this tuesday we are looking for a couple to help out, and be in, two educational pieces we are putting together with canon USA. ideally, a wedding dress, some sort of suit, and being comfortable in front of the camera would be awesome. please email me, patrick AT stillmotion.ca if your interested and have time on tuesday. we have a couple nice thank you offers for the couple that lends a hand. we are looking for anybody who enjoys what we do, whether your a past bride or not. we can work with you on timing, but we would be needing 4-5 hours and would probably need to start no later than 2 PM.
Hey wassup Patrick. it’s Fode from the LA class. I’ve signed up for the forum, just waiting for my account to be activated. Thanx P.
Fode
Veronica & Neil - August 30, 2010 6:30 pm
We WISH we could be in an educational film! What an honour! Bummer Neil’s hockey season just got underway again :( We would have totally driven there tonight! lol
Steph Mak - August 29, 2010 11:07 pm
I would SOOOO do it…but I don’t have a dress yet???!!! SHUCKS!!!
will and antia wanted to start their reception with a bang. they also wanted to share a little bt more about them with their guests. being that this was shown at the opening of their introductions, we also wanted to keep it very brief and high energy. we started by finding out a ton of things that they love to do both alone and together. from there, we filmed them doing all of these things and put this little gem together.
the song is by the ravishers ‘keep you around’ and will be added to with etiquette as an artist shortly. we are so happy to have them on board!
Cut/cut/cut/cut/oh man, p, the pace of cuts is ever-accelerating! Got the green / red / mac themes right away…..when we got to the video games, I laughed! :)
fresh + mcdonalds have never been mentioned together as much as this post :)
p.
David - August 28, 2010 6:34 pm
This is fantastic. It’s fresh, exciting and inspiring. The happiness and joy shine through with this couple and the film is fabulous. Great job stillmotion!
Kaycee C. - August 28, 2010 3:27 am
Adorable, entertaining, and totally right when they say that they’re awesome. I love it!
The 2 hungryman dinners and bigmac meal I ate that day was surely the best time I’ve ever had without a trip to the emergency room! Love the film and so did everyone else at the reception. Kudos to the Stillmotion team!
a couple so full of emotion that even just putting together the same day edit had quenna in tears more than once. quenna and i put the sde together (with jordan helping on the shooting – even he was almost in tears when he aw it at the reception), but i think the story really told itself. never before have i seen so much of a reaction to the vows, so much so that the ring bearer, a rather young boy named chad, was in tears with his reaction to the same day edit. i didn’t put that in as i had a hard time understanding whether he was crying in response to the vows or if it was more that he wanted to be outside on the bright sunny day. turns out he told veronica and neil shortly after the ceremony that he was crying because he was so happy for them.
soundtrack used with permission. the song is ‘this moment’ by nic chagall and you can purchase it on itunes here or visit him on myspace.
Beautifully done!!! Loved the personality that showed throughout…that’s why you’re the best.
Veronica & Neil - August 16, 2010 5:18 pm
WE NEED OUR HANKIE’S ALL OVER AGAIN… and again and again and again… no matter how many times we watch it we realize another amazing detail that you guys put in there… After watching so many other couples’ SDEs on your blog and finally be on here is just absolutely SURREAL. I’m speechless after being a sobbing mess from watching it multiple times that nothing I could ever write on here could be enough of a thank you or portray just how thankful we are for all that you have captured and for what you put together for us. Neil said that today was the first time he’s cried by himself… sitting in his office watching it again. It was absolutely more than we could have EVER EVER EVER imagined! Your work is absolutely priceless. We’re forever grateful! You are an amazing team and just incredibly outstanding!!
WOW WOW WOW!!! Patrick you and your team are AMAZING! All the girls at work were in tears watching this!!! I just want to watch it over and over and over!!!!
Donna - August 16, 2010 1:33 pm
F A B U L O U S !
