I've noticed that many of you give delivery times of sometimes three to six months for the first view. Do you find that couples are happy with that? I guess that they are or they wouldn't book you.

The reason I ask is that I've had quite a few enquirers lately ask how long would it be before they get to see it. They were amazed that they had been told even six weeks or more, one said her brother had now waited almost a year and it's still is not ready.

I deliver mine in two weeks, though in exceptional times it may be a week longer. The longest has been a month and that was only because the couple hadn't decided on the music they wanted and didn't let me have it until a week after the wedding.
I can't envisage doing a run of weddings when I still have unviewed weddings on the shelf, as well as waiting that long to get my final payment. Some weddings don't even last that long.

How does your work-flow work? Do you just shelve it until you've got time, or start each one and work on a few simultaneously?

I think it totally depends on your market.

Right from the initial enquiry to the time we film their wedding we have never had anyone ask "How long?" or "How many copies do we get?". Its not until we tell them in the pre-wedding consultation that they find out the delivery time or how many disks they get when we just confirm it.

Our delivery time is 4 months and this is deliberate.

If you do some research you will find that after a wedding nearly everyone suffers from post wedding depression. No more planning, no more organizing, no more looking forwards to the wedding. Now, if you deliver inside this period the chances are they will watch it with a critical eye, looking for faults or bits missing rather than just enjoying the experience.

We used to deliver 4-6 weeks and would nearly always hear "I remember so and so doing this funny thing with their hands, can we have this, what about that, the shot of the shoes needs to be 2 seconds longer".

Now we deliver after 4 months people just enjoy the movie more. We speak to their photographers though who deliver in 1-2 weeks, who pride themselves on delivering before they get back from honeymoon and they nearly always have had some comeback.

Post wedding depression, always worth considering.

Hi Danny.
It obviously does depend on your market.
But my experience is very different to yours.
In over twenty years I've rarely had anyone ask about something they remember happening on the day, some may say "did you catch so and so" but It's never been a problem if I haven't, I hasten to add it's never anything important or expected, but I have had couples ring from the airport or as soon as they get home to ask if they can pick it up on their way home or call and collect it.

After the build up, the wedding, and then going away on honeymoon I find that most couples want to see just how their day went.

I still don't see how the work-flow works. Do you edit and then deliberately hang on to it for 4 months, or wait for a few months and then start editing, or have a few weddings on the go at the same time?

7-14 days maximum. Get a workflow! If you think several months is acceptable you are kidding yourselves.

Hey John

We think alike!! My normal delivery is 7 days unless I'm waiting for something special!! My viewpoint is that I like to get my plate clean before the next weekend shoot ... I really don't know how others manage to give a 4 month delivery time??? When do you edit...???? After 4 months I will have around 12 - 16 shoots done and if the first wedding is only ready at that stage it would mean that I already have a backlog of 15???? and I might have more shoots ahead.

I do understand that the more cinematic creative shoots need more edit time but I'm staggered when I hear figures like 80 hours of editing.... ??? At a very basic rate of $100 an hour that's already $8000 to be costed into a shoot JUST for editing!!! Our market just cannot support those kinda prices but I must admit I'm fascinated to know exactly how much editing goes into a wedding that has a 4 month delivery time????? and more importantly unless you are charging $10K ++++ how does one turn a profit.

A basic wedding here averages not more than $2500.00 ... take 12 hours for travel and shooting (at $100) and that leaves you a mere 13 hours for not only editing but also DVD creation, printing etc etc

Please tell me how you do it and how you cost a long delivery wedding!!

Chris

Hi Chris.
I too can't figure out how it works. I do a cinematic type short-form cut (though I don't call it that) after I have edited the main event. They get the short form then a menu to play or select sequences from the full docu' style product. Even with that plus the transcoding authoring menu, burning and quality checking the disc I still have it ready for them with personalise printing within 2 weeks. Quite often it's fully completed by the end of the week. And I use up to 3 cameras where necessary so it's not just scrolling and assemble edit.

If you shoot, then store, then edit you may do half a dozen weddings without realising there's a problem with the camera or audio. My nerves couldn't take that. I like to have viewed it through. The only time I can't is when I have a run of consecutive days. But even then if time permits I'll download as soon as I get back at night, looking in to see if I spot any picture problem.

I was prompted to post this as I had a couple at a wedding show say that they were not going to have a DVD for various reasons but one was that her brother was still waiting almost a year since his wedding for his DVD which she didn't think was acceptable (a year is excessive). After that amount of time they get concerned that there must be a problem and they'll never get it. It did transpire though when I asked who had filmed it that it was a hobbyist - though paid, for not a friend - who can only work on it during his spare time and he had managed to get a lot of weddings last year but hadn't the time to work on them.

