Justine McDaniel, Final Project, Jasmine

The Business of Love from Justine McDaniel on Vimeo.

This project was a journey. Before I did it, I was really worried about being able to get the shots I needed, especially since I was traveling three hours to do it and it would have been really hard for me to reshoot if I'd needed to. I felt like there were so many things to remember to do when shooting and I didn't have enough confidence in my ability to compose and film the shots. But I ended up exceeding my own expectations, and I am really happy with how the video came out.

There were various challenges to contend with on the day of, mainly that my tripod broke and it was raining. I managed to mount the camera on the tripod and I just had to hold it the entire time or else it would fall down. This made a few of the shots shaky, but for the most part it didn't affect filming in the end.

I was able to go across the entire grounds and through the house to take shots, and I had a great time composing all those shots. My favorite thing about this project is all the pretty shots I got outside, like the ones of the bees and the lilies. I was really proud of that because I had been so worried about getting shots. It turned out to be wonderful that it rained because that meant there was a lot of action going on moving the wedding from outdoors to under a tent, and I felt good about my filming of that, as well.

Ironically, the interview, which was the part I wasn't worried about at all, was the most challenging part for me. A lot of my footage from it came out blurry and I had to reshoot some soundbites of Ashton the next day. Don was pretty shy and reticent, so I had to really draw him out. The dumb dog technique worked wonderfully with him!

In all, I wish I had some better soundbites-- the woman I was originally going to interview was sick, but I know I would have gotten many gems if I'd talked to her. If we had had more time, I might have tried to go back and talk with her, but she was in the middle of chemotherapy so that wasn't an option. I also would have liked to return to shoot another wedding where I could have been allowed to film closer. However, I am proud of this video. The editing process was grueling, and I reworked the bites and the order of the audio probably ten times. I'm satisfied with the audio I ended up with, and I think it flows well. The shots of the wedding and the action shots really made the video, and I was so glad to have them, because it was a pretty quiet, static place and it could have made for a boring video if I hadn't captured some action. I feel like I learned so much shooting this and I am way more confident about my video skills. I still can't believe that we went from the cupcakes video to this in just three weeks. Even though it was stressful at first, this was a great project to do.