To see Neil show such emotion for his bride is enough to make any woman cry. So touching!
today, as i looked into my viewfinder, there was a moment when i thought i was actually watching a recording. i was shooting with a 135 and i could see the president rather large on my screen – it felt so surreal. i quickly snapped out of it, remembered that this was live and got back to it. those couple moments though were quite the experience.
this weekend i was asked to travel to new orleans so that i could film the journey of the saints into washington to meet the president as the culmination of their superbowl victory. the flight over wasn’t a media event – that meant i had very little access but i was also the only one not on the team that could tag along. when we landed in DC, a motorcade guided the five buses to the hotel. it was quite the trek to be a part of.
the next morning, we headed over to the white house as the president delivered a couple remarks to the team and spent some time shaking their hands. being that this was a media event, we had very specific places we could be (it seems like you lose whether it is open or closed to the media…). somehow i got lucky and a perfect profile shot was completely open so i scooped it up. carrying the MKIV and a handful of primes, we covered the brief event as best we could considering we had about a one foot square in which to stand.
we were filming this whole journey as part of an episode for a new series called ‘the season’ that we are filming for the nfl network. we are working with kevin shaw from 23films.com as the director, and it was great to have somebody so enthused by DSLR technology (he shot second angle when we could) and so open to our ideas and philosophy. we will be travelling back to new orleans later this month to finish up the coverage for this first episode (which is expected to debut around mid-september). ‘the season’ will focus on human interest stories related to the game of football. we are going to be checking out some pretty interesting places this year and i am excited for the stories we are getting a chance to tell.
a couple interesting things i learned over the weekend;
one // airplane food is not nearly the same for a football team as it is for us mere mortals. the plane ride over served garnished steak or chicken parmesan.
two // if that wasn’t enough, when we arrived at the hotel through the back door, with lots of security) they had a whole banquet room setup with snack food. like the plane, it isn’t what you would expect. they had plates of burger, different types of pasta, tubs of haagen daaz, and more than enough to make a buffet restaurant – but this was only a late night snack.
three // if you find yourself on the white house lawn and your not a US citizen, watch what you do with any tools you might bring. i was doing a slider show with out cinevate LTS30 and as i put it on the ground i mentioned to kevin, the director, that this probably won’t last long. within 30 seconds we had security there. the thing i didn’t know was that being from canada made me a foreign national. being a foreign national meant i needed an escort anywhere i went at the white house. all of that meant no slider shots on the white house lawn.
here is a quick clip from the weekend. music by ryan rebo, entitled ‘dizzy american’, licensed through withetiquette.com. special thanks to brian at the nfl network for letting me publish this here. all footage is property of the NFLN.
When will Barrack Obama come to Indonesia… I really want to see him face to face… Please tell him to come over to Indonesia one day… So I can make a video like P. did :) hopefully as great as P. did :)
David Hong - August 13, 2010 9:34 am
@LEE BAKOGIANNAKIS
Maybe that’s not a bad idea
Patrick, maybe your next shoot should happen in low space orbit and then eventually the moon and beyond :) — Can you imagine? The first DSLR footage taken in space.
david – thanks so much for the incredibly inspiring words. we put a lot into sharing and pushing the industry forward and hearing comments like yours makes all those sleepless nights and countless hours worthwhile.
P.
Randy H - August 11, 2010 1:32 pm
Patrick, now you have gone and done it… Big time! What’s next?… Take on Chris N. or James C?… Hollywood take notice, here comes another Canadian genius, known simply as “P”.
That is absolutely amazing Patrick. I appreciate your example of being a true professional, artist and visionary. You are one of those people that come along and change everything for an industry and I’m grateful to know you.
David Hong - August 11, 2010 10:54 am
you knocked it out of the park patrick :)
considering how restricting they were on the plane with you filming and also throughout your escapade there
that shot of the prez speaking is so sweet
je - August 10, 2010 3:14 pm
BWHAHAH.. seriously? Ugh.. that’s just amazing, I read/watched with a HUGE smile on my face, knowing you, and what was going through you head while you shot all of this.. it made me laugh. Well done.
