Filming a Gender Reveal in Slow Motion
First time filming a gender reveal and first time using S&Q mode. A tight garden, a 3-year-old, a confetti cannon, and 45 seconds of finished footage.
Introduction
This was a first of two kinds for me. First time filming a gender reveal, and first time using the A6700’s S&Q mode for proper slow motion. A friend’s family wanted their moment documented, and asked if I could bring the camera. I said yes before I had thought about the technical side, which is how I ended up learning Slow and Quick mode on the morning of the shoot.
The plan was Richmond Park. Open grass, deer in the background, sun behind the camera, 85 to 105mm on the kit lens, family loose horizontal with the kid half a step ahead. Clean cinematic setup. That plan lasted until the morning.
Richmond was too far for the family on the day. We relocated to a private garden space in Hyde Park next to the tennis courts. The couple wanted privacy which meant I could not use the open space I had planned for. They stood against a backdrop of flowers and bushes with maybe half a metre of depth behind them. I had to work the angles available rather than the angles I wanted.
The footage still came out well. The couple were happy. The kid was the hero of the edit. And I now know S&Q well enough to know when I should actually use it, which is a different answer than I assumed going in.
What this post is
A learning journal for my first gender reveal and my first S&Q shoot. Same approach as the Bodrum and HYROX posts. Every setting, every decision, every compromise documented as it happened.
The Location
Hyde Park has private garden spaces next to the tennis courts that the family booked for the reveal. Enclosed, green, private, and completely different from the open park plan.
The space was tight. The family needed to stand near the flower border for the best backdrop, which put them roughly half a metre from the bushes behind them. There was no room to move them forward without losing the floral backdrop. There was no room for me to move backwards without hitting the other side of the garden.
I ended up 5 to 6 metres from the family, not the 6 to 8 metres I had planned. Because S&Q 4K 100fps applies a crop on the A6700, my effective field of view was tighter than the focal length suggested. I settled on 75mm rather than the 85 to 105mm I wanted, to keep all three of them in frame at that distance.
The light was the other surprise. The forecast said sunny but the sun kept going in and out behind scattered cloud. Between clips the light could shift half a stop. I had the K&F variable ND ready but never needed it, the sun was not bright or consistent enough to justify cutting light. I left it off.
Three takeaway constraints from this location. Tight space forced a wider focal length than I wanted. Inconsistent sun killed the ND filter plan. Privacy ruled out any wide establishing shots. Every creative choice in the edit had to work around these.
S&Q Mode Explained
Before going into settings, this section matters because I did not fully understand S&Q when I chose it, and that choice shaped everything else about the shoot.
What S&Q Actually Does
S&Q stands for Slow and Quick. It is a mode on the A6700’s top dial where the camera captures at a high frame rate and writes the file at a lower playback rate. The resulting file is already slow motion the moment it hits the timeline.
At 100fps capture with 25p playback, the math works like this. 100 divided by 25 equals 4. Every second of real time becomes 4 seconds of playback time. That is 4x slow motion, baked directly into the file.
The first time I set this, I had the values the wrong way round. The display read “x4 Quick Motion” with a shooting time of 20 seconds for a 5-second movie. Quick motion is the opposite of slow motion, that is time-lapse territory. I swapped Frame Rate to 100fps and Record Setting to 25p, and the display flipped to “x4 Slow Motion” showing 1 second of shooting time for a 5-second clip. That was the right direction.
The Critical Thing I Did Not Know
S&Q is not the only way to record 100fps on the A6700. Normal video mode also lets you record at 100p. The difference is significant.
| Method | Capture | File writes at | Plays as | Audio | Workflow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&Q 100fps/25p | 100fps | 25p | 4x slow motion | No | Drag and done |
| Normal video 100p | 100fps | 100p | Real-time at 100fps | Yes | Interpret footage to 25fps in Premiere for 4x slow |
| Normal video 50p | 50fps | 50p | Real-time at 50fps | Yes | Interpret footage to 25fps in Premiere for 2x slow |
Both S&Q 100fps and Normal video 100p capture the exact same number of frames per second. The slow motion quality is identical. The crop on the A6700 is the same for both. The one technical difference is that S&Q writes the slow motion directly into the file with no audio, while normal video mode records at full frame rate with audio intact and you slow it in post.
