simply cinematic

we love movies. we love visual arts. as long as it’s captivating, moving and has story to tell, we love it.

just yesterday we were able to watch the movie, the bourne ultimatum. a fantastic movie. the action scenes were crisp and edgy. jason bourne’s journey… surprisingly touching. the storyline… plot twist filled.

but this blog post is not about that movie.

it’s about another movie.

a movie we’ve been eagerly awaiting…

we now have our final wedding video! 😀

we were so excited that upon arriving back home, we immediately popped our hts open, placed our wedding dvd and watched it 2 straight times… and then the raw footages… not withstanding that it was around 2 am already. excited, eh, no? 😆

and our excitement was immediately justified. the initial scene of a 3-dimensional tour of a map of tagaytay was an early indication of how meticulously and excellently done the video was. as that brief introduction raised the bar extremely high, the succeeding scenes did not disappoint.

our wedding video was everything we wanted it to be… and maybe more. bob nicolas did a splendid job of coming up with a video that was visually captivating, emotionally moving and a story well told. WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. 🙂

bob’s technical brilliance in video editing was in full display in our video. precision cuts, dissolves, picture in picture, time-lapse… etc. being a video editor myself, i just appreciate usage of such techniques. also, we now appreciate more the power of his dvx camera with its warmer, more saturated colors and its capability of shooting at 24p thereby making our video more film-like.

but beyond technical skills, bob’s ability to capture moments and emotions has always been his strength. his unobtrusive style and strong belief that the day is special in itself helps him achieve this. our bouts of giddiness and excitement, our overflowing happiness, our longing, our anticipation and all the stolen moments were stringed altogether producing our wedding video. a wedding video that only cements bob’s tag line, life really is like a movie.

astonishing cinematogaphy + creative camerawork + sharp editing. cinematic indeed.

what makes things even more amazing is bob had to do with somewhat limited material. we didn’t have the conventional bridal march (ours was different yet bob still managed to make it dramatic. galing talaga. 🙂). we didn’t have a first dance. we didn’t have the usual ceremonies: cake cutting, garter toss, dove release. these are scenes that are critical ingredients in most wedding videos. without such is like asking a coach to go to basketball game without his key players. but it didn’t matter to bob… at least, it seemed like it didn’t. 😉

even the raw footages were commendable. nakaka2wa din panoorin because you get real behind-the-scenes look at how the day transpired. madaming magagandang footages that it seemed like it’s an edited video minus the musical score. i’ll probably toy with these footages and make our own amateur wedding video. 😆


an inside look of the elegant looking dvd case.


embossed label on the parents’ copy dvd case.


our edited dvd’s… and raw footages.



screen captures of the the menu screens. these photos do not truly represent the beauty of the design. the tilted tri-screen previews scenes within the video… and in the case of the scene selection screen, it goes with special effects. superb! 🙂


we never thought that watching credit roll will be this entertaining. galing-galing. 🙂 btw, that’s my sister, brother-in-law and our ring bearer giving their best wishes. 🙂

it’s quite obvious that we are more than satisfied with the final output. aside from the things we’ve said already, we want to point out one last thing.

we gave bob free reign in editing our video… except for one request. we told him, “gus2 namin yung video namin eh yung maiiyak si selle, ha.” astig sa request, no? 😉 but you know what? at very first viewing, we found ourselves holding back tears while watching. just this morning, i was watching alone while my wife sleeps and i was shedding tears also. our wedding video brought us back to our wedding… the height of the emotions, the love that was more than evident and the glory of God.

bob, we can’t thank you enough for what you did. you’re blessed with skills way above everyone else. it’s nice that you get to use it to infuse happiness to people… something they’ll carry for the rest of their lives. we certainly will. to you, let and the kids, we pray for nothing but success in all aspects. salamat. 🙂

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firewire

firewire or ieee1394 is a pc interface standard. unlike the more popular usb, firewire offers high speed communication and isochronous data transmission hence, ideal for transfer large volumes of data. the developer of this technology, apple, called this standard firewire and the tag has remained. other manufacturers have their own tags though like sony, which calls their ieee1394 as i.link.

why blog about firewire?

we finally got one! 🙂

what for? to transfer digital videos to our pc for editing.

despite the proliferation of dvd camcorders and hdd camcorders, mini-dv still gives the best video recording quality. yes, those small tapes do pack a punch. those professional cameras wedding videographers use, they all use mini-dv (well, with the exception of very few like the p2 card of the hvx… but that’s a totally new technology and i only know one who uses it. 😉). because of the quality… and security in archiving. but how do you transfer video from tape to a pc? do you use a usb? years back, i thought that was the way. who can fault me? eh, yun ang kasamang cord ng biniling kong videocam, eh. plus, yun din nasa instruction manual. kaya pala pag transfer ko sa pc, eh sobrang pixelated yung video. because usb cannot handle such vast amount of data at high speeds, continuously. later on, i learned about firewire.