Nicole Anhel - August 10, 2010 2:20 pm
This is incredible!!!! Honestly it doesn’t surprise me, its exactly where I imagined you to be when I met you & Amina just over a year and a half ago…….
jesus christ you guys are getting huge. i just clicked on the video thinking it was another wedding video. for once I’m glad I didnt read before i watched, it was a great surprise. great job guys.
Jason LeFrense - August 10, 2010 7:20 am
Hey Patrick, Great job, From slider shots on the white house lawn to music video’s on the Ontario railway, I predict jail time soon enough. LOL. Great job again you must be very proud.
I would love to help out the next time you guys are in NOLA. We just did our first SDE using a lot of the stuff we learned from you guys in Austin!
I am also extremely jealous that you guys were about to follow our Saints to the White House, but excited that the NFL chose you to document it!
[...] sent us a clip (and it is on his site as well – please jump over there to read the whole event) and some chatter from his day – man, what a cool gig! “today, as i looked into my [...]
storytelling has become quite the buzz word of late within our industry. thrown around with terms like cinematic, film-like, or hand made. of all of them, storytelling is the one i really feel the need to defend and would like to give our take on. to me a story isn’t showing up and covering what happens, it isn’t just an emotional film (though that certainly can happen when it is done effectively), and it certainly isn’t a handful of cliche moments paired with a top 40 soundtrack and shots that are all too familiar. to us, and to me personally, storytelling is about something much deeper, something much more thought out (and i should say this is only one of many many opinions on this). it involves approaching your shoot with a fresh set of eyes. it involves not just capturing things as they happen but also finding a way to weave them together in a way that really reflects the essence of the people, the message, or the story you are trying to convey. it means being selective, it means being subjective, and it means interpretation. for us, it also means learning more about our couples and finding unique ways to interpret who they are and what they are about.
for mel and joel, that came through in many ways.
there are straightforward yet hidden things like the meaning behind her drinking tim horton’s in the morning, or the symbolism behind the specific composition of mel and her mom back to back as they are getting their makeup done.
then there is the deeper story. a while ago, mel lost her brother justin. pretty much since then she has been wearing a necklace in memory of him (it used to belong to him) and it never leaves her neck. on her wedding day she wanted to wear the pearl necklace joel gave her, but that meant she had to take this necklace off. it was a very emotional moment for her, her mother, and everybody else there. as she took it off they also decided to pin it inside her dress so it would still be with her – close to her heart.
you’ll notice that one of the first shots of mel, which was shot and chosen for this reason, shows this necklace. throughout the film there are other references to this and to justin and you can see it becomes a central part of their story.
mel is a teacher, so she is all about giving and sharing, and she is an english major, so she is very articulate and has a poem by EE cummings that she and joel tell each other as a representation of what they mean to each other. you will see that the big things we picked up on and covered throughout the day are related to these big things (and other things) about mel and joel, or they are building up the story for one of the next things coming. but, most importantly, they aren’t random, they aren’t standard, and they are in there just because they happened.
enjoy their piece. i hope that enlightens you somewhat about what goes on in our mind in the 3ish hours we have to put this same day edit together. this one is coloured in FCP using entirely native filters.
music used with permission from kim taylor, and the song is ‘i am you’. you can find more of her music and her site here: kimtaylor.com/
we will be in san fran tomorrow for the last stop of the cinema caravan. if you want to hear more about storytelling and hang out with us for a couple days of EOS training, their are still a couple spots left and you can check it out here.
[...] Learn more about this sweet wedding story on stillmotion's blog. [...]
Sarah Keays - August 23, 2010 9:52 pm
This is beautiful….everything
Captures “how” life happens the day to day happenings
I dont think there are any words to say how beautiful everything was!
