Sal & Alissa got married.  They wanted me to show up with a video camera.  Their magic happened, and now it’s my turn.

The edit is always the hardest part of the whole project… there’s so much footage to review and stack into my brain, labeling this, cutting that.

It takes a while to get a project finished, and seemingly longer when you have people waiting for it.  I made this little “teaser” for Sal & Alissa.

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Melinda came to me to have me do a film of their wedding. She has a website for the wedding and I thought it would be fun to make a “Save the Date” video for her & Jason.

This is a short story of how they met. I asked Melinda what song she would like for the video. “January Wedding” seems to fits perfectly with the theme, but it’s also such a great song.

The day shots were done in the Ghent area of Norfolk, VA. I did the interview shots outside of the studio at night. I love the sound of the crickets and the holly tree as a backdrop.

The footage was shot on my HV40 with Jag35Pro and 50mm ƒ1.8 lens.  I used a single overhead light to get that nice deep contrast on their faces.  My Sennheiser MKH416 saved the night… there was so much noise going on around us – a football game at the stadium nearby with an announcer over the loudspeaker, jet planes, trucks, frogs – I thought most of the audio would be ruined.  I was going to filter out the crickets, but it gives the film such a nice feel.

I wish Melinda & Jason the best in their relationship and look forward to shooting their wedding film.

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Song: “January Wedding” by Avett Brothers

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This is the latest project I’ve been working on.  It’s for a group called 7 Cities Ballroom. It was their annual dance showcase. They like to take a video of the event for the students, for which they usually just stick a camera on a tripod. This time around they decided to go professional on the video. I, too, stuck a camera on a tripod, but I also went handheld/low tripod to get some great cut shots.

I had an HV30 with a wide-angle lens on a tripod (thanks Jacobi!), on a table to try to shoot over the table that was right up to the dance floor.  The distance from the wall to the dance floor was shallow, so it cut off a bit of the sides.  The second camera was my HV40 with 35mm adaptor & Canon 50mm f1.8.

Most of the dancers were instructor or students. However, there was a couple from Kansas City, Lila & Michael Shultz, that blew the night away! They are pro-level dancers and it was really cool to watch them perform.  This is just one performance out of the hour-long event.

Enjoy.

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I had an HV30 with a wide-angle lens on a tripod (thanks Jacobi!), on a table to try to shoot over the table that was right up to the dance floor.  This was no good because you could see people’s heads in a lot of the shots.  Also, the distance to the floor was short so the closest corners of the dance floor were cut off.  When the dancers went to those corners I tried to cut to the other camera when I could.  I tell you though, they were fast on their feet and I couldn’t always keep up.

The second camera was my HV40 with 35mm adaptor & Canon 50mm f1.8.  I varied the shots between steadicam and low tripod.  I tried to keep it a bit artistic so I could really make it interesting in post.

What you see below are stills from the HV40 (click them to see the full size).  These are final production stills (Final Cut is crunching a hour of HD footage as I type… for the past 8 hours).  I may post a few of the dances later on, or maybe make a montage of the night for your viewing pleasure.

Most of the dancers were instructor or students.  However, there was a couple from Kansas City, Lila & Michael Shultz (the first image), that blew the night away!  They are pro-level dancers and it was really cool to watch them perform, though difficult to keep up with the camera.

Enjoy.

Here’s a glimpse of the FCP timeline… lots of syncing of tracks and audio.

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In a “Video Portrait” I capture the essence of who someone is and set it to music that would be in that person’s life soundtrack.

In this case I have the lovely Laura: she’s a native Texan, loves records, country, growing things, and has a knack for nostalgia. This film tells the story of who she is. Enjoy.
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If you care about the geeky film stuff, keep reading.
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I wanted to make a short film that showcases not only my style of cinematography and editing, but also the equipment I use. 

This was shot using a Canon HV40 with a Jag35Pro 35mm lens adaptor, and a Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. 

I love shooting with a prime lens. There’s something to be said about composition and perspective when you don’t have the ability to zoom in and out on your subject.

This was a challenging project because I didn’t know what music I would use or how I would tell the story… no storyboards or scripting. I just shot it with the intent of building my story in the edit. It took me 2 days to find the right song and once I started the edit I knew I didn’t have enough footage, which meant revisiting the shoot. Fortunately I was working with one patient (and beautiful) woman.

The color balance between the two days of footage was completely different, but I was able to mostly correct that. I also added some overall grading, but not too heavily.

Overall I am very well pleased with how this turned out.

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Song: “Gypsy Rose” by Ben Kweller.

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