Education Blog

This space is a place where cinematographers and photographers can share ideas and questions for all things weddings

Wedding Video Coverage

 

Q? = What does the best wedding video coverage look like?

Well, we believe that best video coverage always starts with multiple cameras set at multiple angles. We believe you should probably have at least one more angle than you think you need! Let me explain, more angles means more creativity in the film, more options in editing, less opportunity for a family member to unknowingly block a shot and it gives you the very best chance that all your memories are captured and saved forever!

Q? = Why would you ever not use the best coverage available?

Unfortunately, many brides and grooms who prioritize budget as the main concern tend to select a service solely based on budget but what they don’t understand is they are going to get exactly what they paid for, budget coverage. Budget coverage in it’s most simple form starts with the question, “How little can I get away with”. We start our planning process from the opposite angle, we ask the question, “how many cameras do I need to tell the best story at any cost” and then we add a few more cameras and this lands us in the sweet spot with all the great angles you see in our films.

 Q? = Isn’t the best wedding video coverage a lot more work?

Yes, it is a lot more work for us on the filming day and it multiplies out exponentially into more work in the editing room, but we aren’t afraid of a little work.

Q? = Do all those cameras cause a distraction for my guests?

We DO NOT create a large footprint or distraction at all with these cameras as they are pretty small Cinema cameras. In some cases, we even hide the cameras using the same technique as Hollywood does on TV and movie sets. Read some of our reviews HERE to see exactly what people say about how we are like NINJAS, hardly even noticed.

Q? = Is it really expensive to get the best video coverage?

Isn’t cost always a relative thing, right? Believe it or not, It actually costs more for inexpensive poor coverage. Not only is it costing you precious memories that you will never get back, but it actually costs you more per camera by the time you get your edited wedding film back. Most the companies we know who shoot with 1, 2, or even occasionally 3 cameras cost you more per angle, more per minute of video than we do.

 


 

Color Grading

Color Wheel

Q? = Why do our films have different looks?

A = Because you, our clients are all unique, as should be your film!

If you look through our films carefully you will find many different “LOOKS” as you go from film to film. Colors that range from vibrant, muted, classic B&W, punchy, warm and even earthy or neutral. Ultimately we do this because we believe color and tone can widely effect your film, these different looks will evoke specific emotions creating specific thoughts or feelings in those that view these films. Our goal in our work is to not only capture a memory but to help viewers relieve those memories and feel those feelings over and over again. We want you to connect with the characters in our films. Typically this would be our main characters the bride and groom.

Here are some different looks from this past year.

Color-Labeled

Q? = How Do we make them look so different?

A = Our films start out a rather muddy grey because we shoot in a “FLAT” color profile to allow the most dynamic range (light to dark) information to get recorded by our cinema cameras. This also aids in giving us the widest possibilities in post production to color each scene and frame of footage as we would like. Yes every FRAME! That is a lot of footage to color but we believe color like sound and picture composition is a super important part of your story. In Hollywood there are “Colorists” that do nothing but simply color films all day long. For instance, the fact that the look of a film has a greater impact on the tone and atmosphere of the piece and as well as a significant outcome on the audience’s views of the material, is rather under-appreciated because the colorist might create high-contrast looks in order to draw attention on something that suggest urgency and importance or he decides for a range of gray shades to tell the audience that the plot is more dashed and complicated; whereas a warm cast of color that comprise colors which are shifted towards orange might show a warmer or nostalgic tone, while a shift towards blue might indicate a bit of a scientific feel. Another job that the colorist has to do in any other way is related to storytelling as he/she has to work with the whole team of producers, directors, cinematographers and editors in order to interpret the story in a consistent but credible way.

Here is a gimps of how footage looks before and after it has been colored.

Story Telling & Terrific Toasts

There are many of us who instinctive tell a story well, then there are those that don’t! Think of the long lost uncle that toasts at your wedding for a half an hour and never even mentions you! Well maybe this outline will help you in crafting your next toast. It doesn’t matter if it is a toast you need to write or maybe your a film maker and story teller like us who needs to write a script, we hope this simple 7 step article helps.

