Lessons

Lesson Info

Reception Q&A

throughout the whole day um how often do you use the road mike the on camera road mike we're pretty much done with on camera mike's after broader preparations bridegroom preparations were probably we we never use it again so with that camera is the audio itself is pretty good it's pretty good o k and hopefully paralyzed gonna do a good job of being able to use our audio that we recorded internally uh as a reference on dh they do a pretty good job the day they don't start working with paralyzed we'll probably start utilizing on camera like a little bit more but we really like to just run and gun and sometimes like I tell you sometimes jessica has led light on her camera so she just doesn't have the room to accommodate both the microphone and that lee delight any questions instead I had a question about how long out you've been talking a lot about filming as much as possible with the toasts and first stands how much of the party dancing do you get are you once again trying to get as much...

as possible is that o r are you getting some really good creative shots and then looking for maybe something unrelated to to that party dancing so what are we responsible for throughout the day what do we talk about content but accountability right so we want to get everybody so our general plan for these weddings is jessica will go our jessica can't we'll go around and she's kind of like my accountability shooter so she'll go around and she'll kind of just make sure that she's filmed everybody that was on the dance floor at some point I'm more of a creative shooter so what she's shooting solid shots of the people in the dance for I'm looking for mme or outside the box type of shots you know content lot of content three to five seconds thirty five seconds just creative shots you know things are unpredictable I'm looking for foreground I'm looking for things that I compliment her shots that are going to be a little bit more interesting you know because what's going to happen is if it was just jessica going around getting all these solid shots of everybody that dance at the reception you know so be solid shot solid shot solid solid solid solid shot it could just get a little bit repetitive so we like to do in the edit is kind of mix it up you know a couple solid shots creative shot couple solid shots creative couple shots creative you know so you really want to be able to mix it up so I have a creative shooter assault will show you know you don't really need to solid shooters just shooting solid shots of everything that's on the dance for you I just need one but answered question as faras the length of time that we film it's just if we could get like three or four complete songs with everybody on the dance floor we're pretty much done with dancing at that point you know we don't film for hours and hours and hours because it's at some point even the client's going to get tired of seeing the same people dancing in front of camera the whole entire night because generally at these weddings you have dancers and then you have people that just sit at the tables and then you have people that just stand against the wall and move their head and things like that so it's generally your dancers are generally the same people that are dancing in front of camera the entire night you know and we've already covered that within the first five ten minutes of filming yeah okay if we're good in the studio audience I've got one coming from up here this is from maddie t and ray he'd like to know do your contracts explained that you may not include every second of the speeches or the events that during the dance yes okay our contract specifically state that we're not responsible for any shot that happens at the wedding because what happens if let's say the kiss happens and let's say both cameras got blocked unexpectedly you're in a little bit of a pinch so it's very important that your contracts cover you one hundred percent one of the problems that I had was since we've kind of been constantly evolving as far as our deliverables and our final product the length of time has always changed and one of the things is that we never kept up with was constantly changing our contracts to cover our what are deliverables we're going to be so there was a point in time where we said you know what we're not happy producing these forty five minute films these sixty minute films we're going to try out these twenty minute films but the problem is when we signed contracts with those brides your earlier when we were producing our long films and now we're delivering twenty minute films you know we did have one or two that came back and said hey this twenty minute film is great but we paid for a sixty minute film we want and it's in our contract that we can get the sixty minute version so that create a little bit of problem cause now we had to produce two films for the same client which caused you a lot of grief so just make sure you're covered by your contracts were certainly covered by contracts now there's actually no time limit to the film specified in our contracts anywhere so just make sure and there's nothing that says that we're responsible to capture any shot at the wedding all the city we're going to do our best job based on the circumstances to capture everything that we can but if something happens outside of our control you know we don't want to be liable for that so just make sure you're covered by your contracts hundred percent how does the end of your day work is if the cake is that when do you finish up typically with your and are you the brian group driving away when what is that moment captain generally happens and we're gonna get into some of this stuff tomorrow okay what we talk about business and how I kind of I set my own time at the wedding I don't let a bride kind of determine how long I'm gonna be at the wedding but based on the activities based on the events that happened