Milestones
It has been a very busy, but very interesting time for MRc Media.
Our cheeky little boy Casper has reached his first birthday. With a whole year passed, when we look at him the first thing we notice is how much he has grown. Its crazy to think that a whole year ago he came in to the world, tired and hungry. We’ve fed him, clothed him, bathed him and watch him grow.
It’s the strangest thing looking back at the early photos of him, we remember the days when he was little so we could pick him up with one arm, rest him on our laps and watch him sleep all day, all peaceful and tiny.
He has grown, his face has changed in front of our eyes and all those cute little clothes we bought won’t fit any more. Every time I realise he’s outgrown a favorite outfit, there’s an element of sadness that comes with it that our little boy is not so little any more.
Along with that comes the joy of every little step. The first smile, the first laugh, those precious moments when he learns a new skill. To crawl, to pick things up, problem solving. All these victories that come on a daily basis bring nothing but a sense of incredible, tear-inducing pride. We made this little being and somehow, there he is, learning and exploring the world the way he wants to. Many important moments have already passed and with one year done, we wonder how this happened? and more excitingly, what happens next?
Throwing a party
In our eyes, the best way to celebrate was to throw a party with our closest family and friends. I think, for the first year, the party is as much for the parents as for the children. We organised a little buffet, set up a few decorations and a gazebo in case the weather turned out alright. (We got lucky with the weather) so this was an ideal opportunity to make another video.
It was a lovely day and of course we have to acknowledge the generosity of all our friends and family. Bless our little Casper. He now has more toys than we have room for and a few cool outfits to show off. A very satisfying day indeed, so for all who came to celebrate with us, thank you.
As always, it is difficult to document everything while also playing host, but fortunately, we have a very willing set of family and friends who were more than happy to play with the birthday boy, leaving me with a few moments with two hands free to get my camera and record a few snippets.
Here is the result
We hosted the party on the Sunday and with his actual birthday being on the Tuesday, I didn’t really have an awful lot of time to edit this together. So after a very (very) late night (early morning) and a few more tweaks on his birthday evening. Once Casper had gone to bed for the night, I finished the first version. Though I always had it in mind that I would revisit it to try and improve the colour grading in the video. I had a few other ideas of scenes I would have liked to include. unfortunately, this idea didn’t really work so was not featured at all in the final version. (I will revisit, but not for a while)
I’d spent some time researching ideal camera profiles to shoot video on the 550d (T2i) and set my own customer colour profile. The idea being that I would end up with a flatter, more natural image which I could improve in the edit.
It turned out to be quite sunny that day. I hadn’t fully taken into account the shutter speed and wide aperture I had been shooting in. Consequently, the end result is some footage that was rather overexposed. Of the scenes I have included in the final piece, I have done my best to counteract this as part of the editing process and tried to keep a consistent tone throughout this film. For the most part I have managed this with reasonable success. Though I am learning all the time that in reality, I need to be more patient with camera set up correctly makes the editing process far easier.
As I create more videos I am finding that I have a lot more usable material to work with, yet still find that there was a whole lot more in the day that I didn’t capture.
Although I was determined to give my camera and microphone a good trial. I thought it might be good to incorporate a greeting from each of the guests at the end. Using a few different backdrops wasn’t in my initial plans, but at the time I figured it would add a bit of variety to the piece.
I was pleased to incorporate actual audio into the final video. I tried to adjust volume in the backing track at key points to allow the main live audio to be the main feature. I have limited experience in this so I found this an interesting challenge to keep the momentum up while adjusting volumes of separate tracks. It was also good to have confirmation that the Rode Video-Micro was actually producing decent sound quality. Something I’d yet to test properly up to this point.
I think I may need to re-evaluate my edit workflow, however. It seems that I follow a pattern where I look through my content and chop it down into manageable chunks, then discard the rest. I could probably benefit from a more thorough inspection of the footage first before setting everything out and adding music. I often find aswell that looking at one screen will vary significantly from another. I’m not really able to invest in a new monitor so I shall be looking to properly calibrate my current screen to see if this helps my grading work.
On the whole, I’m happy that I was able to get this one completed. Upon second revision though, I have noticed other parts of the edit (transitions etc) that needed re-working. Something I also need to improve upon.
The Good
Includes live audio
Adjusted volume to allow live action to take precedence
Narrative through the video
Colour Grade seems passable
The Bad
Scenes over exposed (Consider light conditions before shooting)
Could benefit from more tighter shots
More B roll needed
Focus needs improvement
Final Thoughts
This was a fun video to make, though I am falling into a pattern of creating montages of scenes I shoot. I should really try to vary it up a bit. I’d like to add more motion in scenes but this will very much a work in progress.
More to follow….