 

Woman-cooking-pasta-sauce

STEP 1 – Cook the story

A great story is like a delicious pot of stew. Poor conversationalists tend to tell the story in its raw form –- simply retelling events in an objective way. This is comparable to just throwing some meat in some water and calling it stew.

Cooked stories include your feelings, reactions, inner thoughts, colorful descriptions, other people’s reactions, comparisons/analogies, etc. Let’s look at an example: “Last week I was riding the bus and this large man came in and sat next to me. It made me uncomfortable.” This is bland and uninteresting, but if you cook the story a bit — if you add some extra ingredients — you’ll achieve much better results.

 

Shh-1

STEP 2 – Less is more

Great stories are not drawn out, long affairs. Great stories are told in small, quick chunks of information. This helps the audience process the story and also keeps them interested. Take breaths in between chunks and put in some energy to each chunk.

Instead of babbling a story in one long breath, use intentional pauses between complete sentences and parts of your story. This allows the story teller to really put some energy and animation into the story, the story teller can act it out too.

  • Don’t: “So I was standing at the bar giving her the eye and well… she’s looking back at me and I pretty much start to walk over there right through the crowd. I was, well … um… staring her down the whole time, and out of nowhere comes this…”
  • Do: “And I’m standing there… I’m giving her the eye, and she’s looking back at me… so I start to walk through the crowd.  I’m staring her down the whole time… out of nowhere comes this…”
  Detroit Abandoned Buildings

STEP 3 – Paint the scene.

Too much detail can bore, and the same goes for too little detail. Let’s go through a spectrum shall we?

  • Bad = “We went to a city.”
  • Okay = “We went to Detroit.”
  • Better = “We drove our little Honda to Detroit.”
  • Good = “We drove our little Honda through the war-torn city I call Detroit.”
  • Good, almost too much detail = “We drove our little 1997 Honda through the smog invested, war-torn city I like to call Detroit and it barely survived the 11 potholes we hit.”
  • Too much detail = “We drove our little 1997 Honda Civic through the smog invested, war-torn city I like to call Detroit and it barely survived the 11 potholes, 5 cracks, and two homeless people that we almost hit.”

 

Portrait of a very happy young man in a rain of money

STEP 4 – Include your reactions to the events that unfolded.

  • As you tell the story, tell the audience about your reactions to the events that occurred. Did you like something? Were you surprised by something? Tell the audience -– briefly.
  • Do: “She gave me some money — now that’s cool, I always like a little extra money in the pocket — you never know what you may have to buy at a moment’s notice, right?”

 

two happy young girlfriends talking over white

STEP 5 – Add dialogue.

  • Add dialogue whenever you can. Hearing you describe what someone said is never as good as actually imitating the person and saying real dialogue or hearing them say it. The same goes for yourself.
  • Don’t just say, “It was cool…,” tell us what you were thinking or saying at the time: “It was cool, I was thinking, ‘Man I’ll do this any day!'”
  • Even adding your inner thoughts, in the form of story dialogue, opens up your stories to all kinds of exciting possibilities. Don’t hesitate to say what could have been said — conversation doesn’t actually have to have happened. You could say what you wanted to say at the time, or exaggerate what one of the characters said at the time.

 

 

shopping-bg

STEP 6 – Establish the norm, and then contrast that with how an event didn’t go as expected.

A great story is about something that isn’t normal and doesn’t happen all the time. It’s where things were normal until something happened that made them not so normal anymore. This is a very effective and highly recommended way to tell parts or all of your story. Look at some common formulas for setting up the norm:

  • “I mean normally I would have just walked the mall alone that day, but…”
  • “And I walked into the mall, expecting to see him standing alone right? But…”
Danny-Elyse-Marie-web-41

STEP 7 – Once you establish the norm of the story, describe the turning point.

There are many ways to phrase the turning point. The turning point can be conflict or even a release of tension that has been building like in a proposal. You can always mention something “the moment in time” it happened or took a turn. For instance, “It was that moment where I felt…” or “…and this is where everything breaks down…” or “that’s the moment where I was like … !”