we made sure that our new pc had firewire ports. unlike usb ports, firewire ports does not come standard. now we got a pc with firewire ports. we have a videocam (jurassic as it may be. 😆). all we needed was the firewire cable.

this past weekend, we got hold of one. 🙂

pagkadating sa bahay, we immediately brought out our must-be-replaced-videocam and plugged it into our pc using the newly acquired firewire cable. we have read that there was a problem transferring video files using firewire in vista. kaya naman we were a bit nervous too that all those complaints may be true. but lo-and-behold, we got to transfer the video easily. after transfer, i played it and it had audio (another complaint against vista). opened vegas and started dragging and dropping frames and it worked! woohoo!

ayun lang. time to make a honeymoon video… 😉

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another 777 wedding

no, we did not attend two weddings last july 7. no, we were not on nikki valdez’s guest list either. teka, nikki valdez? d ba artista yun? yah, she is. actually, to be honest, i didn’t know who she was. my fault because i don’t follow our loca showbiz scene kasi. but my wife knows her… and so does the general public. we know, you’re probably wondering, why are we blogging about her wedding?

bob nicolas, our videographer, has become our friend. with his humble nature, it was too easy to befriend him. being friends, we do checkup on each other from time to time just to see kung anong bago sa buhay. just a month ago, we visited him at the wedding summit. and it was there that let, his lovely wife (congratulations again sa inyong new baby boy :-)), broke the news that bob was the cover nikki valdez’s wedding. actually, medyo matagal na din namin alam na there was a probability that bob was gonna cover nikki’s wedding but there was no certainty back then. noon lang na-finalize. needless to say, we were so happy and excited for bob. funny nga kasi, just a few days before the summit, selle and i were wondering kung kelan mag-cover c bob ng celebrity wedding. ayun, nasagot ang tanong namin. 🙂

kaya we were doubly excited for 777. excited for jc and grace’s wedding… and excited for bob’s first celebrity wedding.

so, why are we blogging about this wedding?

dahil mahilig kami sa showbiz. 😆 just kidding. seriously, because…
…we believe in bob’s skills. we really do.
…we desire that he be recognized for his God-given talents.
…we are appreciative and we just want to share to the world something that is worth sharing.

click here to watch nikki’s onsite video. having watched the video ourselves, we give bob nothing but props. awesome job. 🙂

click here to watch bob’s other works and click here to watch more of bob’s works.


classic rings shot. color saturation + lighting makes a simple shot extraordinary.


how often do you see a car like this in a wedding? 😉


don bosco have glass sliding doors so they had to be creative and came up with the idea of using drapes. taking this shot an angle gives a usual shot a different flavor.


this screen shot is much better viewed on video. selle loved this shot. seems like some low-level, glidecam action going on here. gotta ask bob about this. galing! 🙂


nikki, the bride, exuding with delight and happiness. you gotta have attentive eyes to capture such moments… and bob definitely have them. 😉

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desktop project part 1

remember our wedding day gimmick? the photos-of-the-day? we received tons of photos out of that… and a lot of it are keepers. 🙂
so what does one do with such a large quantity of pictures?
a) print them all and place them in an album? inside a box?
b) select a few, print them, frame them and hang them on a wall?
c) place them on an online gallery?we thought of all of these but decided no to do any of the above… for now. bakit? eh, kasi we wanted to get creative with our photos. we wanted to stretch their value. we wanted to make the most out of them.

what exactly did we have in mind?

as mentioned in one of our old postings (see photos from an amateur videographer), i am into video editing. i’ve been doing it for a while and starting to really get the hang of it. we thought, “why not make an avp out of our guests’ pictures?” oo nga naman. that would be nice plus the fact that we could included it in our thank you token… which we did. 🙂

and we had so many pictures, we decided to make 2 avp’s. 😆

here are our self-made, avp/slideshows. enjoy! 😀
this is actually the 2nd avp that was made. a fast-paced avp with a few effects.


our simulated onsite avp. 😆 i gave myself 2 hours to edit an avp from start to finish thereby simulating onsite editing. i cut myself some slack by using a very slow-paced song. 🙂 and guess what, i finished the project in less than 2 hours. pwede na mag-onsite… not! ayoko nga, kaka-pressure kaya yun. 😛
btw, the photos used here are from our non-photographer/videographer suppliers namely, mik (musician) and kaye (caterer). awesome photos must we say. 🙂

all avp’s were made using sony vegas. yah, i know. most videographers on this part of the world use premiere pro… but not me. 😀 i was introduced to video editing thru sony vegas… it was easy to use that i learned editing simply by watching someone edit thru vegas. it’s that simple. but… i might try premiere pro also in the future. 😉

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