Originally Posted by 2dart  Noa, thank you so much for posting! I am greatly encouraged to find out that even in other parts around the world, the same kinds of issues that I dealt with, are the same kinds of issues others deal with too. And I thank you for your kind words. Your enthusiasm and love for what you do comes through clearly on your posting as well, and I admire you for the fact that you actually do this professionally and on your own! Wow! I wish I could sit in and watch what you do and how you do it.
I do have one question for you. You said you work alone, and that you recommend a multicam set up (which I wholeheartedly agree on), but you also mention never to leave the other cameras alone and unattended. How do you do this if you are working alone? I'm just curious, because in the future when I do this again, I'd like to be able to implement the things people have been suggesting here. So I'd very much like to know how you handle this issue, so I also can put it into practise.
I was fortunate enough to have a fairly high stained-glass window ledge on either side of the church at the back on which to set up my other unattended cameras, so they were quite out of the way of the people (and their kids). It made it nice for getting a clear unobstructed view too.
Thanks to everyone for the help! |
The best advise I can give everybody is to contact a videographer and ask if you can follow him all day, this is how I started. I did take my own cam with me, tried not to get in the way but shot a lot of footage as well and made a 30 minute compilation from it on dvd. I gave the dvd for free to the other videographer who gave it as some kind of bonus to the weddingcouple.
Now I (almost) always work alone and most of my work is a one camera registration, I always have a backup camera with me but never use it except when my main camera would not work. I always let the couple choose wether they want a single or a 2 cam setup, but a 2 cam set up raises the price considerably and most of them choose the cheapest (1 cam solution). Even when I explain the advantages to them they don't care. I live in a part of Belgium not that far from the Dutch and German border and here people are very price conscious, I also often operate around the Antwerp region and there people have more to spend, but even then a 1 camera setup is sufficient for them. It's usually the photographer which costs 2 to 3 times more then what I am charging.
Theres also the fact that it is not easy finding experienced videographers who can make themselves available for a few hours the weddingday as they often have obligations as well.
I don't have any ambitions to the future to expand my business to more people and actually like to keep it a one man thing.
Some more advice I could give you is to always travel light, my tripod f.i. hangs with a strap around my sholder and I have a "special" jacket with a lot of pockets. Here I put everything form cassettes, sparebattery, camera light (I use a 3 watt sony lamp for my vx2100 which is very small but sufficient for dark area's) and more small material. So I never have seperate bags with me to drag into church and so on.
I can tell you that when you work alone most of the time you develop a sixth sence for things that are happening around you, also experience makes a difference as once you get to know the wedding traditions you have an idea what will happen when. Only for the unexpected things you need to be lucky.
I also never tape more then 3 hours during a whole wedding day because I just tape what is necesarry to get my 50min dvd at the end. People here are not interested in seeing complete chuch ceremonie but just the highlights.
For this year I have a new "gadget" that I offer and it's a "talking box", it's a big box containing a harddisk recorder, a tv and a small camera. It's placed in the evening when all the guests arrive and it records continuously until the end of the party. Guests can see themselves on the tv and can speak their wishes into the cam. Afterwards a dvd is made from that and I can tell you that the later it gets the more interesting the messages get
. People love the idea of having a talking guestbook and they show more interest in that dvd then the actual wedding dvd.
What I talked about here is actually only the filming part, editing is a whole different story and you should always keep the editing part in mind while you are filming, f.i. a nice effect which always gives a oooo or aaaaa with the weddingcouple when you show it is actually so simple to achieve. When the guests arrive I put the camera outside on a tripod and film it for a minute or 2, I assure that I have an image with no people on it and the same with people.
When editing I just put the footage with no people on the first videotrack and a part with people on the second videotrack and then I just place a crossdissolve at the beginning and end of that second videotrack. Then you see a building and door and suddenly people appearing out of nowwhere and dissapearing again. You only need to assure not to touch your camera while filming.
I rather use these type of effects over any build in effect that especially cheap editing software is filled with.
Anyway, if you need to know more, just let me know. If I can help I would gladly do that.