Edison Lakes. Rita and staff as usual were on their toes and everything flowed smoothly with dinner and the roast beef was fantastic. The party itself was off the scale, this group really knew how to get down.

Every 3 to 5 years or so a group of songs that are for all intents and purposes have a resurgence in wedding reception market. The YMCA came back when Wayne and Garth danced to it in the movie. Vanilla Ice with ICE ICE Baby made a resurgence about 5 years ago after crushing his video on MTV. In the last year 5 songs have come roaring back to life at receptions: Pour Some Sugar On My by Def Leppard, Don't Stop Believing by Journey, Living On A Prayer by Bon Jovi (well if you went to a Catholic school that song has never been 'out' but it's really made it's way into the mainstream market too) and the really big suprise Take Me Home Tonight by Eddie Money are the latest resurgent songs to hit. As I said the big surprise is Eddie Money's song. I like his music but no one ever danced to it, even when it was on the charts, until now. A good time was had by all.

When your a DJ and the party is rocking there is nothing like it for a natural high or adrenaline rush. A fun time was had by all.

Saturday also gave me a chance to indulge myself with a little photography. Nothing can replace video as the medium that celebrates everything about life, but photography can be fun. Last week I picked up a Fuji Finepix camera and hauled it with me to the reception to snap a few pics. What a disappointment that camera is, I hauled it back today to the store. As a videographer I have been using a film based camera for a while and I love film but for quick snapshots of equipment setups and such a digital is just fine and I'd hoped to have found an inexpensive one in the Fuji. In low light, even with the ISO dialed up and the flash on, the camera just sucked. In manual I couldn't get the shutter to sync with the flash, I have no idea what that was about at all and reading the manual today indicated nothing done wrong. In auto the camera dropped my ISO to 100 and created a grainy picture, argh! On top of that it's redeye feature which causes a delay in the shutter firing just reaked havoc on carefully composed shots. I should have known, never go cheap, looks like it's time to break into the piggy bank and get a Nikon D200.

Well all was not lost on the photography side, below are a few of the salvageable pictures.

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!

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