Wedding Videos -- Finally coming around to the idea

I don't look down on people that prefer the documentary or doing the wedding video, I just think it's an entirely different temperament or interest. I haven't seen good wedding video producers that are also great at sci fi, fantasy, horror or really into those genres of narrative film making. And the opposite is true, the really good indie film makers that are doing cool shorts or features in those genres generally suck at the documentary or wedding video.

One is not better than the other, but IMO there's not a lot of overlap. Both use a camera and similar camera moves, and that's about it. Everything else is the opposite. For example in a wedding, you control nothing and must react to capture the event. In a narrative you control everything, right down to what shoes your actor will wear if you think that's important.

And IMO, that's how those two different artists begin to think the more they do these different tasks.

The wedding videographer has to capture that wedding the way it is so he works to adapt to the situation. The narrative film maker is trying to tell a story. The film maker can decide, you know what? For my story to work and keep the narrative flowing we don't even have to show the wedding. Let's skip that scene entirely and move on. Or perhaps we just need the feeling of a wedding and that's enough. A shot of the bride and groom eating cake and getting in the car and we're done. It's two different ways of thinking.

Yes, you may be the awesome exception that is fantastic at both, and loves to do both. That's just generally not what I have experienced.
 
My hunch is that a lot of the folks who shoot events but won't shoot weddings are afraid of girls. The best wedding people I've worked for are either sort of "ladies men" or have a female shooter do all the pre-bride stuff. Weddings involve people skills particularly oriented toward the feminine. You walk into a room with a bride and 10 other girls all in various stages of getting dressed, and you're supposed to start filming them. If that scares you, then complex rationalizations to keep you far away would make sense.
 
In Russia, wedding films you!

-------------

Barry, I knew you were going to be sending another poor sap to The Time Machine I Found At A Yardsale before I even clicked the link.

Classic.
 
Last edited:
Only do rich people weddings. They look beautiful for the camera, they are more fun, they have good food and open bars.

I only do highlight montages now 5-7 minutes. No raw footage. No A/B ceremony cam mixing. So if you miss something, not as much pressure (just don't miss any of the super key moments but if you've been to enough weddings you'd be hard pressed to miss that. Plus always have a backup camera running on a tripod, just to be safe. Make it a creative montage and don't charge less than $3k. Use music from themusicbed.org

Don't give them a music choice.
Ditto on "long delivery time" - 6 months is about right, and finish them sooner.
Charge extra for everything. Be clear on time and expectations.
Again, charge more and only do rich weddings. Only deliver montages. It takes SO long to give unedited footage because there's embarrassing shots you'll want to cut out. If you miss anything it becomes very clear. You have to deliver on Dual Layer DVDs. Etc, etc, etc.
 
filmguy123 said:
Only do rich people weddings. They look beautiful for the camera, they are more fun, they have good food and open bars.

I only do highlight montages now 5-7 minutes. No raw footage. No A/B ceremony cam mixing. So if you miss something, not as much pressure (just don't miss any of the super key moments but if you've been to enough weddings you'd be hard pressed to miss that. Plus always have a backup camera running on a tripod, just to be safe. Make it a creative montage and don't charge less than $3k. Use music from themusicbed.org

Don't give them a music choice.
Ditto on "long delivery time" - 6 months is about right, and finish them sooner.
Charge extra for everything. Be clear on time and expectations.
Again, charge more and only do rich weddings. Only deliver montages. It takes SO long to give unedited footage because there's embarrassing shots you'll want to cut out. If you miss anything it becomes very clear. You have to deliver on Dual Layer DVDs. Etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

This is the best post in the whole thread.
 
filmguy123 said:
Only do rich people weddings. They look beautiful for the camera, they are more fun, they have good food and open bars.

I only do highlight montages now 5-7 minutes. No raw footage. No A/B ceremony cam mixing. So if you miss something, not as much pressure (just don't miss any of the super key moments but if you've been to enough weddings you'd be hard pressed to miss that. Plus always have a backup camera running on a tripod, just to be safe. Make it a creative montage and don't charge less than $3k. Use music from themusicbed.org

Don't give them a music choice.
Ditto on "long delivery time" - 6 months is about right, and finish them sooner.
Charge extra for everything. Be clear on time and expectations.
Again, charge more and only do rich weddings. Only deliver montages. It takes SO long to give unedited footage because there's embarrassing shots you'll want to cut out. If you miss anything it becomes very clear. You have to deliver on Dual Layer DVDs. Etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I agree on most counts. However - if they want unedited footage, and are willing to pay $500 extra, why not give it to them? I mark any potential clips for deletion when I subclip the footage. It's easy to remove them later. If they want multi-camera edits of the ceremony, etc, and are willing to pay $1000 extra, why not give it to them? For the ceremony, first dance, toasts, cake cutting, bouquet toss, it takes me 2 days to edit, or even less. I see your logic in not wanting to deliver those things, but not in turning down easy money.
 
