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Lesson Info

Wedding Day Check List

For all you second shooters, I just want to make sure that after we leave here, I want to make sure you guys are still connecting with each other and because, you know, a lot of the times the attention is placed on the first shooter and that's great, but tohave a dedicated space for us, like I mentioned yesterday is just beyond amazing. So I hope that we take we take this and we just kind of continue having second shooter opportunities for us in the future. So just as a brief overview for people who are tuning in for the first time today, we're gonna go over a few of the main points that we touchdown yesterday. So we talked about defining what type of second studio are. So the minute you define where you are now, you can ultimately define where you want to go. We spoke about how to get second shooter jobs, and we also talk spoke about the best ways to present a second shooter's portfolio because what we see a lot of people descending broad links instead of a curated image, a selection ...

of images. We also spoke about second shooter etiquette, the do's and the don'ts and actually people online, the people within the facebook group. And also on the restart group of the people who offered these suggestions but revisiting these people were like that one don't you know, I wish I wish my second shift or to get a list of those, and so it was great because at least we knew we were all on the same page about the kind of pressure points we go through. Also, we discussed about having an agreement between the first and second shooter and not a verbal agreement, but actually something that's written down an outline so everybody's on the same page, and lastly we hosted that live shoot j d's favorite memory cringing every time I think of it, it was stressful was hot and the lighting for some reason that I don't know if the theatre conditioners must have gone off, but it just started getting really warm in there, I was sweating, and for some of you know, the light, I'm not going to complain, I'm trying to make an excuse actually, I'm like, what? What can I say? But no, you know, it was just it is what it is, you know, a lot of times just have to work through those moments, so, yeah, it was great, it was a great learning experience, so this is this is from art and I think that one of the best things about doing something like creative life this is now the fifth time that I have done it the first time we've done it together and I know exactly how he's feeling it was so overwhelming the first time you ever teach something and there's something about having to articulate what you're doing that takes two or three times as long as when you just like shoot and so I'm sitting there on the outside I have to be like, okay, we're moving on and on the inside I'm like get it together, man, so that you frog it was like, ok, going it's time it's your time to talk and I would just like to say one or two things and then I would go silent for, like, five minutes, but that's how he is on the wedding day, so I had to understand that I can't like change him and what he does, you know what we've done for seven years in thirty minutes, you know? So what? The goal is what I'm excited about, what you know we actually had a time tio go have dinner last night decompressing like, I don't want to talk with you right now, and I was like, that's, okay, that's okay got back to the hotel and then I just said what we need to do tomorrow is you've got to give me some time tonight I'm going to work tonight and I'm going to work tomorrow morning and what we need to do is we need to show that even in that situation because we have faced weddings just like that we're through, you know, really hot weddings really sweaty weddings ah weddings where people maybe not might be the most comfortable together, you know, yesterday through a group of strangers together and said you guys are best friends and sometimes there are wedding parties of, you know, twelve bridesmaids and its occur homegirl from, like fourth grade and I'm a doctor in years, you know, so it's like we've had, we've had to deal with all of these things, so what we want to do is to curate the wedding as closest to what I would showcase online it's kind of a big deal are we working on that throughout lunch? Okay, so but we're also going to show the entire gallery of images to kind of showcase that even in those tough situations, what I was shooting and what ultimately jd ended up yielding because even that really tough situation he kind of definitely hit his ten to fifteen percent mark so under all of those situations and mark like yeah, we're not sure I'm not sure he's exceeded the view plus right care for the time I'm done with that? I don't want I hope I get better than see I hope I'm not even that doesn't give me a no, but where we get to all that, we're gonna go through a few logistics, we have a few things we're gonna kind of parlay from yesterday hache those out of it or the first thing going to start off with is going to be the, uh, pre pre wedding day checklist. Now, if I can have the technicians bring up thie slide from day to so you're going to see in the keynote the art of being a second shooter at the very beginning and you're also going to see the art of being a second shooter slide halfway through so that's the indication of forty three my second shooter in action doing some questions while they're doing that rather quickly, kenna wondering if you could go back yesterday we started off by talking about the different types of second shooters, so great if we could review that for the people who maybe miss yesterday. That's, that's, that's great okay, great! Yesterday we started the the day actually by breaking down second shooter's into three types, and for those of you that you weren't here yesterday, I'm going to just give a quick over, you're not gonna do the whole thing again. But we broke them down three times the first type of second shooter was that sick that's, the type of second shooter that doesn't actively go out and try to get second shooting gigs, but they kind of just way back, and if if an opportunity comes their way, they'll definitely take it. We calm the hobbyist, they have a really nice camera, but they also love the creativity that photography lens, the type to second shooter is what I consider myself, and that is the second shooter who just