at a wedding I kind of determine how many hours I'm gonna be at that event and generally I leave right after cake cutting so it just depends you know if I've determined a certain amount of hours and they're gonna have like a dry a drive away or sparklers or fireworks and then in the night or something like that or maybe they're going to do like the float the floating lanterns at night if it falls within my time or they wantto get some additional overtime I'll be there for that so it really just depends on the situation but generally speaking once kay cuttings over I'm pretty much done because we're already covered more than enough dancing we've got all the speeches we've got all the first dances and everything relevant already been recorded the only thing left really his maybe like after parties and more dancing hours and hours of mohr dancing things that we've already recorded and I'm kind of satisfied satisfied that that we've got more than enough content for what we need to produce his film and general I'll tell the couple that you know I'll go to the couple of said listen guys we got more enough stuff it looks great we're gonna go ahead and pack it in and that's it and you know if they want us to stay beyond that well if it's in the contract right now and there's more time left we'll stay or they'll just sad time teo to the package and then we'll stay there to cover whatever they want covered yeah it's interesting to hear you talk about a client wanting a sixty minute video as a videographer you're just thinking that's the most insane thing that you can imagine making um so a lot of people have been kind of chatting about this in the chat room and bruce earl had asked what do you do to fill a twenty minute video what other shots are included and pete and bruce and the amazing things that you've shown with your your rials you're you're short two minutes or three minute versions of a wedding how do you keep up that same level of just absolute amazing nus for an entire twenty minutes videographers air it's hard it's hard to imagine when you're you packed so much into a three minute video to make that a twenty minute video exactly seeing that this is possible yeah and this is why you want to record all the content that you possibly can be because what happens with the short highlights and the traitors you're using all the best footage in the highlights of the trailers and what do you have left for the main feature that they haven't already seen this is what you want to load up on all that content this is what you really want to be efficient to me honestly speaking our main features are ten times better than anything that you see on line with the two or three minute highlights your trailers because the main features is the real deal it's the actual wedding you're hearing all the things that were going on the main feature is where we're connecting all those cool visuals that we've been collecting all throughout the day to all the beautiful words that are being spoken about the bride and groom all day long so for me our main features the highlights and trailers that are online they're great but to me that's not what we do you know our product that we're proud of is our main features you are twenty minute films are every bit as compelling or even mohr than those three minutes version's that you're seeing online because we've got the content to fill that twenty minutes and make it compelling for twenty minutes and not just three or four minutes you know if you're going out and you're not being that efficient sure you can fill it two or three minute trailer highlights but can you make a twenty minute film just as compelling us at three minutes or four minute version you know in order to do that you need trust me you need a lot of content well it's interesting that you say that because we have such a short attention spans that after three minutes were usually you know switching the channel but when it's your own family and it's your own wedding you're going to be just absolutely your seat watching every minute of it so dark it to keep in mind as well that's a good point and I say that you know and you know I tell brides that I come into contact with because like yourself you know you were watching these videos last night and you were you know you were getting emotional and you're crying and all this and I tell brides in the console because they're wiping tears and they're crying all this and I tell him I said you realize you're crying at strangers at a stranger's wedding imagine if it was your own wedding with your own family your own friends you know everything that you just said uh the experience is just totally totally different yeah and imagine it are amazing but I mean that's that's what captivated me from first seeing your rials and stuff and then now each day we've had been emphasizing the audio in the content part of that because all these other trailers have seen from people who are trying to make it in video murphy it's cool for you have three minutes of highlights over a content free music but you can't just switch content free music across twenty minutes and make it viable it's because there's meaningful words and really touching content that makes a nen tire feature workout exactly and that's why the audio and the dialogue is just so important and the audio acquisition is just so critical to what we're doing because we didn't have that it was just like you said it would just turn into like a twenty minute music video you know with no emotion no connection to the film on it probably wouldn't be as compelling as a film that was well put together with a nice natural audio I'm very curious to hear how you structure the story arcs or the emotional intensity throughout a twenty minute film I don't know for covering that tomorrow or not but our there's times when it's fast paced or high intensity or high emotion and there's times when it's smooth and slow and contemplative