As both the photographer or videographer, and the client, horrendous results are our worst nightmare. So when the videography of a wedding was dire and deemed unsalvageable, Josh Yeo stepped in to see if he could rescue it.
A wise veteran photographer gave me a lesson in the first few weeks of me owning a camera. Using a macro filter and a nifty fifty, I nearly captured an ant looking at me through a hole in a leaf. It sounds poor, but it could have been a brilliant image. However, due to my entry level camera, poor macro setup, and lack of technical ability, the shot is far from what I wanted. Undeterred, I slapped it around Lightroom and Photoshop for hours trying to make something of it, and finally showed some photographers I was friends with. The aforementioned veteran said — and I’ll make this family friendly — “trash in, trash out.”
The essence of his words has stuck with me for over a decade; he was completely right. Another way of putting it, is don’t try to polish a turd. You’re better off reshooting and getting higher quality results in camera than trying to save something in post. But what happens if you can’t reshoot and you need to polish that turd. Is there any way you can have trash in, but not trash out?
Josh Yeo of MAKE. ART. NOW had some close friends go through the worst case scenario with their wedding videography: it was dreadful. Not only was the photographic prowess of the footage non-existent, there was no B-roll, no drone footage, very little footage of bride and her family, very few reaction shots and emotion, and last but not least, bizarre defects in the files that leave digital artifacts in the form of grain. The bride and groom chalked it up as bad luck and decided nothing could be done with the collection of footage from their wedding day, but Yeo wanted to see what he could achieve.
How do you think he did? Is there anything he could have done better?