wants to be a second shooter and not run the business side of things they don't want to deal with clients or studios or fulfilling prince orders or anything like that. They really just want to help other photographers and philip their calendars with paid shooting opportunities, second shooting opportunities and the third type of second shooter is what I would categorize jasmine and probably a couple of a couple of you here in the audience, and that is the second shooter who wants to transition into becoming a first shooter. Well, I just feel like I have an accent right now. No english was my second language, so I haven't excuse it's all good, yes that's the that second shooter who wants toe run their own business and learn the day to day of wedding photography, so that one day they can eventually have their own business and also refer business with the main photographer that they actually came up with or other people and actually hire second shooters. So that's the type three you wantto add anything to that? Uh, no, but the thing that how we close that section was as a reminder, which I think is a bit can be repeating, is not to compare yourself to others because other people may have second shooting opportunities that you look at them and you see how busy they are, but they might not be the same type one, two or three that you are, and you might not want to take jobs where you can't use those images because your goal is ultimately to go on your own so you should rest where you are and know that you're moving in the direction of your dreams. Yes, the goal was to be okay with type of second shooter that you are cool, so we are back in action and we are going to head to the pre wedding day checklist. Now I'm actually gonna start with this section and you know this may or may not apply toe all second shooter's, it all depends on the role that you have with your set with your first photographer. But even if you don't uh you know get a pre wedding day checklists ready for the main shooter you still have to do it for yourself as a second shooter you still have to have the things that you have to have ready before the wedding day and this is a list that I've kind of compiled of all the things that I do before that so this is the night before the wedding it's somebody on the face on the facebook group yesterday the second shooter facebook group on facebook on facebook repeat s o she had said if I don't I'm not working with the consistent second shooter like can you give me tips to what to do? And so I felt like it was maybe our responsibility to clarify the things that j d does for me in certain components of the business were things that I was doing for myself prior to me working full time with my second shooter and my husband so this pre wedding day checklist was stuff that I was doing on the friday night before our weddings and now that responsibility has never do those things I even think even as a three man things okay so there is the bus that you just threw me right under it and I did it once twice I think she didn't want to okay anyway so these are things that you could do at home on your own right season has a question. Yeah, right, let's cover that the fifa group I just think you're such a radic group of people they went in with intentions. We started the facebook group at the morning yesterday morning with roughly two thousand people, and now we're somewhere in the ballpark of thirty, one hundred people, so we picked it out a thousand people overnight, and these are all people there first shooters after seeing yesterday's course are now trusting that second shares have who have gone through this course, seeing the etiquette know what lenses to use know how to act in front of other people's clients. They're now saying, okay, I was leery hiring a second shooter, but if if we're on the same page up until this point, I want to start working with the second shooter, so that was really exciting people offering tips and off also jobs, which has been very, very, very cool. Yeah, isn't that where the facebook group actually is it's, so you can find the facebook group it's jay star with actually the ass tricks oj asterix second shooters, there are three thousand two hundred seventy two right now, another hundred already came out like two, roughly like another three hundred oh, and you know what? The good thing is about that group is we've actually been talking back and forth with handsome dialogue throughout the week, and a lot of their input is actually has shaped some of the sections in this course, which is because we wanted it to be reflective of second shooter's in general, not like what we do because I don't know if that's necessarily a fair description of the industry as a whole. But after going through in presenting our ideas, they gave this great feedback ideas of their own and also just further buttressed what we wanted to move forward with. Cool so I'm gonna actually get started keep going with the pre wedding day checklist and one of the I have a list of things that I do with the first thing that I always do before a wedding is I like to check the my gear and ensure that everything is there, uh, jasmine gets busy throughout throughout the weakest has other chutes going on or sometimes, you know, I'll go and shoot with her, and so our gear can be scattered in different areas. So the night before, I actually take a cat and I catalogue everything and make sure everything is there just in case anything was misplaced throughout the week uh, the next thing I like to do is I like to charge all our batteries um there's a few things that we have to charge actually so our camera batteries need to be charged our video lights need to be charged every night and our computer uh because jasmine's juneau same day slide show so the last thing I want is for her if we don't have an outlet because sometimes there isn't an outlet nearby uh I would hate for her to turn on her computer and only have like five percent you know, battery life left s o another thing I want to do is change out all my batteries for certain parts of our gear and that is for a flash and for a pocket wizard so we pretty much replenished the batteries everywhere at every wedding. The next thing is I make sure to clean lenses and the cameras now this is not a deep clean jasmine and I actually I take all our gear into the cannon center twice a year sometimes three times a year depending on how much where were used where