When S&Q Is the Right Choice
Zero post-production workflow
If you want to record slow motion and share it directly from the camera or with minimal editing, S&Q writes the effect into the file. No Interpret Footage step, no speed adjustment. Drag and done.Audio genuinely does not matter
Rare, but some slow-motion shots are purely visual. Think product shots, texture reveals, abstract motion studies. Anything where the image is the entire story.Direct-to-social workflows
TikTok and Instagram creators who record slow motion and upload directly benefit from S&Q because the file is ready to post.
When Normal Video at 100p Is the Better Choice
Any time audio matters
Weddings, events, reactions, sports, interviews, or any moment where voices, ambient sound, or impact noise contributes to the story. S&Q throws all of that away.Flexibility in the edit
A 100p file can play at real-time for establishing shots, or be slowed to 2x or 4x for dramatic moments. S&Q locks you into 4x slow motion with no flexibility.Mixed-speed edits
If you plan to cut between real-time and slow-motion sections, normal video at 100p is the correct tool. S&Q means every clip is locked at 4x slow motion, which makes cutting to real-time require awkward speed ramping.
What This Meant for My Shoot
I chose S&Q because it was the feature I wanted to learn and the slow motion I wanted was 4x. However, the moment the iPhone audio failed, I realised I had thrown away the camera audio too by choosing S&Q. If I had shot in normal video mode at 100p instead, the A6700 would have captured the pop sound, the reactions, and the ambient directly. The audio failure would not have been a problem.
The honest lesson
For a gender reveal with a family, audio matters. The kid’s “wow,” the parents laughing, the cannon pop itself. S&Q was the wrong choice for this shoot. Normal video mode at 100p would have given me identical slow-motion quality with full camera audio. Next time I want slow motion with audio, that is what I will use.
Bitrate Ceilings
On the A6700, both S&Q and normal video at 100fps can record at higher bitrates (100Mbps and 140Mbps in 4:2:2 10-bit) if you have an SDXC V90 card. Without one, the camera caps at 60Mbps 4:2:0 8-bit. My current card is slower, so I was capped at 60Mbps regardless of which mode I chose. A V90 card is on the shopping list.
Preparation
Camera Settings
Video Settings for the Shoot
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Mode | S&Q (see lesson above, normal video at 100p would have been better) |
| Frame rate | 100fps |
| Record setting | 25p |
| Effective slow motion | 4x |
| Shutter speed | 1/200 |
| Aperture | f/5.6 |
| ISO | 100 to 400, adjusted per clip |
| White balance | 5500K |
| Profile | Cinetone (PP11) |
| Recording format | XAVC S 4K, 60Mbps, 4:2:0, 8-bit |
| Focus | Continuous AF, Human recognition |
| Focus area | Wide |
| Touch tracking | On, AE off |
| Steady Shot | On Standard |
| ND filter | Not used |
| Lens | 18-135mm at 75mm |
Shutter Speed Logic
The 180-degree shutter rule says shutter speed should be roughly double the frame rate. 100fps capture needs 1/200 shutter. Any slower and motion looks smeared, any faster and confetti would appear too crisp and video-like, losing the cinematic quality.
| Frame rate | Shutter speed |
|---|---|
| 25fps | 1/50 |
| 50fps | 1/100 |
| 100fps | 1/200 |
Locked 1/200 and did not touch it.
AF Settings
Touch tracking with AE off was the key configuration. The kid was going to be the focus subject, literally and figuratively. I needed the camera to lock on his face and hold through confetti, parent movement, and anything else that entered the frame.
Subject Recognition set to Human
This tells the camera to prioritise human faces over other high-contrast objects in the frame. Without this, the AF system can latch onto a bright flower or a jacket instead.Touch Tracking enabled
Tapping the kid’s face on the screen locks a tracking box onto him. The camera follows that specific subject rather than refocusing based on whatever is closest or most contrasty.AE set to Off during tracking
Critical for a manual-exposure shoot. If AE was on, the camera would re-meter exposure based on wherever the tracking box went, which means exposure shifts when the kid moves or when confetti fills the frame. I locked exposure manually, so touch tracking needed to affect focus only, not exposure.
The AE off setting is buried in the menu
It sits underMenu > AF/MF > Touch Tracking Settings > Tracking Start w/ AE. Set this to Off. This is what stops exposure from drifting during the shot.
