Wedding Shooting and Grading Advice

[Adam Welch]

I have some footage from a wedding that was shot with my camera recently. I have never shot a wedding myself and after seeing the footage and thinking about it I have a few questions I was hoping a few people could answer. How do you deal with lighting in a church especially when you get a lot of natural light but it is from stain glass windows? Also what is the best way to deal with audio? Would also like to see grading options for a wedding.

Here is a link to an R3D clip: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7qupbxfyalkqyys/rEZGIWSC0L

 

[shatek king]

http://

 

[shatek king]

a try

 

[Dominik Muench]

Adam I shoot quite a few higher end wedding jobs on the RED at the moment, had two last weekend alone.
As for the church glass issue......just go with it....there is no one right or wrong setting with multi coloured glass anyway. I usually set my WB to daylight. I also tend to use my rokinon primes wide open on multi cam shoots or use the canon 24-70 F2.8 zoom for more flexibility when its just myself shooting.
In terms of sound recording, I usually have a mike on the EPIC for guide audio but also use a Zoom H4 and H6 recorder....one of them usually sits on the table near the priest/ wedding celebrant and then either have the second one on a boom/ mic stand close to the bride and groom or ideally put a lapel mic on the groom and record into that.
You can pick up H4's quite cheap but I highly recommend the new Zoom H6....it has 6 independent audio inputs including XLR...enough for a couple of lapels or ambient mics to distribute throughout the wedding venue.

 

[Kalulu Ngilo]

I moved to RedlogFilm space, White balanced the r3d file using the bride's white dress. ISO is at 1000, exposure 1.7. I noticed you used f/3.5, I would have aimed for something lower(lens-wise), say about f/1.8->f/1.2 so you could reduce the amount of noise in the frame. As far as mics go, I own the ME66, EW100 wireless kit from sennheiser, both worked well with a different camera though. Also using a recorder like the H4N is not a bad idea as Dominik suggested.


Here it is: I tried as much as possible to watch out for the goal posts while tweaking the frame.

 

[Andrew Gentle]

The two grades posted are pretty different, my approach for documentary stuff like this is to recall how the scene looked to my eye and then to grade towards that, after setting white balance as correctly as possible in mixed lighting. It's not so much an artistic thing as delivering footage faithful to the client's memory of the day.

 

[Daniel Christensen]

In regards to audio, get a mic on the camera some way. That's what you'll use for scratch audio and the more personal moments (assuming you're doing film style and not documentary style). Always put a lapel mic on the groom, usually he and the bride are standing close enough that you hear both vows very clearly. You might also consider miking the reverend or priest as the case may be, since sometimes they stand a little bit farther away from the couple. If you have a sound recorder (Zoom H4n or one of the portable Tascam DR models) ask the venue's sound engineer if you can record the secondary output from the soundboard so you have all the audio from anyone using a mic. That's a great back up solution, especially if there is special music or special speakers, they will almost always have a microphone, so you can get top quality audio from that.

In regards to lighting, you pretty much cannot light a wedding, unless you are able to put some high wattage spotlight at the back, or maybe the sides. Many venues won't allow that, however. So your best shot is to use the fastest lenses you can get your hands on, preferably something under T/f2. A lot of people I know use primes at weddings because they need the better lowlight. Zooms are great, and versatile, but you'll be really really hard pressed to find a zoom, still or cinema, faster than T/f2.

If you want a theoretical fix for the light issue, bite the bullet and get DRAGON. The low-light is rumored to be much better. Plus, who wouldn't want to tell their grandchildren that a dragon shot their wedding film?

 

[Maik Müller]

but you'll be really really hard pressed to find a zoom, still or cinema, faster than T/f2.

There is the Sigma 18-35/1.8. I highly recommend it.

If you want a theoretical fix for the light issue, bite the bullet and get DRAGON. The low-light is rumored to be much better. Plus, who wouldn't want to tell their grandchildren that a dragon shot their wedding film?

I agree, Dragon will probably help a lot in such situations.

 

[Rami Mustakim]

Question: Why did you shoot 2K HD?

 

[Michael Patterson]

Question: Why did you shoot 2K HD?

My guess would be do to the good possibility that this looks to be a full blown catholic mass which can go around an hour. So depending on the redmag size, lower settings may have had to be used to not have to change out mags and miss anything. When I shot weddings back about 8 years ago when I had mini dv, it was always a challenge on when to change tapes during the ceremony if they lasted any longer than 42 minutes. 2k may also have been used to get a tighter shot. When I've had to do very long recordings of events that needed to be one clip, the lowest I went was 3k and adjusted the redcode to lower settings to get adequate record times. Mics are tricky. When I did them, zooms and portable recorders weren't really being used yet so I had to rely on wireless lavs. This became an issue a lot. Depending on line of sight and possible interference, there were issues with one of them at some point. I usually put a lav on the groom, a lav on the podium, and if possible a lav or a shotgun by a speaker to piggy back the music or anything else that would be coming through the church system. I also had shotguns mounted on both cameras (these were always 2 cam shoots). Now with the zoom options out there, you can stick to hardwiring stuff and not stress over wireless issues.

Man I do not miss doing weddings at all. People always have the thought that you're just a wedding videographer, but unless you've done it a fair amount of times, you don't know how tough and tiresome they can be. Getting a good fast zoom I think is key. Changing out primes all of the time can lead to missed opportunities and headaches. If you don't have a good fast one and don't want to drop a ton of money, I find the new tamron 24-70 2.8 to be really nice. It's really sharp wide open and it is pretty par focal. It's a deal better than my old canon 24-70 (not the new 2). No idea if this helps. Good luck.

 

[Adam Welch]

Michael you would be correct. I only have 64GB mags and with a full catholic mass lasting around an hour shooting at 4K with what I have would not be an option unless I want to try and swap out mags in the middle. Really need to invest in larger mags.

All the information everyone has given has been pretty helpful. It has given me a lot to think about. I do know I need to invest in a portable recorder and a few other items. Thank you everyone!

 

[Daniel Christensen]

There is the Sigma 18-35/1.8. I highly recommend it.

I had forgotten about that one. The one problem is, at weddings you often need to be farther away from the action in order for everything to seem natural. At 5K or 4K this is pretty wide. However, it seems that, at least in this situation, you're shooting at 2K, which would render an 18-35 much more telephoto.