we're shooting but before every single wedding I will brush off all the lenses and then pump out our sensors with one of those palms just to make sure that if any dust has collected in there that's pumped out the last thing I want for jasmine to take photos and there be little specks everywhere because it takes so much to get those cleared out post the next thing is I like to reformat all the cf cards the night before this way if we have to back things up we can just back him up and down and have everything downloaded but I know of a lot of second shooters or a lot of photographers that kind of hold up like that that's like the last thing they do so it's kind of like oh, I'll reform at them a little bit later and sometimes the day the morning off it could get really busy and all this and you're up at the wedding and your reform we have reformatting cards as you're shooting and you know what if you put in I accidentally put in a car that you had arranged just a friend reef accidentally reform a full card from a wedding that he had shot previously so that is so scary so he freaked out he had to go get the card professionally like some of the images extracted and he was lucky to salvage some of them but that could've been easily avoided had just taking time easily the day before we do not reform and on the day of a wedding because I just feel it's probably not the best situation you know and it's you know in those situations when you're when you're already changing your card even when it's clean it's kind of like hurry up, hurry up, hurry up I want to keep on shooting to find out that there's that's a full card is just a big mess so the next thing I like to do is pack the bags so actually I don't pack him into the car I just make sure that all the bags are packed so that the next day all I have to do is a quick load into the car. The next thing is ensure that the itineraries are in the bags so I'll make three copies of the wedding day itinerary up one in my bag, one in jasmine's bag and one in our main bag just in case we actually I'd misplace one all the time so there's always a backup and it's good to know exactly what's going on throughout the day so you're not always asking, you know, the coordinator or somebody else what's going on and the last thing is to ensure that the both photographers have all the addresses especially we're shooting in different locations so I'll have a list of addresses and we will use the navigation system so lugging those addresses in advance but being late because you got lost is, you know it's it's a a legitimate excuse you got lost but at the same time it's kind of your fault so making sure that all the addresses are probably talk I mean, this is not in our notes it just came to me yeah, yeah definitely your story and it was one hundred percent my fault because ideal, we're gonna talk about what responsibilities we take on within the business but all front facing communication I take care of krank here is something that I take care of and so I had reviewed the january with the bride and she'd said I'm getting married and for people who are watching from california like please cut me some slack, she said, I'm getting married at callum egos and I was like, great unbeknownst to me so we are at her hotel the groom's air at this before we're like yeah, yeah tell me goes no problems so we're shooting at the hotel and then they do a first look at the hotel so everybody gets in two limos and j d and I take off heading our way to malibu, california to go to tell amigos and we're sitting in traffic and I'm like, you know what? Something just is feeling off here something's feeling off and I'm looking and I'm thinking and I'm like, I'm gonna do a google search on kell amigos come to find out there's three quel amigos in southern california, one of them in burbank and if you're in california driving on a saturday afternoon from malibu to burbank you're like cool, I like d a d I would like to put my head between my knees like e with the worst, you guys, it was the worst and make it look good to make this hot mess day even worse, I was like, you need to turn around the freeway and you needn't drive in the, um, emergency traffic, right? So we're on the car pool lane when there's traffic and I was like, I'm just gonna get on the other carpool lane way, just karma because we blew out our tires so way didn't get on that we just wait it out and definitely just stressed out the entire time as we're inching through traffic, we finally get out, we see our exit, and right when we're pulling off, I hear like this big pop, and I'm just like, what was that? Did I step on something? We get a flat tire, I think jasmine b a flat tire. I was like, drive on the hug there sparks flying it's okay, just keep going. I get I'm crying. I can't even make this marriage weddings way actually got there, like, just kind of rolling out like it was kind of embarrassing. So jasmine jasmine goes in you, jess gets in there and, you know, I go in, I say forget the tai o cares, so we start shooting. During the wedding but thankfully but this is what happened so thankfully this second limo got caught in mad traffic so half of the wedding party wasn't there yet so we have just looked like you were caught in that nobody even wear just like everything was cool oh my god you guys it was awful but that happened in year one so we're yeah you're one and a half so I pulled like you know, seven years later we're still here we're still surviving it's okay the clients were chill nobody was none the wiser but all that to say when we say check the addresses we mean like now what I learned that lesson is I email the bride in advance and I say please list every address that I'm expected to be and just like I will be at the st regis and I said can you please give me that address because now I'm just like that it's on me it is one hundred percent on me if I have it wrong it's my fault I'm late and it's a poor reflection so that was a little detour sorry no and that was pretty much done actually. So I do all these things the night before so if I'm shooting on the saturday it's friday if it's sunday wedding saturday afternoon actually not the night before I do it after in the afternoon so that at night we have a chill, dinner. And the next day, I'm kind of just alleviating stress, because it could be pretty stressful. No, any day. So that's. Pretty much that that's. The pre wedding day checklist. Hope it helps.