The Sweet Shots Experience

The start of April has been a lot of fun especially when we conducted Sweet Shots an Event Filmmaking Workshop, the first of its kind here in Zamboanga. We held it at Gazebo, Astoria Regency on April 2-3, 2014. Robert Zapata Jr or "Trebz", our boss in Trebor Z, invited two of Philippines best videographers, Christian Andaya and Mike Jamandre to talk about the gears, workflow and tips in shooting and editing wedding films. The two masters started also in humble beginnings but with the guidance of Philippine's most popular Videomaker himself, Jason Magbanua. They were so kind to come over the city to share their time and knowledge in the field we love.




On the first day of Sweet Shots, we started with a little talk by Trebz on how our company started and why are we conducting such workshop. Over 30 participants attended from various backgrounds and affiliations. Cinesur, Vista de Lente, Sky Cable crew, and students as young as 13 years old were there. Professional or not, Sweet Shots goal is to gather the creatives who are passionate in Video making. Then, it's my turn to talk about DSLR Videography Concepts. I shared a short history of film making and discussed about what formats to shoot using DSLR such as Aspect Ratio, Frame Rate, Scanning Systems, Compression and Bitrate. Unfortunately, time was not enough to finish my topic so we proceed to QnA. A lot of questions were asked especially about settings which i dont have much knowledge of so Trebz was the one who answered most of the questions.haha. Lunch was served afterwards.




In the afternoon session, it was Christian and Mike's turn. First they showed us some of their works which were just flawless. Mike showed us a video of him at work, how he moved and what gears he used. Christian also showed a longer version of SDE called "Time-Shift" which is the final output given to the client aside from the full coverage. Then they talked about the gears they use to shoot. The duo were so much fun to listen to. They shared experiences like how Mike sabotages the editor to give him a hard time.haha. But again, its the job of the shooter to make things easy for the editor. They also discussed what to shoot and their workflows. We had fruitful discussions and, with no doubt, we learned a lot from them. After the discussions, Mike demoed how to use the crane and glide and how to handle the client/couple. Some of the participants volunteered to be the couples.










On the second day, were are all in our Sweet Shots T-shirts which looks so cute in white and pink. The goal of the participants for the day is to create a short video teaser for fashion designers. They were divided into three groups with one editor each. Team 1's editor was Dondee from Vista de Lente, also a pioneer shooter of Trebor Z. Their fashion designer is Mandrake Servito. Team 2's editor was the youngest participant, Joshua from ADZU High School. Their designer is Angking Francisco. And the last team's editor as AJ, a hobbyist, and their designer is Nilo Lacson. The designers provided models, a couple, in full hair and makeup and attire.








The shoot started too late because some of the designers were late. Some teams had their shoot just around the Regency ground while others went as far as Abong2x. Meanwhile, the staff also had a shoot of our own. We are about to produce an SDE of the 2-day workshop. I was busy editing while the teams were shooting. They only had a very short time to shoot. They have to finish it by noon so we can still have time for the awarding ceremony. After shooting, the editors started to edit. Some finished on time but some has just started editing. Then time was up but they haven't rendered their video yet. So extension was granted and the time pressure was enforced. I saw the faces of the teams who were already anxious. This experience is not far from real life. As SDE editors we only have a short time to do creative decisions in editing.






Finally, they were done and their outputs were showed on screen. We also showed our SDE in the tune of Pharrel William's "Happy". Everyone had fun with the video and we're just happy we came up with such video. Mike and Christian were the judges and they decided that Group 1 as the winner. They won gift certificates from Distrito. However, they were really appreciative on the effort that everyone showed during the workshop. They gave some tips and final words before we went to the closing ceremony. Christian Paolo Go from Go Photo raffled some schwags and most of the winners were girls.hehe. Certificates were given to the designers, participants and staff which is followed by the pictorials. As i observed, everyone was just happy and we heard a lot of feedback requesting for another installment of the workshop. I, myself,  had so much learning from the masters and i do hope i get to learn more from them.









We would like to thank everyone who supported and participated Sweet Shots. It wouldn't have been successful without your generosity and passion. Watch our fun-filled SDE below. :) Enjoy!


Sweet Shots SDE from treborz on Vimeo.

For more photos, visit Sweet Shot's official page, facebook.com/SweetShotsZambo.