A lot of people wonder just what goes on during a typical video shoot, so I figured I’d write this blog entry today to help explain the processes involved. During the process I’ll also explain some of the tools we use here at GShutter Studios to process the film and produce the final DVD’s that we send to our clients.
Things start the day before the event where we make sure all our batteries are charged, glass is polished, bags are packed and everything that goes along with it. A quick check of the GPS to make sure we have directions to the location is also an important step. Once everything has been taken care of we’re ready (or we hope) for the day to come.
The morning of the event, depending on the time and needs of the day, we pack up the car and start on our way. Depending on the location and traffic around Atlanta, these trips could take an hour or more to get to make. Once there, we’ll take a quick look around to see what and where we can capture footage, as well as where we’re able to shoot the ceremony. We’ll then begin unloading the car and setting up our tripods and equipment at the ceremony location. Most weddings require equipment to be setup 30 minutes before hand, so despite us rarely filming from this location until the actual ceremony, we usually setup here anyway. This allows us to be ready to film with minimal fuss later on.
After the equipment is setup, the main camera is taken around the church as well as outside, to film anything and everything. It’s very important during an event like this to capture footage of everything someone might see. Anything to bring out that special moment that takes someone back to that day. These short shots also provide the footage required to make a production feel smooth and complete.
Once we’ve made our rounds and captured everything we feel might fit into the days events, we next locate the bride and groom and determine how and when we’ll begin filming them. If the job requires capturing their preparations, then we’ll begin filming as soon as they’re comfortable. Having shots of the rings, the dress before it’s put on, shoes and other accessories is a good idea. These things can be interlaced throughout the pre-wedding video chapter to show the natural progression and unfolding of the days events.
Filming the bride putting the dress on (with taste of course), getting help with the buttons, her shoes and so forth, also adds to the production value and provides those missing links so many videos lack. Most of the time here, will be spent with the bride, since this day is her day and the final video production should reflect this.
The next step is to move outside or to the location the photographer chooses to start shooting the photos. We’ll follow along side and capture video moments of the entire process and will use this footage in the final production.
Next comes the true challenge of the day. Most churches don’t allow up close photographers and require us to stay positioned at the back of the church. The use of lights is usually not allowed either which means that depending on the natural lighting of the church, things might not look so great. Depending on the camera being used (we use a Canon XL2) you may be able to play some tricks to get more light into the camera, however, all of these tricks come at a price. The farther away we’re forced to film, the worse the problem becomes, but like everyone else, we cope. After all, there is only so much you can do when the options are small.
No matter what the job, we’ll stay around after the wedding and film the final photo shoot just before the reception. This allows a nice closing to the ceremony portion of the production and a nice setup for the reception if we’re filming it. The reception is always a bit more relaxed and allows us to use at least a little light to help capture cleaner images.
Unlike a lot of videographers, we usually take a photographer to capture moments during the day as well. This allows us to have much higher quality images to mix in to the final video production and adds to the brides collection of photos. We don’t charge for this service but instead look at it as part of our job to capture the moments of the day as well as possible.
Here is the part most people don’t realize however. The day of filming a wedding is really only half of the job and most times, not even half. Once back at our office, we next have to watch 100% of the video again in order to retrieve the data from the tapes and load them into our computers. We utilize top of the line Mac systems here, running Final Cut Pro, Color and a number of other software packages to help process our images.
Unlike photography, Digital video produced extremely large files. This requires massive amounts of disk space and systems with enough memory to process them in a reasonable period of time. It also means that capturing the tapes requires as much time as it took you to press the record button in the first place. The sad thing, is that this step only gets it into the computer to start working with it.
The next step in the process is watching the entire footage and making creative decisions of how we feel the day played out. Taking the music the bride and groom selected and getting a feel for how things should move. Taking these feelings and beginning to paint our production into reality. Taking massive amounts of film and breaking it into a creative master piece for the bride, to help restore those feelings of that special day, now and into the future.
Once the timeline is built, the music is selected and the images are cut the way we want them, the next step is to do color grading. This step requires moving the entire production into another application (We use “Color”) to start making decisions of color, saturation, lighting and many other things. This requires viewing the production sequence many times through specially calibrated monitors to make sure everything is just right. Once accomplished we move it back into Final Cut Pro for one last look before we start the final two steps.
If everything looks the way we want it, the next step is to produce a compressed version of the video in order to upload it to our website. This is done in order to get the impression of the bride before we actually start burning DVD’s. Of course, this is not always possible, but it is something we try to do.
Before all this started, the bride has usually supplied us with a list of music that they would like to use for the production. Instead of having massive amounts of footage strung back to back, song after song, we usually try to break them down into chapters with each song on a separate track. This provides shorter tracks to show people and breaks the days events into subsections that can be quickly viewed if desired. This step also allows us to color grade and line up the cuts using shorter segments and proves for an overall better final production.
And finally, once everything has been signed off on, the final DVD’s are burned and mailed out.
I hope this helps to provide at least a little insight into how your wedding production comes together. There are also many other steps not listed here, but you should at least now have some idea of what to expect from whoever you hire to do your wedding videography.
–glenn hancock