White Balance
5500K locked for daylight. Standard daylight value that holds up for outdoor shooting under direct sun. I did not use a grey card, just set it manually and checked the preview against white surfaces around the garden. White fence panels read as white, not yellow, not blue. Locked it and did not touch it.
Auto white balance would have shifted mid-shot when coloured confetti filled the frame. Blue or pink confetti at 25% of the frame area is enough to trick auto white balance into compensating, which makes skin tones shift greenish or cool for a split second. Manual Kelvin holds the colour consistent through the entire pop.
The Family Setup
Three people of very different heights. Kid at 3ft, mum at 5ft3, dad at 5ft9. Nearly three feet of vertical range across the group. The framing had to accommodate the kid without cutting him off and without making him feel small.
The arrangement:
| Position | Who | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Front | Kid (3yo) | Half a step ahead of the parents, roughly 30 to 50cm forward |
| Back left | Mum | Shoulder to shoulder with dad, angled slightly inward |
| Back right | Dad | Shoulder to shoulder with mum, angled slightly inward |
The kid in front with parents behind gave me a visual triangle with the kid as the subject. Having the kid only half a step forward kept everyone within the depth of field at f/5.6. A full step or two steps would have put the parents on a different focal plane and the tracking would have blurred them while the kid stayed sharp. Half a step meant all three faces stayed within the focus range.
The tripod sat at 1 to 1.2 metres off the ground, roughly between the kid’s eye level and mum’s chest. Lens angled up a few degrees so the kid’s face was centred in the frame and there was headroom above dad for the confetti bloom.
The tripod height rule for mixed-height groups
Position the camera between the shortest and tallest subject, closer to the shorter one. Tilt up slightly so the tallest subject has headroom and the shortest subject stays in the upper third of the frame. This flatters the parents with a subtle low angle and keeps the kid as the hero without making him small.
The Three Clips
The reveal happened in three distinct moments, each its own S&Q clip. The story built naturally.
Clip 1: The Handoff
Kid hands the confetti cannon to mum and dad. Roughly 5 seconds of real time, 20 seconds on the timeline at 4x slow motion.
The kid walked up to them holding the cannon, reached out, the parents received it together. Simple action but in slow motion the emotion stretched. Their hands meeting in the middle, the kid stepping back, the parents now holding the moment.
Settings were locked, touch tracking was on the kid’s face during the handoff, then stayed on him as he turned.
Clip 2: The Wait and Run
Parents holding the cannon, kid turning and running off to a safe distance before the pop. Roughly 22 seconds of slow motion footage.
This was the longest clip and the hardest to frame. The kid running off meant he physically left the safe focal plane I had set up for. Touch tracking held onto him as he moved but the parents went soft as he got further away. That was fine, the kid was the subject here.
In this clip the sun briefly emerged and lit something white in the scene with a subtle glow. Because I had locked exposure manually before the shoot, the footage did not blow out. It just had a moment of natural light that the other two clips did not have. A happy accident rather than a problem.
Clip 3: The Pop
Parents and kid come back together, everyone holds the cannon, and it pops. This was the hero clip. The raw clip ran about 2 minutes of slow motion footage because I started recording well before the pop and let it run well after. In the final edit I trimmed it to 20 seconds, the cleanest slice covering the moments just before the pop, the bloom itself, and the reactions immediately after.
Pink confetti exploded upward and outward. The kid’s face reading the moment, the parents laughing, confetti drifting through the frame and exiting the edges. The crop from S&Q meant the confetti did not stay contained in frame, pieces streaked off the sides of the image. In a wider frame I might have tried to keep everything inside the borders, but the tight framing here actually worked. Confetti leaving the edges implies the moment is bigger than the frame can contain, which reads as cinematic rather than incomplete.
Touch tracking held on the kid’s face through the pop. The A6700’s subject recognition did not drop the lock even when confetti briefly engulfed him. This was the setting that mattered most of the whole shoot.
S&Q records no audio
Every clip came back silent. This is not a fault, it is how the mode works. Audio at 100fps does not make sense without speed adjustment, so the camera does not capture it. Had I shot in normal video mode at 100p instead, audio would have been recorded. That is the decision I wish I had made differently before the shoot.
The Audio Problem
The original plan was to place my iPhone near the family on the floor, capturing ambient audio and the pop sound while the A6700 recorded silent slow motion. Phone audio would then be synced to the slow-mo visuals in Premiere.
