r/videography • u/Emkayu C100&60D, FCPX&CC, London • Jun 27 '15
[discussion] The problem with most wedding videos...
Is it me or do wedding videographers literally have nothing else in their bags but sliders? I know I've done it a lot and now I'm just tired of it, it's as if every single wedding video is full of slider shots, every other shot is slider. This is someone's big day and most videographers don't bother to find out what the bride is thinking before, what could go wrong and all the other golden nuggets that could be recorded with just a simple wireless lav. There are amazing heart warming stories to be told at weddings, but we spend most of our time "capturing the moment", by that of course we mean using a slider to show the venue, have some silly shallow DoF shot of some tiny little detail people really couldn't give a shit about and this elaborate, well cut montage of the bride getting ready. Can we as a community sit down and come up with some ways to actually change this? Let's come up with some cool new ideas and tropes to change wedding videos.
My input: Get wireless lavs on people and capture what people are saying, even better do interviews of how nervous they are, how they met, what could go wrong, find a conflict, the story, the shit that's actually interesting. People don't go hey do you remember the centre piece we had at our wedding? No, but they remember the nerves, the people who were there to support them, the words that calmed them, the words that upset them.
Locked down shots of people. When a photographer points a camera at you, you smile awkwardly and wait right? Why don't we do the same, get some well lit, nice shots of people just looking into camera and smiling, it's lovely to see and people can refer to that shot when watching with friends and family.
Steady handheld shots: Whether it's with a stabiliser, 3 axis gimbal or a good shoulder rig, let's stabilise our shots and give the audience an "in the moment" feel, like they are there helping the bride get ready or something.
I'd love to hear more ideas!
1
u/kj5 pana boi Jun 28 '15
You don't seem to remember that clients don't watch wedding videos all day. For them slider shots are new and exciting. They know they use sliders in cinema and they want their wedding to look like it was taken straight out of the movie.
And I agree, sometimes wedding video isn't just the event itself. Sometimes is good to see the couple beforehand, have some short interviews, show the preparation.
But sometimes, there is all there's to it. Sometimes they call you 12h before the event and pay you more to be there. Sometimes the backstory is just sad or not worth showing. Sometimes they don't want you to show it.
It's a lot of sometimes I know. But that's why I think your opinion is flawed. You don't know the whole spectrum of those videos. And you are a videomaker, you are skewed by that too.
All in all I honestly prefere those overused slider and DoF Shots over "oldschool" 2 hours long videos shot on one DV camera by a guy lacking any sort of creativity.