Some Notes about how to film a wedding
Weddings are only sometimes straightforward. Sometimes they can be a mess. People running around people running late and not finding locations, so it is part of the job to be able to deal with people to be organised and be a good communicator.
Weddings are one of those things where you benefit from just learning on the job. It is not something that you can teach. You can watch millions of videos on YouTube. It comes down to your personality and what you want to get out of the wedding. Just remember weddings are about the couples, not the footage you get. Do not be that overbearing person that takes over the day. It is about them…
How to film a wedding, Look the part
There is no point in turning up to a wedding; looking like you should not be there. The one thing I have heard so many times from other vendors bagging out photographers and videographers for not wearing the right clothes and just looking like they’re on a day out to the beach is so dress nice, be amenable and polite to everybody. It will go a long way.
Wedding videography Gear
Starting a videography career, you will always want to have the best gear you can buy. You need two essential things in a camera when shooting weddings. The first one has two card slots to back up your footage, so you have a copy/ You cannot lose footage that you can never shoot again. The same applies to audio, always having a backup of the main audio if something goes wrong. Believe me, when films have bad audio, it is so noticeable and will ruin a movie, no matter how good the footage is…
Cameras
One camera body and a versatile lens, like a 24 to 70, would be a great place to start. A camera that can make slow motion would benefit the films because you need to be mobile. Eliminating that camera shake is critical. You must be able to hold up the day by setting up tripods or even monopods. Being handheld is the key to just getting everything you need for your films. It’s fast-paced, and everything happens so quickly. I shoot all my weddings handheld with the Panasonic S1H before the GH5. Before that, I had a GH4 with no stabilisation, either on a monopod or a GlideCam.
Audio
When you are starting, and you first start getting into audio recording, the pressure can be on to get it right. You cannot mess this up. There are many different ways to capture audio at a wedding. You only get one opportunity to record, so make sure you have backups of everything, not just your audio but also your camera footage because things can go wrong, and there is nothing like an angry bride, trust me!
A simple lav mic will suffice in capturing the vows. This can be placed on the groom and pick up the bride’s voice. This is all the audio you will need to make a decent highlight film because we are trying to tell a story at the end of the day, and naturally, the couple’s vows will achieve that.
How to film a wedding – What’s your Style
You want to get into wedding films, but you have yet to determine your style. Well, I did not know either when I first started. I just had a mishmash of ideas and just went ahead and shot. But as the years when on, I created my Style, which comes down to shooting weddings and practising until I find something you like.
What have I learned?
The most significant thing I’ve learned over the years is now that I’m filming a wedding for the edit when I’m filming a wedding. Let me explain… wedding films can be pretty jarring because you are jumping around all over the place, showing bits of the day, the beginning, the middle the end all mixed. So, we are always trying to join different parts of the day together so we can make one coherent film and a great example of that is people doing the same thing. Still, in other places, the bride and groom putting their shoes on, the bridesmaids having a drink, or the groomsmen having a drink, we can easily link clips together to make a successful film…