ASchear said:
I agree on most counts. However - if they want unedited footage, and are willing to pay $500 extra, why not give it to them? I mark any potential clips for deletion when I subclip the footage. It's easy to remove them later. If they want multi-camera edits of the ceremony, etc, and are willing to pay $1000 extra, why not give it to them? For the ceremony, first dance, toasts, cake cutting, bouquet toss, it takes me 2 days to edit, or even less. I see your logic in not wanting to deliver those things, but not in turning down easy money.
Click to expand...

Yeah I hear you. You could, and I have. Honestly the main reason I don't simply comes down to I *hate* doing it. Even for $500. I just hate it. I hate sorting through all the footage, and I can't bring myself to not go back and color correct it or manually cut out the embrassing floor shots/out of focus spots that look bad, try to make it look nice, etc. And hating what you do just isn't worth it to me anymore, and I've done it enough to the point where my policy now is I don't. It almost made me want to get out of video production, and thank God I didn't. Anyway, I *never* mention it or advertise it. If someone asks, I say I don't do it. But if they really persist, I say I can make an exception and do it just this once but it will cost them a lot as it's quite time consuming, and if they're still OK, I then charge them a price that makes it worth my while. For you it might be $500, for me it's more.
 
Last edited:
filmguy123 said:
I can't bring myself to not go back and color correct it or manually cut out the embrassing floor shots/out of focus spots that look bad, try to make it look nice, etc.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the problem. I never give (or sell) everything I've shot from a day.

It's like I've always said about photography... photographers aren't judged by the pictures they take, they're judged by the pictures they show you.
 
MattinSTL said:
photographers aren't judged by the pictures they take, they're judged by the pictures they show you.
Click to expand...

very well said.

It's why some clients simply don't understand why I don't do quick/cheap videos. "But can't you just shoot it for us real quick, we don't need proper lighting or sound, or a good location, or polished editing, it doesn't have to be fancy, etc." What they don't realize is I'm not going to put my name on crap.

That includes "raw" wedding footage that hasn't been cleaned up or had the junk cleared out of it. A client that loved the highlight may suddenly be disappointed in the raw footage, and now I'm judged on that.
 
filmguy123 said:
Only do rich people weddings. They look beautiful for the camera, they are more fun, they have good food and open bars.

I only do highlight montages now 5-7 minutes. No raw footage. No A/B ceremony cam mixing. So if you miss something, not as much pressure (just don't miss any of the super key moments but if you've been to enough weddings you'd be hard pressed to miss that. Plus always have a backup camera running on a tripod, just to be safe. Make it a creative montage and don't charge less than $3k. Use music from themusicbed.org

Don't give them a music choice.
Ditto on "long delivery time" - 6 months is about right, and finish them sooner.
Charge extra for everything. Be clear on time and expectations.
Again, charge more and only do rich weddings. Only deliver montages. It takes SO long to give unedited footage because there's embarrassing shots you'll want to cut out. If you miss anything it becomes very clear. You have to deliver on Dual Layer DVDs. Etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I Recently ventured into wedding cinema and this is the best advice I've gotten. Now if only we can get some new comments for 2015. Things have changed quite a bit in the wedding cinema scene.
 
filmguy123 said:
Only do rich people weddings. They look beautiful for the camera, they are more fun, they have good food and open bars.

I only do highlight montages now 5-7 minutes. No raw footage. No A/B ceremony cam mixing. So if you miss something, not as much pressure (just don't miss any of the super key moments but if you've been to enough weddings you'd be hard pressed to miss that. Plus always have a backup camera running on a tripod, just to be safe. Make it a creative montage and don't charge less than $3k. Use music from themusicbed.org

Don't give them a music choice.
Ditto on "long delivery time" - 6 months is about right, and finish them sooner.
Charge extra for everything. Be clear on time and expectations.
Again, charge more and only do rich weddings. Only deliver montages. It takes SO long to give unedited footage because there's embarrassing shots you'll want to cut out. If you miss anything it becomes very clear. You have to deliver on Dual Layer DVDs. Etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

It's funny, I have come to the same conclusion. I don't do many weddings
but for those I do, I take this exact approach. Over at the 'other' board
I have been told that 'brides want documentary edits without a minute
of their day missing....why would you try this?' And everyone who tells me
this is from Europe which makes me think it's a cultural difference perhaps.
To me, your way is exactly how to do a wedding.....I started it a couple
years ago, I do way fewer weddings (only 10 a year maybe) but make almost
the same amount of money doing them as before. My corporate stuff is still my main
money making, but at least now when I do a wedding it's worth my time.
 
I can definitely see how weddings are not everyone's cup of tea. But for me, personally, I just love being behind the camera, and the feeling of accomplishment when something good comes out of it. while I enjoy the control of being in charge of lighting, blocking, location and acting, I also enjoy thinking on my feet and observing events as they unfold...and reacting to them in the most creative way possible.

The he majority of my video practice is solely for my art, which gives me a lot of freedom. With that said, I enjoy shooting weddings. I also enjoy the fact that if I shoot 10 weddings per year, I'm in the $50K income-wise.

Below ow is a link to a rough-cut beginning of a welcome reception for a wedding I shot in New Orleans in the beginning of the month.
https://vimeo.com/122433268
password: joza

It was really low light so I graded it to maximize the potential of the footage, but I think it's a great start and I had a lot of fun doing it!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top