One thought about the wedding video

One thing keeps coming up in messages from my customers: why are most wedding videos so boring? There are a thousand shots of dresses, flowers, rings, tables and chairs and then lots of slow motion shots of the newlyweds posing and walking somewhere… a lot of things and people are either completely missing or edited so it doesn’t matter. 

I often wonder why is this happening. Maybe I’ll expand on this thought over time, but there are a few things I agree on with clients who book wedding video with me: 

Want fun. The fun needs to be evident in the shooting, but especially in the editing. Most things can be well shot, but are buried by boring editing.

Want interest. The cameraman can’t relax or hide. He has to be ready all the time. I mean, really. A lot of things happen right when the “main” wedding stuff (getting into the dress, the ceremony walk-through, the first dance) isn’t happening. 

Want to rock n roll. It’s simple: no one wants to watch a boring wedding video. The editing doesn’t necessarily have to be moving slow motion shots that follow each other… black and white only? Super8 only? Camera in your (or your guests) hands? 

Think it through. If I were making the decision, I’d rather have no video than a bad video. Video is a record of your family and friends that will gain in value after ten or twenty years (and beyond). A small but valuable document of the times for years yet to come.

Photography & videography. Most of my clients think of video as a complement to photos. Why have video as pictures? Print the photos and put them in an album. With photos, you’ll probably make a selection and then the whole family can browse, skip around, linger on some photos, some may be less important than others, but they’ll complement an album or two-page spread beautifully. With video it’s different: it should leave mostly a feeling, a memory of “what it was like”. And there is no template for that.
If you’re choosing a videographer, maybe these few thoughts will help.

Thanks to Vita for the photos in this article, it’s the only proper backstage in a long time :D We just went to shoot a wedding at St Giles House in Dorset, with a stop in Southampton.