most of your films start with a few shots of just settling in retires and how do you structure that dynamic evan flow over the course of twenty minutes to draw people along do you have specific climaxes that you pull out on the day of the wedding and you plan for those in the editors well well you know a lot of the music that we use they have curse endo's you know they have moments off of these grand crescendos where you want to be able to introduce these grand moments at that particular time we're going to get it to more of this of course tomorrow because we have the whole editing portion but the main thing is just to keep interest throughout the film another obstacle that you run into is that maybe you don't have enough dialogue there was maybe there wasn't enough beautiful words spoken at the wedding so what happens then maybe your main feature is going to be a little bit shorter just because you don't have the content to fill ah twenty minutes you know when I say twenty minutes I'm assuming I'm gonna have enough content to fill a twenty minute film and generally you do generally are mean features average out at about eighteen minutes but there's no rule on the length and I told clients so listen it's just when we start running out of content the film has to come to an end we had a three day indian wedding that we just delivered it was thirty seven minutes thirty seven minutes and it was every bit as compelling as eighteen minute version but you know why I was thirty seven minutes we just had too much content you know I would just spend an injustice not to include all these things you know indian wedding over three days so you had to be able to show this amazing content that you were able to record over three days so it just depends you know so there's no rule on the length my only rule on the length and I told clients is flat out is that it's interesting to watch from the beginning to the end that's it so it really just depends on the content and then if you're really into content like the one bride that kind of like made sure I had enough content to you know create a highlight for the web site you know there's definitely enough content you know hopefully ray I know the people in the chat rooms and I know for sure the people in this audience and susan are extremely inspired by the work that you're doing especially the last couple days so we watch your footage and your instruction very inspiring tow us new york or asks who are your inspirations when you were getting started were there any wedding cinematographers or other types of people that you you look to for inspiration in your early days you know if I tell you this those guys are gonna be sending me a message like you oh me but yeah there was definitely some inspirations for may there was you know when I first came in there was actually he's still around and he's he's very good his name is dave williams and he was a huge inspiration for may because his work for me was very clean it was very solid his use of specialty tools you know like the glide cam and things like that it was just it was so smooth I even had a dvd that he put out went I'm a smooth shooter and and I persons the dvd I wanted to shoot like dave williams you know on the glide cam things like that but his work was just so clean so early on he was uh he was a big inspiration and I looked or towards his work a lot just because not that it was though the flashiest work in the world it was just very solid and it was very clean there was in a lot of effects of any applied to the work and it just looked really really good and and the content that he was able to put in the films were just very compelling toe watch so definitely say you know early on as I was first starting I would definitely say that you know a woman's was definitely a big inspiration there was there was other videographers there was actually one filmmaker from seattle here lower randall and I remember I remember when I first started she's with that it will many I think lauren I remember I posted a video online when I first started and I thought it was the best video in the world and I had looked before he posted this video online I had checked it about a thousand times I watched it back about a thousand times that I posted it for feedback and when I posted everybody was getting the great feedback but she was the one that really gave me some critical feedback and it it was like a million things that I never saw my like my eyes just weren't trained to notice these flaws in the work and with that it kind of trained my eyes and things like that so it's so even thinking back to laura she actually helped train my eyes be to notice things that I never even noticed even after watching this same film of thousand times over I never would have recognized these flaws so so just little things like that there was there was not a big online community at that time but there was a small online community of people that I kind of drew inspiration from I drew advice from they shared knowledge I tried to share knowledge when I could on dh that's pretty much you know it's been a slow learning process like I said yesterday when I started there was really nothing like like this there was no creative live resource that you could turn to to just learn absolutely a dizzy ofthe wedding cinematography it just really didn't exist you kind of learn as you went it was kind of trawling error it's on the job training you know you make mistakes hopefully gonna address some of the mistakes that you make during the shoot and improved for the next week and that's kind of how it's been for quite a few years you know up until recently unless last year to the resource is just unbelievable you know you have in focus you have double p p I know that's offering ah cinema classes and then you have creative life you know it's just it's never ending you know the knowledge that's out there the resource is air just never ending right now