This did not work. The phone was on the ground which meant it was picking up ground resonance, fabric rustle from feet shifting, and muffled voices from above rather than clear audio. When I played the clips back, the audio was useless. The pop sounded dull and distant. The reactions were muffled.
I tried to salvage the pop sound as a punch moment over the slow-mo visuals. It was distracting. The phone capture was dirty, with rustle and background noise that competed with the visual. Cutting it in made the clip feel worse, not better.
I pulled the pop audio entirely. No “woo” reactions either, they were recorded on the same phone and had the same muffled quality.
The final audio is ambient park noise sourced from a YouTube royalty-free track, layered as a bed under the silent slow motion. Birdsong, distant chatter, a gentle wind texture. Not real audio from the moment, but it gives the video an environmental feel that pure silence would not.
What I should have done with the iPhone
Placed it on a small tripod at chest height, 3 to 5 metres from the family, pointed toward them. A flat ground placement was never going to give clean audio. Phone mics on ground surfaces pick up vibration and lose clarity. Next time, phone goes up, not down. Or better, shoot in normal video mode at 100p so the camera records clean audio directly.
Key Takeaways on Audio
| Lesson | Detail |
|---|---|
| S&Q records no audio | Always factor this in before the shoot. The audio plan is completely separate from the camera plan. |
| Normal video 100p records audio | Same slow-motion quality as S&Q but retains audio. For shoots where sound matters, this is the correct mode. |
| Phones on the ground fail | Ground placement means resonance, footfall, and muffled capture. Chest height or higher is the minimum. |
| Dirty audio harms more than silence | A bad pop sound distracts more than no pop sound. Silent slow-mo with ambient is a legitimate style. |
| Royalty-free ambient is an acceptable bed | YouTube’s audio library and Freesound both have park ambience that layers well under slow motion. |
The Edit
Premiere Pro Setup
Sequence settings matched the source, 3840x2160 at 25fps. Dragging the first S&Q clip onto the New Item icon created the sequence automatically with correct settings. No Interpret Footage step required because S&Q writes the slow motion into the file at capture time. The footage plays slow the moment it hits the timeline.
The master timeline ended at 45 seconds. Three clips, trimmed and arranged, ambient audio bed underneath, no transitions between clips, no fades at the start or end. The edit was deliberately minimal.
Culling and Trimming
Clip 1 trimmed from roughly 20 seconds of slow motion to the cleanest 6 seconds of the handoff. The best moment was the hands meeting in the middle and the kid stepping back. Cut the approach, cut the aftermath, kept the transaction.
Clip 2 was the problem clip. 22 seconds of slow motion is too long for any edit to hold, no matter how good the footage is. I used time remapping rather than hard cuts because the kid’s running was one continuous motion and chopping it would have created visible jump cuts.
Clip 3 was the longest raw clip at about 2 minutes of slow motion footage. I had started recording well in advance of the actual pop and let the camera roll through the reactions afterward. For the edit I trimmed it hard to 20 seconds, picking the slice that covered the moment just before the pop, the bloom, and the immediate aftermath. Everything before and after that window went into the bin.
Time Remapping for Clip 2
The speed ramp approach kept the clip continuous while compressing the middle section:
| Section | Speed | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Opening 3 seconds | 100% | Full 4x slow motion. Kid turning and starting to run. |
| Middle section | 400% | Back to real-time speed. The running happens quickly without jumping. |
| Closing 3 seconds | 100% | Back to 4x slow motion. Kid arriving, parents holding cannon. |
For S&Q footage that is already baked at 4x slow motion, 400% in Premiere returns the clip to real-time speed. 100% keeps the full slow motion. Everything between those values gives partial slow motion. The motion stayed continuous but the 22-second clip compressed to roughly 8 seconds of screen time with speed blending between sections rather than hard jumps.
Speed ramping on S&Q source has one technical tradeoff
Shutter angle mismatch. I shot at 1/200 shutter to match 100fps capture, which is correct for slow motion. When I sped back up to 400% (real-time), those same 1/200 frames now represent real-time motion with minimal motion blur. Fast action can look slightly stuttery because the frames are too crisp for the speed. For the kid’s running motion it was not noticeable, but for faster subjects it would be. The cinematic fix would be to shoot real-time sections separately at 25p with 1/50 shutter to get natural motion blur.
