Michelle & Mark's Wedding 20190901

Completed my first wedding shoot and it was a blast! Congrats to the beautiful couple.

Production Notes:


- Nikon Z6 + 24-70mm + Ronin SC
- Shot at 16:9 full frame 4K 24 fps
- Collected about 190GB of footage from the day (September 1 2019)
- Final delivery 2.35:1 anamorphic crop
- Took 3 days to cut together the Rough Cut, plus 2 rounds revisions
- Colour correction and grade took 1 more day, and applied a LUT called “Ground Control Reign”
- Styled after a @Matti Haapoja wedding video (reference: https://vimeo.com/106347495)
- No slow motion
- No audio in this cut
- 3 locations, all in Toronto (1. Hotel X Toronto by Library Hotel Collection, 2. Sunnyside Pavilion & Cafe, 3. Mclean House at Estates of Sunnybrook)
- Lots of shot varieties, even from the same location (wide, medium, close up, extreme close up)
- Great direction from the photographers from Purple Tree Wedding Photography for poses & looks. We just rotated at every set up.
- Cutting to music brought this piece to life, matching the emotion with lyrical pacing was essential! (Song: Happy Birthday by Kygo)
- The last scene on the rooftop was unreal! It was super windy and Michelle's veil was cast in the wind blowing in the right direction. with the Toronto skyline in the backdrop

Enjoy!

Dempsters Global Energy Race 2019

Early bird gets the proverbial worm, or in this case, the opportunity to capture an exciting 10km race hosted by the good folks at Dempsters. This is an annual event that happens at Ashbridges Bay.

A few key take-aways:

  • Ronin-SC gimbal works quite well in this literal run-and-gun scenario. However, while zoomed-in using the 24-70mm on the Nikon Z6, it proved challenging, but necessary in order to frame up properly in key one-take moments such as runners starting the race or crossing the finish line.

  • ND filter saved my life! Without it, I would have had to fumble around with my aperture / ISO a lot and would lead to missed shots. All I had to do was dial in the right exposure using my on-screen histogram to nail my exposures. It was a cloudy day that had peeks of sun, and at times, full sun.

  • Didn’t shoot any slow motion on this one. Didn’t deem it necessary to be honest, as I had plenty of coverage and b-roll to work with. I see a lot of slow motion b-roll nowadays that tends to drag on and on. Effective when the scene / action calls for it (sports, food, dancing) but a race is meant to be fast paced, so it was a creative decision and technical decision not to shoot any 120fps or 60fps slow motion. Furthermore, a trick I picked up with slowing down 24fps footage via “Optical Flow” have served me well when I want to stretch out the clip in post

  • One camera on video for this one. It was enough. Pre-production and shot-list helps.

  • Interviews were not time-slotted, and talent was not briefed (since they didn’t know who was going to win the race). But lesson learned - next time we need to dedicate a coordinator to wrangle the winners, time slot the talent, and tell the DJ to turn the music down.

Recent Video Work for OLG!

It’s been a fun series of shoots for OLG, covering some of their events this summer. Particularly fun was a weekend up in Port McNicoll for a contest winner that won a weekend at a dream cottage.

What the cottage looks like from above!

What the cottage looks like from above!

Another fun shoot with OLG was at VELD 2019. The agency had set up a live activation that features a wind-booth, in which the participants tried to catch tickets blowing in the air in exchange for prizes, hence “Whirl-Win”…!

Toronto Tennis City

As you may know, my daily driver for both photo and video work is the Nikon Z6, which is the Expert Imaging and Sound Association (EISA)’s “Camera of the Year” for 2019.

nikonz6winnerfeattt.jpg

Not only have I been able to produce amazing photography with this incredible camera. I was able to utilize the FTZ adapter onto a Nikkor 70-200 lens. This combination allowed me to access the Autofocus functionality of the camera while recording in 1080p 120fps. This came in handy whilst shooting for a recurring client of mine at Toronto Tennis City:

Latest Timelapse Attempt - Day to Night

From the Dufferin Gate Bridge vantage point.

Settings: ND Filter on a 70-200mm lens, Nikon Z6, F/16, Shutter 1/1.3”, ISO 50, interval at 2 seconds on the built-in intervalometer. Manually adjusted the ND filter as it got darker out. Unfortunately some noticeable camera shake - minimized using Warp Stabilizer in post. The key is to maintain exposure as day turns to night, while still seeing the motion blur of the cars and light streaks, CN tower, and not overexposing the billboard. This is my third outing since I got the assignment.

In post, I adjusted the exposure manually in Lightroom to account for the change, will need to do a better job here. Also, LRTimelapse would be useful to control the flickering - but I didn’t want to pay 240 Euros for access to the full software. The trial version only covers up to 400 photos at a time, and i shot close to 4000 NEF files in 3 hours. Maybe next time, if they pay for editing - I was only hired as a shooter! Otherwise, there’s lots of usable clips I can chop up and sell it to stock sites in 4K. Enjoy!