You can check out our Las Vegas wedding video demo reel from last year. Stay tuned because our 2008 reel is gonna go up soon. We worked really hard on it and think it's gonna be better. Thanks for watching.
I was just doing some site maintenance and came across some of our older Los Angeles wedding videographer sites. I like our new one ( the one your reading now ) a lot better but you can tell me what you think! Thanks
1. Los Angeles Wedding Videographer
2. Los Angeles Wedding Videographer
3. LA Wedding Videographer
Check out these new Orange County wedding videos we've posted. Orange County, CA is a wedding videographer's dream. Lots of beautiful locations, colors, and faces to film. If our looking for a dream wedding location than make sure to check out the OC.
The difference between something that is well lit and something that isn't can be the difference between a video that's great and one that's totally pants. When I shoot wedding videos in LA, I often have to accept whats given to me in the environment, but this does not mean I should accept bad results.
Lighting A Scene
Guerrilla videographers are very adpet at low budget lighting. So how do we light a scene? My advice, keep it simple. DV needs as much light as any other video format if you are lighting an image correctly. The rule of thumb is that you start out with a 1 stop, higher wattage key light source, than you think you need, so that by time it is diffused, you still have enough light to shoot at a decent f-stop with. Every time you add a layer of heavy diffusion to a light, you will lose about a stop of exposure. So you will need to have enough light to begin with before you can diffuse it. The advantage of this light is that the bulbs throw a soft, gentle light .
Reflectors
A reflector is a piece of silvery, gold or white fabric stretched over a frame. Lastolite make some really cool ones that explode open into massive circles. They come in two main varieties : silver/white and gold/white (the gold is good for warming up flesh tones). They are always a good investment, but if you can't afford them there's a cheaper solution around the corner.
If you want to go super cheap, hit up your local supermarket and get some big cardboard boxes and some aluminum foil. Cut the boxes into massive sheets taking advantage of its folds, and stick the foil to the boards to create folding reflectors. Use the shiny side of the foil for a hard reflector or the dull side for a more diffuse reflector. You could also try looking for reflecting sun shades.
In my first post, I discussed the importance of shooting with a 24P camera and using appropriate filters and shallow dpeth of field to mimick the look of motion picture. As a wedding videographer in LA, I've learned over the yrs the importance of lighting. In fact, this is an extremely important and deep subject that will play a pivoital role in obtaining the film look.
LIGHTING
How you light your production and how you set your exposure is an important consideration. Its important to note that a video camera's CCD responds differently to light than film. The photochemistry of film has a higher dynamic range, typically about 12 to 14 f-stops compared to 6-8 stops for video. It's quite a difference. The limited dynamic range of video means you must be careful to not blow out your highlights otherwise you'll end up with a washed out images. As a rule of thumb, it is better to slightly underexpose your video than overexpose. The reason is that video is better able to preserve information in the blacks or dark areas as compared to the highlights. This is corrected in post by pushing the black levels up a stop or two.
So how do you go about seting the right exposure? Modern video cameras feature a zebra setting in the viewfinder at 70 - 100 IRE. What this means is you will see zebra lines over the part of the image that is either 70 or 100 % of the maximum brightness level allowed by video. In normal conditions you want skin tones to lay at about 70 IRE and your maximum white levels to peak at 100 IRE. If your shooting under bright conditions outdoors you wan always use a ND filter to bring it down a stop or two. This will let you preserve your F-stop and deth of field while trimming down the exposure.