Colour Grading
I did not grade the footage. S-Cinetone straight out of camera looked good enough that I left it alone. Cinetone is designed to be close to finished in camera, and combined with my locked manual exposure and white balance, the three clips already had a consistent look.
This was a first for me. On the HYROX edit I graded every clip with custom Lumetri presets, matching waveforms and pulling temperature per hall. For this gender reveal, the conditions were consistent enough and the Cinetone profile flattering enough that grading would have added work without improving the image.
When to grade and when to leave it
Grade when the conditions were mixed, the lighting was uneven, or the footage needs to match across multiple locations. Leave it when exposure was locked, white balance was locked, and Cinetone produced a clean image on the day. For this shoot, leaving it alone was the right call.
Cuts and Transitions
Hard cuts between all three clips. No cross dissolves, no fades between them.
Jump cuts within a single continuous-motion clip look wrong, which is why Clip 2 got the speed ramp instead of being chopped. Hard cuts between different clips work because the camera angle, subject position, and action are all changing at the boundary. The viewer’s brain accepts it as a new scene rather than a teleport.
No fade from black at the start. No fade to black at the end. The edit opens on Clip 1 mid-action and closes on the last frame of Clip 3. Tighter, more direct, no cinema-style bookends. For a 45-second piece, fades at the boundaries would have felt self-important.
The Audio Mix
Ambient park noise only. No music, no pop sound, no reactions.
The ambient bed sat at -24dB for the entire edit. Gentle birdsong, distant chatter, wind texture. Layered as a single continuous track underneath all three clips so there were no audio cuts at the video cut points.
-24dB is quiet. Quieter than I would have set it if there was music or dialogue to balance against. Without music, the ambient had to sit low enough that it did not draw attention to itself, just enough to fill the audio space so the video did not feel sterile. Any louder and the birdsong starts to feel like a soundtrack rather than a background texture.
| Section | Ambient level | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Opening (Clip 1) | -24dB | Present but subtle, scene-setting |
| Mid (Clip 2) | -24dB | Consistent bed through the speed ramp |
| Pop moment (Clip 3) | -24dB | Ambient holds, no special punch |
| Closing (Clip 3 end) | Fade out over 1 second | Natural end |
The effect is meditative rather than celebratory, which suits the silent slow motion better than a pop-music edit would have.
Exporting Stills
Four stills pulled from the 4K footage using the Export Frame button in Premiere. Shortcut Cmd+Shift+E on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+E on Windows. Each frame exported at full 4K resolution, 3840x2160, as JPEG.
The four moments:
- The handoff, hands meeting in the middle
- The kid running, peak stride, face lit
- The pop, confetti at maximum bloom
- The aftermath, family together with confetti settling
Pulling stills from 4K slow motion footage is actually better than shooting stills during the pop. With slow motion at 1/200 shutter, every individual frame is sharp, so any frame of the clip can become a print. I get to choose the exact frame in post rather than hoping I timed the shutter right on a 2-second moment.
Export Settings
One master export at source-matching quality:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Preset | Match Source - Adaptive High Bitrate |
| Format | H.264 |
| Resolution | 3840x2160 |
| Frame rate | 25fps |
| Target bitrate | 63.3 Mbps (auto) |
| Maximum bitrate | 79.2 Mbps (auto) |
| Render at maximum depth | Yes |
| Use maximum render quality | Yes |
The Adaptive High Bitrate preset automatically set the bitrates slightly above the source 60Mbps, which gives headroom for the export without introducing visible compression. Adding the Maximum Depth and Maximum Render Quality tickboxes ensures the export uses the full 32-bit processing pipeline during the encode.
Two files exported:
GenderReveal_Full.mp4- all three clips stitched together with no editsGenderReveal_Edit.mp4- the final 45-second edited version
The full stitched version was a quick safety share with the family so they had immediate access to the raw moments. The edited version is the hero deliverable.
