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Lights, Camera, Action
Written by: Jacquelyn B. Fletcher
Couples go to great lengths to preserve the magic of their wedding day. Many will display photos in a beautiful album, press their wedding flowers for posterity, or freeze a slice of wedding cake. And yet none of these mementos tell the story of the day in the way a video of the event can.
In fact, ask a bride and groom what they regret about their wedding and often you’ll hear how they wish they had hired a videographer. “We were married in a Japanese garden on the most beautiful July morning you can imagine. This is a memory I wish we had captured on video so we could relive it and show it to our children and grandchildren,” says Houston resident Jean Travis-Odefey, who married her husband Arnold 23 years ago.
This couple has lovely photographs to look at, but they can’t hear the birdsong in the garden, or the vows they said to each other that day, or the toasts made by their loved ones.
In a recent nationwide survey of 500 newlywed brides commissioned by the Wedding and Event Videographers Association International (WEVA), a majority of respondents said that video does a better job of capturing the emotions and history of the day than still photographs. They also indicated that they felt their children would enjoy their wedding video more than their wedding photographs.
Why? Because you can hear what your father whispered to you before he walked you down the aisle. You can watch your grandmother giving your new spouse a kiss on the cheek.
“The audio makes a huge difference,” says Kris Malandruccolo of Elegant Videos by Kris, an award-winning professional wedding videographer based in Chicago and recent inductee into the WEVA Hall of Fame.
“With a video, when a couple is having their first dance, you get to hear the music the couple picked. When you look through an album, you can’t hear the vows, the songs, the toasts,” she explains. “Those are things that photos can’t capture.”
With today’s high-tech equipment, videographers can turn your wedding into a documentary film worthy of an Oscar, without interrupting your most precious moments.
Assemble Your Crew
Before you ask your cousin’s friend to tape the event with his new digital camcorder and risk having him accidentally push the off button right as you’re saying your vows, explore your options. In the last five years, the videography industry has undergone dramatic changes, and now you can view sample wedding videos from videographers all over the country right on your computer screen.
First, make a note of the wedding videos that appeal to you. Watch a handful of films and you’ll see that styles range from  documentary-type videos with lots of talking heads and a more straightforward approach, to artful films that include editing and special effects you might see in a big-screen hit.
Professional videographers typically charge an average of $3,000 for a wedding video, but the fee can vary dramatically depending on the talent of the filmmaker, whether the videographer is local, and if you are planning a destination wedding. “For professional videographers, the majority of work begins after the wedding day,” says Malandruccolo. “All the editing that goes into a wedding video, that’s where the professionals really stand out, and that makes a significant difference between an artistic wedding film and a simple home movie shot by Uncle Charlie.”
Find out how serious the videographer is about his or her work. Does she shoot a lot of weddings? Does he have corporate clients? Knowing if a videographer works at the craft full- or part-time can tell you a lot about that person’s skill and dedication.
Finally, make sure you find out how many people will be recording your wedding. Most videographers will have two cameras and two videographers on hand to maximize access to the day’s events, but some simply will set up a second camera and use the static shots as filler for your movie. More than two shooters probably are too many. You don’t want to start feeling like a Hollywood “it” girl hounded by paparazzi.
“If we start swarming the bride and groom with cameras, they can’t relax and enjoy their day,” says Rick Henshaw of Rogers, Arkansas-based Cineastfilms, an award-winning cinematographer who films weddings all over the country.
Know The Equipment
As you review wedding videos by potential videographers, pay attention to the quality of the audio and how the shooter uses light in the video. Most likely, your videographer will ask you to wear small wireless microphones that will pick up your voices. The audio is cleaned up in the editing process so your vows are crystal clear.
Digital cameras are becoming more sophisticated and, as a result, videographers don’t need to use harsh lights to make sure you can be seen. “We don’t bring big lights like they used to,” says Henshaw. “The worst thing you can do is put a light in somebody’s face and ask the guest to say something to the couple. They always look like they’re being interrogated by the FBI.”
“Digital cameras can go to low light,” Henshaw says. “But we encourage our clients to leave just enough light at the reception so you can see people’s faces. Smiles and eyes are wonderful details to capture.”
Tell Your Story
The goal of a wedding videographer is to be a historian. When you view your wedding video in future, even if the video has an element of fantasy about it with the soundtrack and the special effects, it should still accurately reflect your relationship and what happened on your wedding day.
“Our biggest challenge is to tell the story of the day,” says Henshaw. “I want to create films that will hold up 30 years from now because they capture the anxiety, the interaction.
One popular option for couples is the “love story,” where the videographer interviews the couple about how they met and fell and love and then puts the interviews into the movie. “We ask a couple to talk about how they fell in love and what’s so special about their relationship,” says Henshaw. “We are historians in that way. We try to be as real as we possibly can.”
Other fun wedding-film flourishes include incorporating still images or home movies of yourselves as children, or, as Malandruccolo suggests, choreographing a particular song with the bridal party so the reception section looks like a music video.
Go High-Tech
For those couples with friends and family in other parts of the world who can’t attend the wedding, some videographers offer live streaming video that can be broadcast on the Internet in real time while the bride and groom exchange rings.
You also can ask for same-day edits. That means a videographer can record your vows then edit them into a mini film you can play at your reception in lieu of a photo montage of your childhood pictures.
Malandruccolo gives all of her clients a copy of the finished film on DVD as well as in a digital file they can e-mail to anyone they want or upload to a Web site.
Keep in mind there are some areas in which technology still needs to catch up. For instance, it’s wonderful if you have a videographer who will record your wedding in high-definition. But the technology needed to burn high-definition DVDs for your use is not readily available yet, and so you’ll receive a regular DVD from your videographer even if they recorded the wedding in high-definition.
Ultimately, the most important thing is to enjoy your wedding day and forget that the videographer is there at all. That way, when you watch the movie of your day, the images and sounds will take you back to the emotions you felt when you and the love of your life kissed for the first time as husband and wife.
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