You know,
These are kindof like a group therapy session for videographers. This one was a real challenge. 4/19/2008
First of all, my wife (the photographer) decided that because there were 10 bridesmaids and groomsmen that we should start an hour earlier than usual, so we showed up at 3:00 for a 6:00 wedding. This in itself was not a bad thing, and honestly it was good not to have to rush too much. Anyway, the bad thing is that you get one hour more tired, and you come away with an hours more footage to plow through. The first big stresser of the day was that it was scheduled to be an outdoor wedding, and as we arrived it was raining. It rained off and on for the next 2hrs and at about 5:00 or so, the sun came out with a vengeance. What that meant is that among 3 cameras I had I had varying levels of brightness and darkness as the clouds rolled in front of the very bright sun. I was going from f/3.4 to 8.5 on my primary camera within seconds. It was a manual man's nightmare. The second and most stressing stressor came as I wired the groom and minister for audio. I got no audio from the groom's mic. Shotgun had audio, but nothing at all from the wireless. It was 10 minutes before the ceremony before I monitored the audio (hubris) but anyway, I dashed over to the groom and took the pack off of him(this is a sennheiser G2) and tapped the end. NO response on the transmitter, so I knew there was a mic issue. I looked down the wire, and to my horror saw that the mic connector was showing frayed copper. I quickly pulled the mic off of the Minister's Iriver, and put it on the wireless. I tapped the mic, and got a response, then went back to the camera and monitored. BINGO! so problem solved there. The third stresssor was the director. I was set up at the junction between a sidewalk and the middle of the "aisle" of chairs they had created. This would have been a perfect situation if the director had not marched the entire wedding party over and stood them in a line like elementray school kids RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CAMERA! I litterally have to frame and track the back of heads going down the aisle because of the way she lined them up. They didn't do this at reheasal. It was unbelieveable. Stressor #4 was the band and their lights. These guys brought in huge blue & red pots that turned the entire dance floor purple. If I faced one direction it was dark, the other was purple aliens. The saving grace of the band is that they have hired me to do a promotional video for their website details at a later time. Anyway it was a very long hard day, and I think 2 things other than the stressors made it so hard. I think the additional hour really hurts at the end of the day. And also this was the second wedding with the WD-72 wide angle for the A1. this lens doubles at least the weight of the camera. It makes it very hard on my back because frankly I'm a little guy, and can't carry this huge weight all night without feeling it. I did have a bit of a breakthrough at this reception. I was able to get a very good exposure by shooting at 1/30 shutter speed for the dancing and band shots. This really gave me some lattitude, and I was able to shoot without a light. We'll see how this pans out in the end, but this may be a good solution to my low light HD blues.
Anyway about the trailer. This trailer kindof snuck up on me. I really didn't plan it this way, and I'd love to know what everyone thinks. This is a stylistic departure for me, so I'm not really sure what I think either. Thanks for listening and hopefully my woes can help someone else be more prepared. Stay tuned for next weeks episode "Let's run out of tape right as the processional begins yee heee"
Oh here is the trailer for 4/19 -
http://www.vimeo.com/943018 Bill
