Saturday, September 20, 2014

Rachel and Steven are Married (and I shot the wedding)

I'd never really thought about getting into wedding videography, because I didn't actually know wedding videos were a thing until earlier this year. Now I've just finished filming Rachel and Steven's wedding, which brings my wedding video count to a grand total of two. Here is Rachel and Steven's short wedding film.


Since I am new at this, it's all been a learning experience for me (and a good one.) In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts.
  • Event videography is an interesting challenge because you can't pause events and make them happen again. You have to be constantly on the alert, like a hunter or a barehanded fisher. This was very exhausting for me in my post-accident post-concussive state but it was also very thrilling in an adrenaline-fueled way. 
  • It's also a good exercise in learning how to tell a story by identifying the pieces of an event that make up scenes, or snippets of dialogues. Life is a series of significant moments with lots of boring stuff in between, and video storytelling is about catching those moments. Like being a fisherman, a fisher of moments.
  • I'm still not very good at being bold and getting in close with the camera when I need to. I feel very conspicuous and like I shouldn't be there. I tried to avoid this feeling by wearing something dark and neutral and trying to insinuate myself into the scene. This kind of thing will hopefully come with practice and experience, but I'm still working on trying to find that balance between getting a good shot of the moment without ruining the moment.
  • It's hard to find good royalty-free music on the internet. But not impossible.
  • I had three cameras running during the ceremony and I was the only one running them so it was a bit of a juggling act. I'm very grateful for my tripod and my monopod, without which I could not have made it happen. Of course I should have asked my intrepid friend Ruth for help but for some reason completely forgot. I'm still new at this.
  • Speaking of things I forgot, I've twice made the mistake of forgetting to ask the couple if there are any special songs they want in the wedding video, and having to ask them post-wedding. Awkward.
  • Editing is work. Videography doesn't always feel like work, but editing is just plain labor. However, editing is the rewarding part.
  • If something is too good to be true, I've probably done something wrong and will have to go back and put in another hour of work to fix it.
This is me coming off a day's worth of editing to make the above "highlights" film. I'll finish putting together the hour long ceremony video this week in my (ha) spare time. I currently have three camera's worth and about five hours of footage to look through. But I'm not complaining.

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful! I like the highlights. And I'm so impressed that you're even getting into this - photographing martial arts events is sketchy enough for me. The pressure of a wedding would have me in panic mode. Big cheers for you that you can still work your way through the beginner jitters.

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