The turning point is often the height of the action and the climax of the story you’re telling. It is where everything changes as a result of the event that just occurred.

  • Before the Turning Point: “I’m standing there thinking things couldn’t get any better…”
  • During the Turning Point: “…when all of a sudden Mike took my hand and…”
  • After the Turning Point: “I was like, ‘Wow did that really happen…”

Maybe your story has more of a dramatic flare and this is the point of conflict, let’s say your riding in a buss…

  • Before the Turning Point: “I’m sitting there all snug and cozy in my bus seat…”
  • During the Turning Point: “…when all of a sudden I feel this oh-so-slight bump on my shoulder, I look over and I see my buddy Bubba resting his big old head on me…”
  • After the Turning Point: “I was like, ‘Oh brother not again…”

Post-Commentary Wrapping Up.

You can recover many bad stories by adding good post-commentary. The post-commentary allows you to reflect back on what happened and make witty comments about it. It also helps you wrap up the story and possibly segue to something else. Talk about what you think about the event currently, and/or what has happened since the story events took place, and any other way you want to wrap up the story. Examples:

“I don’t know how we ever survived… but we did!”

“I don’t know how they ever got a job… but he made it somehow…”

“I almost died from embarrassment… I wanted to jump out the window after that!”

“…had I opened the door it never would have happened in the first place! Ya just never know what’s going to happen to you over there…”

“I was absolutely devastated when it happened, but now it’s funny to laugh about.”


 

Album Packages

Many of our clients are spread out both nationally and internationally so we don’t always get the joy of sitting down together face to face. We though in those cases it might be great to give you a short video sample of some of our different album choices available here at DW. Keep in mind we have many more products available than this video has time for so we chose to highlight the most common ones we sell. Enjoy!

 

 

 


 

Best Bag for C100

I like many other early adopters of the Canon C100 line looked everywhere for a good case. Especially one that would allow me to keep my camera and audio assembled. Well…. I found it

The Petrol DR 003 bag Rocks! I also love the PA1018 Sun Shade. Check out the video to learn more.

EDIT*Sorry I have a typo in the video i said PA1080 it should be PA1018!

 


 

C100 Latitude Tests

All of this was shot in WIDE DR not Clog. I know I could have gotten even more latitude with Clog but I wanted to shoot in something that could be handed to a client directly. This camera has ridicules latitude! Good by DSLR.

Shoot details: (Most everything was shot with a mono pod except a couple slider shots)

Lenses:
Canon 14mm F2.8
Canon 50mm F1.4
Canon 24-105mm F4 IS
Rokinon 35mm F1.4

No color grading applied.

 

Wedding Video Coverage

Wedding Video Coverage

https://vimeo.com/236496661   Q? = What does the best wedding video coverage look like? Well, we believe that best video coverage always starts with multiple cameras set at multiple angles. We believe you should probably have at least one more angle than you...

read more
Color Grading

Color Grading

Q? = Why do our films have different looks? A = Because you, our clients are all unique, as should be your film! If you look through our films carefully you will find many different "LOOKS" as you go from film to film. Colors that range from vibrant, muted, classic...

read more
Story Telling & Terrific Toasts

Story Telling & Terrific Toasts

There are many of us who instinctive tell a story well, then there are those that don't! Think of the long lost uncle that toasts at your wedding for a half an hour and never even mentions you! Well maybe this outline will help you in crafting your next toast. It...

read more
Album Packages

Album Packages

Many of our clients are spread out both nationally and internationally so we don't always get the joy of sitting down together face to face. We though in those cases it might be great to give you a short video sample of some of our different album choices available...

read more
Best Bag for C100

Best Bag for C100

I like many other early adopters of the Canon C100 line looked everywhere for a good case. Especially one that would allow me to keep my camera and audio assembled. Well.... I found it The Petrol DR 003 bag Rocks! I also love the PA1018 Sun Shade. Check out the video...

read more