Wedding Videos -- Finally coming around to the idea

Ki-Ki

Ki-Ki

Veteran
For years people have said:

"Have you not thought about professional photography for weddings, or what about filming them?"

To which I've always ignored & disliked. It brings a notion of fear into me. Being paid to do someone's big day, putting a price on it, and you only have one shot - they're not going to turn around and say "It's okay love-monkey, we'll try again tomorrow"

Amongst all this I've had a fair interest in starting up my own business, but can never quite lay my hand on what to do for a tiny amount of cash. But the last few hours I've looked at what a couple of people have done for wedding videos, and know I can do better -- then there's others that make me cry at how brilliant the overall quality is, and my inability to come close to it.

My question is, have any of you had that worrying feeling of ballsing up someones big day when starting out?

I believe if I could overcome my fear of ****ing it up, then I might be able to make something of it. With a ton of prior practice, and my lack of experience of even attending weddings - let alone observing one film one.
 
You need to really enjoy it if you want to make a serious go of it. Otherwise, it's one of the most miserable jobs in video production. Someone would need to pay me a rather large sum to get me to do theirs.

Which is to say, it's hard, it's grueling, it's back-breaking, and you'll have some of the worst, most demanding clients possible.

But if you do enjoy it, and do well at it, there's a lot of money to be made.
 
Ki-Ki said:
My question is, have any of you had that worrying feeling of ballsing up someones big day when starting out?
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I used to get really nervous about the ceremony when I started doing videography. Do enough of them though, and you'll be less worried about screwing up anything compared to how long the whole day will last. You have to pace yourself and not wear yourself out. A wedding day shoot is IMO more strenuous than a lot of other types of video or film production, especially if you are a one-man band type of deal. A lot of the really high end wedding videos seem to be shot by a 2-3 person team, which is how they get so many different angles and also have time for more dynamic shots (jibs, sliders, steadicam, etc).

Bear in mind this doesn't even get into the editing side of it, which can be very time consuming if one wants to produce nice results.

I believe if I could overcome my fear of poo pooing it up, then I might be able to make something of it. With a ton of prior practice, and my lack of experience of even attending weddings - let alone observing one film one.
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You'll get the hang of it after several weddings. Eventually you will know the basic format that just about every wedding ceremony and reception operates on. Certain differences apply, like Catholic weddings for example, and then Indian weddings are a totally different type of event, or so I'm told as I've never filmed a full on traditional Indian wedding.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that starting your own wedding videography business is an all consuming venture. If you think it can be a nice thing to pay the bills with while you work on your filmmaking aspirations, then I'd advise you not to get wrapped up in weddings. I honestly regret getting sucked into wedding videography, as it killed any chance of me pursuing my filmmaking endeavors throughout my 20's.

Sure it is nice to make money, but money isn't everything in life. Now, if you try out shooting and editing a few weddings, then perhaps you'll love it and want to get into it. I'd advise trying it out, maybe seeing about working part time at it for a bit with an established wedding videography company or an independent wedding videographer. This way you can dip your toes in and see how it feels, as well as learning some of the skills that apply specifically to event and wedding videography (be careful though, this industry has a lot of sharks who will try and get you to work for free or next to nothing).
 
I do weddings. When I started out, I didn't want to mess things up like you mentioned. I sought clients who didn't really intend to have video at their wedding, but had a few hundred bucks they could roll the dice with. I was never nervous about messing up because I knew I could at least perform better than the people really doing it in my price range. Alright - I was nervous sometimes, but never too bad. After half a dozen gigs, I got real comfortable doing it. I kept my prices on the low end a little longer to bolster my portfolio, which has turned out really nice. Now I can charge premium rates and not feel like I'm ripping people off.

My advice when working cheap, if you decide to go that route, is that you are extremely up front with the clients about how you intend to benefit and will do the best job you can, but if they want anything extra (revisions to the video, unedited footage, extra DVD copies, etc), they'll have to pay. Also be clear that you're going to take a while to edit, tell them 6 months or even more even if it will be less. When some client's hustled me to finish their video, it just wasn't worth it because I wasn't producing something I was proud of and spent time on, I was just rushing it. I was taking the time necessary to produce a $2000-$3000 product, and they were expecting a $1000 product like they paid. Learned from that mistake pretty quick. If you aren't up front with them about these things, they will treat you like they're paying you $3000-$4000 or even more, which they are not.

