Satisfying your curious appetite : 2 behind the scenes for 2 fantastic shoots

I've been a lucky devil in the last few months to be part of the team involved in so many amazing projects. Here are to outstanding ones : An Image Magazine / Johny Dar partnership artist project and the magnificent Derby campaign shoot which Trevor Hart put together.

First wedding video edit

Right so here it is...the video that made me switch from FCP 7 to FCP X...half way through (if anyone out there is thinking of doing that, just start from scratch, it's way simpler !)
This is not a wedding video in its traditional sense but rather a short movie, I tried to have stories within the stories, to give a portrait of Bernadette and Jamie, of their love, of their family and friends, of their lives.
Hope you like it !

Coming soon !! first wedding video - full edit

For my first first experience of an expected equally stressful, exciting and challenging videographing of a wedding, I made a promise to myself : I shall be enjoying this thoroughly and I shall learn loads and be thrilled about/with the outcome, alongside the bride and groom...phew ! it happened ! 

Pic Andres Poveda

I got the video and DVD ready earlier than anticipated (though, for the editors out there, I managed to finally convince myself to do the jump between FCP7 to X...after...how many years ??? anyway, that only happened half way through, should have started from scratch it might have been just as quick !0

but since I have this nice release poster stating the release is tomorrow, I ll hold off until tomorrow (only lucky VIPs are my amazing bride and groom).

I decided to take a fresh (read : partially informed of industry standard) take on wedding videography : how about we do a short movie of 2 people's best day ever, 2 people's love, 2 people's life in a nutshell, and make something interesting for anyone from the very first second right to the end, and be able to shed a tear or two ? So I put the emphasis on editing the footage into a short movie format, with a storyline written down beforehand, with stories within the story, while keeping a clear record of the day, in its entirety. Hope you like it {tomorrow}

oh, talking about tomorrow, I am starting a fantastic project this weekend with a good friend of mine, Monika Pawlak, I ll tell more about her cool idea later on.

nearly done...the guitar-pedal-amp video ready !

Huurraaayyyy we're seeing the end of the editing on FX Amps Randy Plex video ! I think I shot it over a month ago, had time to shoot another project in the meantime, and god knows how many photoshoots since then too... I guess it's one of those projects that are somehow a bit harder to come to life...
Not that we weren't super enthusiastic about the project, FX Amps make really really nice handmade projects, a lovely attention to detail (seemingly the way it is wired inside is pretty close to being called a Sistine Chapel of amplifications ! it's a neat and pretty work. 

I do believe if something doesn't quite work straight away, it's not meant to work, but in this case, the potential was there, the footage was nice, I just struggled to dedicate the necessary time for  the editing, so many tiny pieces of jigsaw to put together the editing was quite daunting, while it was also tricky to match the audio with the visual and preserve the continuity since none of the songs were rehearsed, that was just jamming. Pascal, my guitar maniac boyfriend, isn't 200% happy with the audio, whether it's the recording of it or the settings on his amp, but we decided to let it go and do a better job on the audio when we shoot the next product we expect from FX Amps !

Ok, there's also a "defect" we spotted on the amp which is fixed now so we ll have to reshoot one small pan...and I'm sure in the process I ll change my mind again on the look of the video...

but here's the latest version of the FX Amps Randy Plex video for now ! Comments most welcomed :-D

On another note I'm working on the final touches for a fantastic potter and introduced myself to Adobe Audition to polish the audio, wow...that's a serious piece of software for audio enhancement. And quite intuitive to play with (unlike, say, After effects & many video editing softwares which require a bit of research before first use). I'm glad I had the perfect project to get to use Audition. Hopefully this video will see the daylight in a couple of weeks or so.

www.sylviephotography.com

Hommage to Decathlon...

Ask any of my friends, I'm not a shopper...There really aren't that many shops where I enjoy going to, I'd rather do it online. Some sort of claustrophobia / light misanthropy I guess... 

One of the few exceptions are Decathlon, one stop shop for all things outdoor-y, fun, long lasting and comfy...at crazy value. So when I heard they were finally opening a store in the Republic around Xmas, I said Hooorayyy

Coincidently, when I was doing a reci in Bull Island, Pascal was  wearing Quechua (Decathlon's own brand) wind jacket, trousers and shoes, that called for a catalogue shoot !

www.sylviephotography.com

New behind-the-scene videos

I've been blessed, I've had a lot of fun in the last few months, a lot of varied shoots in which that I've assisted versatile Trevor Hart who can handle it all, Dublin Bus madness, Supervalu Andalucian heat, Guinness night shoot, Bank of Ireland lifestyle shoot, and a Euro special Meteor roaming campaign ! Here are a few recent ones where I had a chance to shoot quick behind the scenes videos on the go and on the run ! The details and stories behind each of them can be found on Trevor's blog...enjoy !

These were mostly shot with Fujifilm X10 (occasionally Canon G11)...and editing in FCP7. Music : Danosongs, Garageband, Jarabe de Palo...
Coming soon, a series of videos I did for a potterer, very different ball game from shooting people, quite exciting and challenging !




www.sylviephotography.com

Lovecats part II : the short !!

Last weekend was quite a sunny one for once and watching the kitties enjoy the heat in their own special way urged me to do a little short about them. There's a certain amount of things I managed to get them to do but they are really like kids, they have a short interest span and then they go off do their thing.

I shot this with canon 5D MkII and a 24-70mm L lens, edited with final cut pro only, and a lot of love, a bit of magic bullet look and garageband bits and pieces. The audio was recorded separately with a zoom recorder since the audio from the camera was way too low and not clear enough.

Enjoy !

Image Magazine shoot - behind the scene video

It was tough to wait until the March edition was out before I could share this ! I put together a video of Trevor's precise and patient still life creations and all the sparkles and pretty shapes that we got to shoot for Image Magazine.

Click here for Trevor's blog about the shoot.

New homepage promo video with After Effects

Start of the year is usually the time where I sit down and have a look at improving or updating my website. That gave me a great excuse to redo my intro video compiling all I have to offer, as my first project on After Effects which I recently learnt to use. I normally use Final Cut Pro but I loved the way AE allowed me to tweak my comp at anytime, change any properties of each layer in a much much faster way than in FCP. It's also a huge resource of presets, effects and all. 

Check out Video Copilot, it's a fantastic place to get started on AE. Andrew, who presents the tutorials, is so passionate and creative, it's quite contagious, I might start special effects stuff myself soon !

Here's my comp anyway, you're most welcome to give me your suggestions. I think there's a big improvement compared to the one I had, I went quite easy on the effects and tried to give it an upbeat tempo.