I think as a professional you have to have more than a good sales technique and the ability to shoot and edit a good DVD but you have to deliver. I thought that it was only furniture stores that made you wait six months for something you'd bought.

I'm afraid i'm with Danny on this one and believe that the build up and suspense of waiting for their finished film only adds to the excitement.
As long as you're honest and tell them that it will take X amount of time I think you'll be alright. And if they get in touch to check progress before then, just don't tell them 1 week when it's going to take 3.

As for pricing, I have never priced a wedding film at the same rate I would price a corporate/commercial job (and i'm sure there can't be many that do), simply because I don't think couples will pay for it.
I'm in a position now that even though I personally film pretty much each wedding, I only edit maybe 1 in 5, with the rest being handled by a couple of editors that I employ on a freelance basis.

Although this means my wedding film profit margin is cut a little, my pricing structure means I still make a nice profit from each film, but more importantly have the time to concentrate on the corporate/commercial side of things.

Maybe i'm slow as it can easily take me a week or 2 to edit a wedding.
An important part of the process for me is once it's been graded and rendered out I leave it for a couple of days or even a week then watch it again and will probably make more adjustments that at the time you just don't notice.

Chris, I would love to see a film that can go through the entire post production process in 13 hours.

We do more than just weddings and in the UK we find most of our work is in the summer months. Meaning we have to cram an entire years worth of wedding income into a few short months. For this reason we do a wedding a week, sometimes 2. Coupled with our other shoots this leads to an edit queue. Not a problem as were now entering our winter months which means no filming but lots of editing :)

I know some people believe that any delivery time over a week is unacceptable. But its never been an issue. We show them our work, we tell them if they ask how long it takes to deliver and not one single person has ever had a problem with it. There happy to wait for the quality of production we create.

No, it does not take us 4 months to edit and we have a very efficient workflow, often creating one of our showcase edits in 1-2 weeks.

As long as you tell them, as we do in the pre-wedding consultation there are no surprises.

If your unique selling point is that you deliver in a few weeks then thats what works for you. John, I find your comment a little odd considering we are in different markets in different parts of the world. If 7-14 days works for you then good for you. However we have found the 4 month mark works a lot better. Just our opinion.

If you tell your couples that 7-14 days is acceptable and anything more is not, then thats your sales pitch. We tell them 4 months is acceptable, they listen and accept that.

Hi Danny and George

That makes sense I guess to shoot first and edit later if you have months of no shooting. Our "slack period" is a mere two months and quite often I still do weddings in June/July!!!

I'm still with George in the fact that I like to see what I have shot and if there are any problems so it's not carried forward to the next shoot. I do admire you guys for shooting first and then tackling a mountain of data at a later date...I must admit I prefer to get each wedding out of the way completely before the next one is due.

Oh, and Andrew.. we don't do wedding films..all our shoots are documentary style so there is often very little editing involved on most clips ...most of the events are single camera and only two cam for the ceremony and speeches normally. I was weaned on analogue cameras and we learnt to "shoot for editing" in camera as linear editing was a nightmare in the SVHS days...most of my event clips will sometimes need just a start and end trim and a quick audio runthru to make sure that the audio is all around -6db.

Two mornings are usually the norm for a wedding for doing all the edits and then a couple of hours to author the DVD.... as was said in the beginning ...it depends on your market!! I shoot budget weddings as I would rather have 10 weddings at $1500.00 each than fight to sell one at $15,000.

I'm quite sure that making a cinematic film would involve at least 40 hours of editing, colour grading and the like and I do admire you guys that make them for your tireless hard work...just not my market and I do better with simple docs that reflect the day and more importantly are easy to sell and make me money...the bottom line is that we do run a business !!

Chris

Chris

Hi Danny.
I understand your business plan and I can see the benefit of keeping a work supply available until your quiet period and of course if your clients expect it to be four months before they get to see it and that works for you and them I'm not going to say its wrong, no more that me getting it done in a fortnight is right. I've just commented that a few people recently have asked me about my delivery time. I've been doing this too long not to know that there is no right or wrong way to go about this business as there is an infinite spectrum of expectations out there. But do you never worry a fault may have occurred in your equipment and you'll be shooting a few events before you are aware of it?

7-14 days maximum. Get a workflow! If you think several months is acceptable you are kidding yourselves.

Yes, it is very acceptable. The couples will rarely bother us before the deadline (6 months) and that's because we let them know the times before they sign. As for the workflow, its pretty alright. as a matter of fact we work so hard that for a period of 5 months, wife sees my face for 1 hour every day. It seems simple to do fast, but its not. Because when the season starts and you have 2 weddings plus one or two christenings every weekend and also have the older projects like tv commercials, corporate videos etc running then you know that editing that fast is impossible, and we are pretty used to editing. So we have two options. We will either edit super fast, give a crappy DVD and take the cash or we will take it slow and have it ready when it will be ready. The couples respect that and I respect the couples and the money they pay me to give them something decent (at least). Ok, maybe we are slow or badly organised but the couple cares more about the result. At least most of our clients do.

