Creating cinematic original concept films for wedding clients, 1st time 2009 EventDV’s top 25 Kevin Shahinian of Pacific Pictures has created this beautiful wedding trailer. Kevin is leading the wedding videography industry in creating hollywood/bollywood concept videos that add a story element to the clients wedding video. From ordinary to extraordinary with production values worthy of any big budget film, Kevin and his team, (other EventDV top 25 honorees) Patrick Moreau, Joe Simon and Casey Warren set off to Udaipur, India to produce this film “City of Lakes.” We were able to catch up with him to have him share with us his write-up.

Credits:

Pacific Pictures presents “CITY OF LAKES”
Starring Melissa Kumar, Samir Shah, Anubhab Saha, Sharon Chawda & Rushad Rana
Written & Directed by Kevin Shahinian
Produced by Kevin Shahinian & Patrick Moreau
Line Producer Pravin Thakur
Director of Photography Patrick Moreau
2nd Unit Director Joe Simon
2nd Unit Steadicam Casey Warren
Film Editor Kevin Shahinian
Jib Operator Chris Geiger
Set Photographer Amish Solanki
Main cast: Melissa Kumar, Samir Shah, Rushad Rana, Anubhab Saha & Sharon Chawda
Sponsors include: Cinevate, Canon, Tiffen/Steadicam

Here is his write-up:
There are so many ways to tell a story…

And so much a wedding symbolizes. So many questions it tends to raise: What is love? What is faith? It was our hope to explore these themes in a far more dramatically engaging way than we felt possible in a traditional documentary… Perhaps there is more within this story then meets the eye.

In the fall of 2009, Melissa & Samir embarked on an incredible journey to Udaipur, India, to fulfill a lifelong dream of having their wedding in the country of their ancestry. This transcendent place, affectionately called the “CITY OF LAKES,” located in the breathtaking region of Rajasthan, would be the setting for their extravagant, three-day marriage celebration, and the backdrop of our unprecedented film production – shot entirely on-location. We believe this to be the first ever live event/scripted concept production ‘hybrid’ film ever produced on this scale. It was shot entirely on DSLRs, the Canon 5D Mark2 and 7D.

In terms of equipment, we knew this was going to be an all-DSLR shoot early on. The Canon 5D Mark 2 was a given for its full frame sensor and stellar performance in low light. 24P was an issue, however, and rumors of the 7D had just begun to surface days before our departure. Luckily we were able to secure two pre-production models just in time, giving us the ability to shoot 24P natively for the bulk of the production.

Since our schedule combined a rigurous three-day live event shoot in the midst of a seven-day film production, we knew we had to combine as many cameras as possible to cover the live event in a way that would allow us cut seamlessly between our scripted scenes. During our multi-take production days, two 7Ds proved to be adequate. During the live event, both 7Ds and up to five 5Ds were used to create a multi-take feel. I knew all of the 5D footage would need to be slowed to 80% in post to cut smoothly with the 7D footage at 24P, so we strategized camera placement carefully for maximum creative impact.

Thus the 5D would spend most of its time atop a 24-foot Jimmy Jib, or on the outskirts of the environment on a Cinevate Atlas slider, grabbing establishing shots, inserts or any shots that would be enhanced by a very minute slow-down. The 7Ds would be in close capturing the intimacy of anyone speaking directly on-camera for sync later in post. As far as glass, we used Canon L-series lenses exclusively, and favored primes wherever we could. We used the Zoom H4n and a combination of wireless lavaliers and shotguns to capture audio. Tiffen provided us with a host of Lowell Caselights & Prolights, which were very quick & easy to setup for the variety of night exterior the script called for. Cinevate provided us with a number of Atlas LTS systems – many of our epic dolly shots owe their lives to the Atlas LTS – which proved critical in both the run & gun live event environment and production on-location. Cinevate Proteus rails, roll cage and Titan mattebox proved critical when shots called for the lightweight DSLRs to be mounted on a Steadicam Flyer; the extra weight allowed for greater stability & protection in some rather precarious situations.

As a writer-director, my focus when it comes to color has always started in pre-production with the art direction. As far as the overall stylistic approach to grading in post, my vision was to simply enhance the mise-en-scene. Color can be a delicate thing, its easy to go too far and easier to not go far enough; the goal was to strike a balance.

A complete list of cast & crew credits is viewable at PacificPicturesblog.com/blog

Listen to the podcast on F-Stop Beyond: The Experience of the making of “City of Lakes” by Ron Dawson.

“Behind the scenes” video can be found exclusively at Cinevate.com.

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