What I Learned
About S&Q Mode
S&Q is not always the right tool
The big lesson. S&Q is one of two ways to record 100fps on the A6700. The other is normal video mode at 100p, which records audio. For a family event with voices and reactions, normal video at 100p would have been the correct choice. I chose S&Q because it was the feature I wanted to learn, which is not the same as it being the right feature for the job.S&Q is a different workflow from normal slow motion
Normal video at 50p records with audio and plays at 50fps on the timeline until you slow it down. S&Q records at 100fps and writes the file at 25p, so it plays slow the moment it hits Premiere. No Interpret Footage step, no speed adjustment. Record, drag, edit. Faster post-production but no audio.The mode dial position matters
S&Q is a dedicated position on the A6700’s top mode dial. Switching between S&Q and normal video is a physical turn, not a menu dive. For shoots that need both slow motion and synced audio, this is a fast switch.The x4 Slow Motion vs x4 Quick Motion display
Frame rate is how fast the camera captures. Record setting is how fast it plays back. High frame rate with low record setting gives slow motion. The reverse gives time-lapse. The in-camera display tells you which direction you are pointing.S&Q at 4K 100fps applies a crop
The sensor readout at this frame rate uses a smaller central portion, then scales up to 4K. Effective field of view is tighter than the focal length suggests. I planned for 85mm and ended up at 75mm to match my intended framing at the same distance. Normal video at 100p applies the same crop, so this is not unique to S&Q.Bitrate is gated by card speed
4K 100fps at 100Mbps or 140Mbps requires a V90 SDXC card. Without one, the camera caps at 60Mbps. Acceptable for S-Cinetone at 8-bit, but not enough headroom for S-Log3 grading.Speed ramping S&Q has shutter angle implications
Shooting at 1/200 for 100fps is correct for slow motion, but if you speed the footage back up to 400% (real-time) in Premiere, those frames have less motion blur than a true 25p clip at 1/50 would. For subtle movements it is not visible. For fast motion it can look slightly stuttery.
About First-Time Shoots
The plan will change
Location changed that morning. Space was tighter than expected. Light was inconsistent. The ND filter sat unused. The iPhone audio failed. Every element of the original plan got modified during the shoot. Locking down the camera settings beforehand meant I could adapt the physical setup without also fighting the camera.Privacy trumps composition
The family wanted a private garden space instead of the open park. That removed my ability to use wider establishing shots, deeper backgrounds, and the full focal length range. Respecting their wish was non-negotiable. The footage works because it is tight and intimate, not despite it.Audio planning is not camera planning
S&Q records no audio, so the audio source is a separate plan. Phone on the ground was the wrong choice. For next time, either shoot in normal video mode at 100p so the camera records audio directly, or place the phone on a small tripod at chest height, 3 to 5 metres from the subject.Still frames from 4K slow motion are free photos
Pulling four stills from the finished footage gave me four usable prints without shooting stills separately. This works because 1/200 shutter at 100fps captures individually sharp frames. Slow motion does not mean blurry frames, it means many sharp frames.Cinetone straight out of camera can be enough
First edit where I did no colour grading. The profile, combined with locked exposure and white balance, produced a consistent image across all three clips. Knowing when to grade and when to leave it alone is a skill in itself.
Gear for Next Time
| Item | Why |
|---|---|
| SDXC V90 memory card | Unlocks 100Mbps to 140Mbps recording in S&Q 4K 100fps and normal video 100p. More colour grading headroom. |
| External audio recorder | Zoom H1 or similar. Gives clean audio separate from the phone, positioned properly near the subject. |
| Second tripod for phone | So the phone audio setup can be elevated and positioned independently. |
| Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 | Same lens from the HYROX gear list. Faster aperture means more subject separation at tight focal lengths in enclosed spaces. |
Settings for Next Time
| Setting | Change from this shoot |
|---|---|
| Mode | Normal video at 100p, not S&Q, if audio matters for the moment |
| Card | V90 minimum for 100Mbps+ recording |
| Audio plan | Phone on tripod at chest height, never on the ground. Or just rely on camera audio in normal video mode. |
| Focal length | Plan for the 100fps crop from the start. If I want 85mm framing, set the lens to 65mm and let the crop take me to 85mm effective |
| Backup ambient | Record 30 seconds of pure ambient at the location before the main clips start |
Final Edit
The 45-second finished cut lives on the family’s personal archive and my Cowork library. I am not sharing the video publicly out of respect for their privacy, which is the same reason the location changed on the morning of the shoot.
What I can share is the technical framework. First gender reveal, first S&Q shoot, first edit where the audio plan had to be rebuilt after the fact. Every constraint taught me something. The kid stole the show, the parents got the moment they wanted, and I now know S&Q well enough to know when not to use it.
Documented April 2026. Hyde Park, London.