Don't book too many weddings...I found my sweet spot to be 15-20 per year, and I have an assistant editor.

Like Nektonic said, don't get too sucked in if you have other aspirations. I'm doing it right now to pay my student bills, but I'm also trying to get promo and commercial work as well.
 
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I´d say: Get in touch with a wedding planner. Tell them you need to attend some weddings and film in order to get a feel for "the procedure". Offer them "selected shots", after 3 to 4 Weddings you can edit them a 30sec / 1 minute infomercial (with simple typo and their logo, nothing fancy and you do it YOUR way), which will also become YOUR "I capture your most important moments" reel for attracting paying clients after this 2 test weeks.<br>BTW I only did 2 weddings as a college job (years ack, XL1 days!), hated it, would only do it again with stillmotion budget ;)<br>
Basically I always kept the reservations you had too ;)
All the best, Spart
 
I shoot B-cam on high-budget weddings as my primary source of income. If I wanted to start my own company and had never shot a wedding before, I would offer to work a few weddings in town shooting B-cam for a local person and see what it's like. It's a little unethical if you copy his/her techniques, but just to get some idea of workflow and whatnot, it seems OK to do.

I don't find shooting weddings to be difficult, though it's frustrating to shoot summer weddings here in Texas while wearing all black and trying not to be drenched in sweat in front of the guests.
 
I've had people say the same. hey, I like your stuff, will you do my wedding, or why don't you do weddings? It's not that I'm worried about screwing it up that keeps me from doing it, but the fact that I would absolutely hate it. As long as you like doing it, you'll be fine. everyone makes mistakes, you learn and get better. But I would rather stick chop sticks in my eyes than edit wedding footage.
 
Gillvane, you took the words right out of my mouth (or chopsticks, as the case may be).

I let myself get talked into taking stills at a friend's wedding some 30 years ago, and decided about an hour into the shoot that there was no torture on Earth sufficient to make me do it again. To be honest, I only agreed to do it because I was head over heels for the bride myself and was kind of hoping the groom wouldn't show up. :)

- Greg
 
Greg Smith said:
Gillvane, you took the words right out of my mouth (or chopsticks, as the case may be).

I let myself get talked into taking stills at a friend's wedding some 30 years ago, and decided about an hour into the shoot that there was no torture on Earth sufficient to make me do it again. To be honest, I only agreed to do it because I was head over heels for the bride myself and was kind of hoping the groom wouldn't show up. :)

- Greg
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I feel the same way, did one...never want to do one again!
 
Why all the hate for weddings? I'm just about the most miserable person on earth and even I can tolerate them. Specifically, what's so bad? I only find myself in a bad mood when the wedding is ridiculously expensive and the bride and groom still seem unhappy--but even then it's somewhat interesting to observe.

There's a lot to enjoy at weddings, if you detach yourself a bit and just observe with curiosity. It's the kind of human madness that is rich with subtle meaning, the sorts of things we tell stories about.
 
Drew Ott said:
Why all the hate for weddings? I'm just about the most miserable person on earth and even I can tolerate them. Specifically, what's so bad? I only find myself in a bad mood when the wedding is ridiculously expensive and the bride and groom still seem unhappy--but even then it's somewhat interesting to observe.

There's a lot to enjoy at weddings, if you detach yourself a bit and just observe with curiosity. It's the kind of human madness that is rich with subtle meaning, the sorts of things we tell stories about.
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What entertains you and makes you curious is sheer and utter boredom for me. Human madness? Compared to hanging out with my friends, a wedding is like watching a basket of sleeping kittens on youtube. Yea it's cute, but how long you really want to watch that? Are the bride and groom going to dress up like Vampires and smear fake blood all over each other at the wedding while the priest makes out with one of the brides maids on top of the wedding cake? Ok, I'll shoot that and edit it all day long.
 