Sarah
Marie N - August 17, 2010 1:33 am
This is what makes you guys so different from everyone else. The emotions you’ve captured in this film just take my breath away. Patrick, you are so brilliant at really capturing and portraying the feelings involved. I love that you never just “show” events as they happen. This is one of my new favorites…
Watching this again, for the second time, I feel the exact way I felt last Friday morning on our wedding day. You captured the very essence of our emotions, and you have preserved our memories of the most important day of our lives. We are so thankful that we could share in each others’ mornings, especially seeing Lucy head to the spa, the boys opening their gifts, and us girls getting ready.
I remember how it felt to walk to the church; I remember how the airbrushing tickled my face; I remember what it felt like when the chain was removed and pinned in my dress; I thank you for capturing those moments that will forever be embedded in my heart, and imprinted in my soul. We will always be grateful for you and your team for showcasing our love.
i appreciate your use of rack focus as a storytelling component at 1:40. in wedding films, the rack focus has become watered down by those who show one item then reveal another with no connection or meaning between the two.
folks reading this, please don’t let the rack focus go the way of the reveal, the stabilizer, and the slider…rather than to use lavishly and recklessly, proceed cautiously, and imbibe it with meaning and thought.
when brian at the nfl network asked us to come in and do a workshop for his crew, everybody from photographers, to producers, to directors and editors, it was quite the overwhelming proposal. stepping into the room today, a huge shooting stage where they shoot several of their shows throughout the season, it was even more overwhelming. how do you speak to a group of people who have so much more experience than you, who have been shooting much longer than you have, and many of whom who have produced more pieces than i can imagine. your biggest fear walking into things like this is always ‘what if i really have no clue about what i’m talking about…’ and no matter how much you run through what you want to share, how much you plan and prep, that feeling just doesn’t seem to go away until you get started and you can start feeling some reactions.
this workshop was much more technical based than our evo or cinema caravan. we didn’t get much of a chance to chat about our philosophy of storytelling and instead really focused on the technical challenges faced by shooters transitioning into DSLRs.
near the end of the day as we broke into groups and some people started to head out, we started to get more into a Q and A and it was really amazing to hear some outside perspectives on some of the pieces we have produced. aside from the visual aesthetic, it is always great to hear when people really see or feel the storytelling or thought put into the narrative of our pieces. it can be really subtle things like how we open or close a sequence, to some of the more ‘in your face’ sequences like motion matching through a series of plays, but either way it is so rewarding when people whom you haven’t met until now really connect with and appreciate all that attention to detail.
needless to say, day one was quite the experience and something i won’t soon forget. tomorrow is our last day and we get to hit the field for a high school practice and put some of the techniques we chatted about to use. above all of the technical and philosophical discussions that we have in these workshops, it is always so rewarding to see a group of strangers come together to produce a piece together. for most, there are a lot of aspects that are completely new to them and to see people come together and really pool their knowledge and find a way to blend their combined strengths is always fascinating and special.
i can’t wait for tomorrow.
P.
here are some BTS images from joyce of rayjoyce studios. thanks guys!
What a rush that must be. Congrats on your meteoric rise as a leader in your fierld patrick!!
Mitchell Swartz - August 3, 2010 11:11 pm
You guys rule!!! Even though a lot of the technical stuff went over my head. I feel like my knowledge of lenses and shooting on these DSLRs improved immensely in just one day. Can’t wait for the field shoot tomorrow and see what I got. Now the pressure’s on, I gotta bring it!
David Hong - August 3, 2010 10:16 pm
this is so cool you guys
man.. real high level stuff!
