IN[FOCUS]

Bridal Blogs, 2/3 from IN[FOCUS] on Vimeo.

Comments aren’t just going to write themselves, so utilize your content to generate conversation, and don’t be afraid to sandbag your entry with the praises of friends, colleagues, and clients.

So I’m going to practice, and I trust you will do me this favor – please leave a comment about the quality of work that you see in this Style Me Pretty blog entry.  You’re paying it forward for mucho commentos when you are featured as well!!!

jones

Jones

Chris P. Jones began Mason Jar Films 10 years ago in his garage. He still has no idea why y'all would vote for him for EventDV25, but Thanks!

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Bridal Blogs, 1/3 from IN[FOCUS] on Vimeo.

In addition to what I said in the video, a byproduct of being featured on the popular blogs is that the smaller and more local bridal blogs are likely to pick up the story, almost like they’re feeding off the AP newswire.  It doesn’t typically work in reverse, though, so shoot for the heavily traffic’d blogs, and let it trickle down from there.

The image below is an example of a local event planner (Couture Engagements) writing about how my work, as seen on Style Me Pretty, impressed her:

Click on the image to enlarge it, or read the full write up here.  Notice that she says that she wasn’t a fan of videography until she saw this clip…proof that our postings on bridal blogs are not only good for us, but great for our industry!

The other bridal blogs I mentioned in the video: The Bride’s Cafe and Wedding Bee.  If you have additional bridal blogs you wish to list for our readership to approach, please list in the comments section below.

Thanks!
jones

Jones

Chris P. Jones began Mason Jar Films 10 years ago in his garage. He still has no idea why y'all would vote for him for EventDV25, but Thanks!

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Part II//////Storyboarding for wedding cinema

In Storyboarding Part I I talked a bit about storyboarding in general and its usefulness in breaking down shots for more narrative/ film style work. In part two I would like to talk about how storyboarding can be a hugely important tool in wedding cinema as well. The question is, how do you storyboard for a wedding, where nearly everything is unpredictable and unrepeatable?

We have been storyboarding for weddings since we began shooting cinema a couple years ago. At the time, these storyboards were more or less just basic layout of what kinds of framing and shots we were looking for. But now they have evolved into a crucial tool that we use for nearly everything we shoot.

While storyboarding for traditional narrative films helps illustrate specifics shots, moments and key-frames. Storyboarding for wedding cinema can be used in a different way that is more specific to the nature of the live event aspect. The storyboards are used more for inspiration and ideas as well as reminders of unique and creative angles, compositions, and possible framing and composition options.. The storyboards simply provide a visual guide for your ideas and also help you remember what shots you had in your mind while envisioning how sequences will look and flow. We have been using storyboards on nearly every cinema wedding since we started, and I have found that by spending a few hours sketching out ideas the day or two before a wedding can save a huge amount of time and streamline everything on the wedding day.

The best way for me to illustrate how I use storyboards for wedding cinema is by some examples that I have here with me. I scanned a bunch of notes and drawings from the idea / brainstorming sessions that Danielle and I had from both Sarah & Kurt and Preben and Nicole’s wedding.

We have always wanted to incorporate some After Effects work in our Same Day Edits and always developed some hugely complicated effects sequence that would need to be edited over multiple days.  Could we then call these “Same Day Edits?”. The answer was simply, NO.   So we took another approach of heavily storyboarding out the effects sequences we envisioned…..and then (yes, crazy) doing all the After Effects work on the wedding day in order to call them SDE’s.

Here are the storyboards for Sarah & Kurt’s SDE. We sketched out a basic  rough idea of what framing and order of shots we wanted for their gift-giving sequence.  We also sketched out some ideas for the opening and ending sequences which we wanted to have symmetry – to tell a mini story.

While talking with Kurt before the wedding, we thought of the idea making a mix tape for Sarah, and since their favorite song is the Kings of Leon “Use Somebody,” we decided that this would be a perfect chance to tie it all in.

Here are the storyboards:

Here is Sarah & Kurts SDE:

/////SARAH&KURT * SDE////////////////// from Casey Warren | MIND CASTLE on Vimeo.

/////Some non-technical:

Kurt + Sarah = amazing people

/////Some technical:

Camera: 100% with Canon 5D MK II

Lenses: Canon 24mm 1.4L, Canon 70-200mm f2.8L, Canon 135mm f2.0, Voightlander 58mm f1.4.

Techniques: diegetic to non-diegetic opening and sound transitions. Color to color transitions. After Effects used at the end.

—————-

For Preben and Nicole’s SDE, we had even more detailed storyboards.  A couple of weeks before the wedding we met with Preben to go over the schedule and as he was leaving he mentioned to us that he had a disc with hundreds of vintage photos from Roche Harbor (the wedding venue).  We had been to a couple resorts before where you could literally hold up a photo from the 1920′s, peer around it, and see that same place, nearly untouched  today. We thought that this would be the concept to integrate into their wedding…the passage of time and things past to present. Furthermore, Nicole had restored Preben’s grandfather’s watch and gave it to him as a gift on the wedding day. Along with the letter she wrote him, we tied the past to present idea into their wedding SDE all the more.

Here are the storyboards:

Here is Preben & Nicole’s SDE

/////PREBEN&NICOLE * SDE////////////////// from Casey Warren | MIND CASTLE on Vimeo.

Blog Post: Click here

Camera: 100% Canon 5d MK II

Lenses: 2x Canon 70-200mm f2.8L, Canon 24mm f1.4L, Canon 135mm f2.0L, Voightlander 58mm f1.4

Other gear: Cinevate swing away mattebox, Proteus cage and mounts, Pegasus LTS (slider), Satchler Camera support, Steadicam Flyer LE

Other Software: Adobe After Effects for Rotoscoping and film effects

You can see that these wedding storyboards have a bit less detail and are less intricate than the ones in Part I.   This is because, on the wedding day, the scenes won’t exactly match up due to the live event nature.  It pays to keep things down to the bare bones of the scene to tell the story.

Overall, storyboards can be an incredibly useful time saving tool on wedding day, especially when there is little time to waste.  Also, storyboards used to any degree, help with the pre-planning process overall. They really help refine and focus ideas and concepts. From simple shot ideas to longer complex sequences, they can be an essential tool to practice in the art of wedding cinema.

~Casey Warren

MIND|Castle Studios

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