I'm curious why some of you guys have such an aversion to weddings. I completely understand the editing part...that kind of sucks sometimes. But whenever I reach a final product it's very rewarding. And the shooting I find to be very enjoyable; shooting really whatever I want at beautiful locations without any permits, eating great, and getting paid very well. I have larger aspirations than weddings, but for the time being, while I build my business in other areas, it's paying the bills.

Even after being established otherwise, I can see myself shooting weddings from time to time. It's just gravy.
 
ASchear said:
I'm curious why some of you guys have such an aversion to weddings. I completely understand the editing part...that kind of sucks sometimes. But whenever I reach a final product it's very rewarding. And the shooting I find to be very enjoyable; shooting really whatever I want at beautiful locations without any permits, eating great, and getting paid very well. I have larger aspirations than weddings, but for the time being, while I build my business in other areas, it's paying the bills.

Even after being established otherwise, I can see myself shooting weddings from time to time. It's just gravy.
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Imo that is a great attitude to have about the business.

If you can enjoy and make good money too, more power to you.
 
ASchear said:
I'm curious why some of you guys have such an aversion to weddings. I completely understand the editing part...that kind of sucks sometimes. But whenever I reach a final product it's very rewarding. And the shooting I find to be very enjoyable; shooting really whatever I want at beautiful locations without any permits, eating great, and getting paid very well. I have larger aspirations than weddings, but for the time being, while I build my business in other areas, it's paying the bills.

Even after being established otherwise, I can see myself shooting weddings from time to time. It's just gravy.
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I think it's really like understanding why some people don't like your favorite food. I'm sure there's something you don't like to eat that other people say is fantastic. My favorite sushi is Uni, the raw guts of a sea urchin. It's very fishy tasting. i think it's delicious, other people wont' eat it. Hey, some people actually enjoyed sitting through Le Miserable. I think that would be Le Torture.

If you like weddings, that's very cool because they pay good money! Have fun shooting them. I'd rather go to the dentist.
 
I think alot of it also has to do with your personality and comfort zone as a filmmaker. I do a lot of live event coverage, so high pressure situations where you only get one change don't phase me anymore. I remember helping a friend shoot his first wedding. He was extremely anxious - really keyed up - to the point that he was running around, unpacking gear in a rush, and overshooting to the point that the editor would be annoyed with all the unnecessary footage he'd have to sift through. It was a stark contrast to my reality, and I realized that after you do enough live event work, you really just get immune to the pressure. When you trust your gear and know the system of doing wedding videography, things get alot easier. You leave yourself enough time to prep, calmly get the angles you need, and get the key shots like a sniper - not spray 'n' pray. It becomes second nature to the extent that you can detach yourself from the event enough to observe and take it in.

Also, I would never do a wedding solo. A colleague freelanced for a wedding company and got burned out really quick doing things that way. I always budget for a second or third shooter. That way I am confident that I'm getting the coverage I need, and I can trust others in my group to cover me if something goes wrong, and vice-versa. Plus, when you're out on gigs working with your friends, it makes the day that much more enjoyable. Teamwork is a fantastic thing, and does wonders at lowering the stress-level.
 
I just finished a 16 hour day shooting a wedding, I'm having a beer and dumping some footage before I go to bed. I do about 25 a year. every weddng is a celebration, everyone's there to have a good time, every couple are in love (okay some show it differently that others) it's a privlege to be part of the day. it's also a shitload of work - I don't sit down for break till 7 or 8 at night and that's only for 10 minutes or so. I can't yell cut and get everyone back to 1st positions, I can't have a boom operator in the church and there's no point in yelling 'battery change'. The pressure is on all the time and you only get one shot at everything. I always have a 2nd shooter & a fixed camera.

I did a couple for free to make sure I was uo to the task and its a living for me now.
 
Heck, I happen to make a decent buck shooting surgeries and animal dissections... and some people would call that unappealing for whatever reason. Yet weddings aren't really for me: a $500, 30-minute hitch at Chapel of the Bells in Vegas was about all my wife and I (15 years and counting) could stand. I'm happy to leave that local market open to those who enjoy it more.

As they say, "The world don't move to the beat of just one drum; what might be right for you, may not be right for some...."
 
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