Mike Hall - August 3, 2010 8:49 pm
Awesome! Congratulations guys for the recognition of your immense talent. It must have been an amazing experience.
patty is a wedding planner based in california. within minutes of talking to her, a good year or so ago, i can remember exactly what i wanted to try and capture in their same day edit. being a planner, i wondered how involved she would be in her own wedding. it turns out that her entire wedding party headed into the venue the day before to setup all of their personal details that they planned for the following day. the morning of the wedding another storyline emerged, and that was of their personal vows and how excited/nervous she was for that part of the day. the idea for their film was to try and weave those two stories together. so when we showed up the morning of the wedding, it was much more relevant to me to cover the bridesmaids putting together the bouquets, which spoke to how involved they all were, than it was to focus on the somewhat more traditional things such as the make-up and hair.
for those of you that we have been lucky enough to meet along our canon cinema caravan trip across the US, you will remember their film as an example of threading. there are a lot of little details in the beginning of this film that come back and tie into the ending.
on a technical note, this piece was colored in apple color to really give it a more advanced vintage look. why vintage -i hope you were thinking that :) ?
this toning because patty loves to collect so many vintage things, from trunks, to chalkboards, to window frames. many of them were then tied into the decor of her wedding. that paired with what she wore on the wedding day made me think that a vintage tone would convey their story and mesh with it so much better. if your interested in reading more about that, check out my personal blog post about the color on this film here.
we still have a couple cities left on the canon cinema caravan. be sure to follow our adventures on the caravan here.
This SDE really gave me a good goosebump! I love everything from all the setup, beautiful couple, sweet and vintage feel, to the interesting song selection. All very unique and inspirational!
hi guys…i’m from Malaysia and there’s no word can describe your work on this matter!……its superbly done and amazingly beautiful!….keep up the great work guys!!!…….. GO StillMOTION!!!!
Vicky - July 26, 2010 9:10 pm
this is beautiful! :)
Jeff Brouillet - July 23, 2010 9:48 pm
amazing P.! once again something totally fresh and unique. how long did it take to do the grading and render from color? did you shoot any super8 for this one?
yesterday we landed in new york for our first stop of the cinema caravan. with that, we are ready to launch our first tutorial – the sm guide to lenses.
thanks to all of our amazing sponsors that have made this trip possible and that have brought this tutorial to you. we have plenty more to come.
first and foremost, thanks to canon live learning for making all of this possible (the bus and all). thanks to manfrotto for being so kind in providing 16 monopods plus tons more gear. thanks to cinevate for the shoulder rigs and atlas camera sliders. thanks to zacuto for the z-finders and DSLR rig. thanks to tiffen/lowel/steadicam for all of their lighting and stabilization support.
we setup for our first workshop tonight and it almost resembled the show floor of BH at times.
let us know what you think. we are happy to answer any questions and we look forward to hitting the road and shooting our next tutorial in chicago.
for those who want to follow along, check out the cinema caravan blog for daily updates. we still have room in a couple workshops for those interested in joining us. you can sign-up here.
You are really acting as showman to share knowledge, this 5-minute video that I just watch worth more than 8h workshop next PhotoImage Brazil, which happens next week. I live in Brazil but I ride this Canon Caravan Cinema.
One day I want to know and participate in a workshop of this great team. Thank you!
[...] over to Still motion guide to lens for weddings and events page to check out all the juicy details yesterday we landed in new york for our first stop of the [...]
Great video! Very informative. Would be wonderful for you to do a similar explanation of the lenses you choose for your still work, and why!
(or, have you already done that?)
Thanks for sharing guys, can’t wait for the future videos.
Ken - July 6, 2010 9:00 pm
Nice, but you should add the link to the blog post.
Jeff Brouillet - July 6, 2010 8:20 pm
That was really awesome. I still seem to learn something new every time I watch or read something new on your education blog. I recently added the 85 f/1.2 to my collection which is absolutely my favorite lens right now, but the 14 and 135 are next on my list. I love shooting bride preps with the 85 on the 5D, it seems to be a great focal length to get in tight without being too too close, and the look of the bokeh and low light capabilities is insane!
