On a wedding day, it is not just the bride and groom making promises. As wedding videographers, we also make a pledge to deliver the highest quality wedding film we can. This process of filmmaking may look calm and seamless but there is a lot of discipline, expertise, talent, and creativity involved.
In these next few articles, we are going to give you an inside look at what a wedding day is like for us and how we operate unobtrusively and professionally on the day. Needless to say, forward planning is essential and we always have a thorough discussion with the wedding couple to ensure we know exactly what they expect from their special keepsake.
Wedding videographers are a bit like magicians, we do not normally give away the tricks of our trade, but we think it is helpful that wedding participants know a little of what is involved. Video enthusiasts will understand the amount of work that goes into the project and others we hope will find it of interest.
For those of you who may be considering shooting some additional video as a gift for the wedding couple there will be hints and tips you may find useful, but if you want to be a wedding guest too, trust us when we say you cannot combine the two!
Shooting a wedding video takes up every spare second of the wedding ceremony and reception. It is our job to capture the event so family, friends and future generations can watch the beautiful memories. We always endeavour to capture as much as we can of the wedding but cannot guarantee to film everything simultaneously. Your wedding video will cover the getting ready phase, ceremony and reception but a large number of filmed hours will eventually result in a video up to two hours long, the same as a feature film.
We have several pieces of essential equipment with us for every wedding shoot, including camera, tripod, microphone, headphones, batteries, and videotape. We also carry a wireless microphone, a half-bowl tripod, and on-camera lights. Lighting kits are helpful but in the swift moving wedding events, they tend to be more intrusive and troublesome than it is worth. Weddings are largely “on the run” affairs for us wedding videographers! Audio is just as important as video and this is why we have good sound equipment so we can hear the vows clearly and offer a sharp audio that is easy to hear by viewers of the wedding video. We know to the second how much battery power and ensure we always have back up. So many videos are incomplete as people overlook this common problem.
In Part Two we will talk about setting up shots, camera angles, and attire for the wedding videographer!