I’m looking forward to the next one, thanks for continuing to share so much with us all!
with under two weeks left before we take off for our cross country tour, i thought it would be fun to share a little promo we put together for the tour. our first tutorial, ‘the stillmotion field guide to lens selection for weddings and events’ will also be debuting shortly. a huge thanks to canon live learning for making all of this possible.
when we get to the color phase of our films we often work in FCP using the 3-way color corrector, RGB balance, and a couple other native filters. the tiffen dfx suite then steps in for some more advanced grading or fixing bigger problems. when we get a film that inspires us to do a really different look and feel with the color, that is when we head over to color (the apple app). color looks quite intimidating but really doesn’t take much to get a hang of. if you know photoshop you are more than half way there. with that being said, there is a ton of power under the hood and that can take quite the time to master. the primary room is very robust for most of your corrections and simple grading, but once you learn the secondaries, color fx, and geometry then you can do just about anything.
for patty and eugene’s wedding, she brought in many personal details and vintage items she has collected over the years. the seating chart was written on old windows. she brought in old trunks that held all of the props for the photobooth. a lot of her styling, form her hair, to her veil, to her umbrella, also had that vintage feel. when it came to the color i wanted to help convey that and really give the film an old and worn look. it took quite some time to get exactly what i had in mind, and the finished look combines quite a few corrections in the primary room, secondary, as well as a pretty big node cluster in the color fx room.
i’m really pumped with how it all came out and looking at the before and afters, i really feel the difference i was hoping to get across. i wanted to share some of the samples here as i think it is a pretty fascinating interface and program.
this grabs are from their same day edit, though the work in color wasn’t done the same day. we got asked to show the edit quite a bit earlier than planned, so i did a quick pass to clean up the color and that opened up the door for me to take some extra time the day after to process it how i wanted.
P.
one of my favorite frames (when in motion) from right before their first meeting in the forest.
a before and after grab from the finishing touches of patty getting ready.
a before and after grab from a shot with patty’s window frames that she collects.
the color interface. this is in the ‘primary in’ room.
Absolutely gorgeous. My ambition is to start getting clients interested in just this kind of editing/CC.
It’s a nice and also challenging variation to common CC.
[...] this toning because patty loves to collect so many vintage things, from trunks, to chalkboards, to window frames. many of them were then tied into the decor of her wedding. that paired with what she wore on the wedding day made me think that a vintage tone would convey their story and mesh with it so much better. if your interested in reading more about that, check out my personal blog post about the color on this film here. [...]
Yeah, Color is suite…er…sweet! Seriously, I love and hate that program. Intuitive? No. Rewarding? Affirmative! Great job with the the tonality! Very vintage, so that’s a “mission accomplished”, in my book. See you in Portland!
you absolutely could. i find the time we spend on color goes up each workshop. with a section on apple color going further and further each time, i think it certainly gives you a good start
P.
Jeff Brouillet - June 29, 2010 1:56 pm
This is really interesting – you could probably do a whole workshop on color grading. I’ve played around in Color but there is so much to learn there… I’ve really enjoyed the Tiffen filters – amazing results rather quickly.
color is more for the advanced looks, like this one. tiffen is all about power in simplicity and efficiency. we will actually be going over both, and native filters, in detail. we open up color and ealk you through each room, the workflow, and process footage on the spot with you.
At Calumet, you folks used primarily Tiffen as your color grading tool(plus 3 way). Apple Color is a new way of bringing out the geography/feeling of a video for you now. Will you be teaching this at the SME?
-Joshua
antia // this is us . a portrait film
Hey wassup Patrick. it’s Fode from the LA class. I’ve signed up for the forum, just waiting for my account to be activated. Thanx P.
Fode
We WISH we could be in an educational film! What an honour! Bummer Neil’s hockey season just got underway again :( We would have totally driven there tonight! lol
I would SOOOO do it…but I don’t have a dress yet???!!! SHUCKS!!!
we’d love to if you were here in california! too bad :(
Antia and I would love to do this since we still have all our wedding day stuff out. Can I bring my green socks?
- Will