Hi Dimitris.
I hope your not implying that work that is finished within a fortnight will necessarily be 'crappy'. I think you'll find that all clients expect (and deserve) a decent result. All I'm saying is that it doesn't take me four months to get there. But then I don't do tv commercials and the like.

Hi George, we actually capture and check all footage the day after a wedding. We then also perform an offsite and onsite backup. We spot check the audio files and the video footage. As we shoot all on DSLR's (again, not for everyone) we need to ensure the data is captured and looks fine before we format the cards for the next wedding. We have developed a very efficient workflow that ensures data is secure, equipment works and edits are completed rather quickly. But no matter how good your workflow is, there is no getting away from post wedding depression. We want people to watch our work without an eye which is just looking for faults. However, if they saw our work 2 years ago there is no way they would accept a 4 month wait when Joe Bloggs is offering the same quality work with a lot less waiting time. Our wait used to be 4-6 weeks.

We produce their highlights not long after the wedding, something to wet their appetite. This is because we are not yet producing SDE's so do the next best thing. We have been known to do a next day edit for the highlights.

This then gets emailed around, goes out on facebook and all over the place.

Back to your comment about customers asking about delivery time. The truth is there is no magic number. You say 2 weeks to some and I gurantee someone will look at that and ask why so short. Others will ask why so long. This forum is full of people with their own opinion, customers have their own opinions too ;)

If I could go back in time and tell myself 2 years ago that we charge what we do now, deliver after 4 months, shoot on photo cameras and no longer give them 10 copies I would have looked at myself as if I were mad. Come to think of it, If I saw myself from the future I probably would think I was mad,... but you get the picture ;)

Hi Danny.
You obviously have good secure working practices and a client approach that works well. As I said before there is no right or wrong way to approach this business, just good or bad. Good is what works and keeps work coming in.
I hadn't really thought much about delivery times before it was just the comment from the couple I saw the other day got me thinking that others had been mentioning it recently. I couldn't see how the timeline worked, you've now explained it. I've always worked to completing as soon as possible. Please note I say 'soon' not as quickly as possible; there is a difference. It's just that I prefer, and I'm in a position to, do that rather than have uncompleted work hanging around and money that should be in my bank sitting out there waiting for me.

Hi Dimitris.
I hope your not implying that work that is finished within a fortnight will necessarily be 'crappy'. I think you'll find that all clients expect (and deserve) a decent result. All I'm saying is that it doesn't take me four months to get there. But then I don't do tv commercials and the like.

Hi George. I am not implying that work that finishes so soon will be crappy. I am implying that OUR work will be crappy if done in such time. Maybe we're just incompetent in working faster and more efficiently, but I can't be really sure.

In the previous post, I was writing with Iphone, which although superb, isn't identical for writing easy and detailed. Now, I have to explain some more things I didn't say earlier.

Besides all the above, we also do photography. Not shooting, but because of my brother's previous job (graphics designer), we do the processing of the photography and creation of digital albums (not the printings of course) by ourselves. We could let the photographers do that, but they will never make an album layout like my brother does (and our albums are excellent). So, we also have the photo thing to do.

Now add the tv commercials, corporate videos, talking with customers, going out to pay bills and banks, do some Internet promotion, talk with more people for new (out of weddings) works, reprint photographs asked by couples that have already received their work, AND editing the videos, which takes lots of time, doing the cinematic and documentary versions, exporting, correcting errors we saw after render, re-exporting etc etc.

I believe a normal wedding video takes us a week from the moment I open my project in Premiere to the time thw Bluray is ready. A week, if everything around works fairly ok (which usually not happens)... I work 12 hours a day (at least), but in these hours there are much more to do than just edit. Now, imagine that for every week of editing for delivering a product, I have 3-4 new works that require editing, and you can see how far behind I will be after a month of shooting. I think it's inevitable but although I work a lot, I also have a life to live, and will not sacrifice that in order to go faster.

Maybe i'm slow as it can easily take me a week or 2 to edit a wedding.
An important part of the process for me is once it's been graded and rendered out I leave it for a couple of days or even a week then watch it again and will probably make more adjustments that at the time you just don't notice.

Chris, I would love to see a film that can go through the entire post production process in 13 hours.

I'm with you Andrew. I spend more than 13 hours on audio, grading, authoring and case design, and that's after the basic video editing has been done, and that doesn't allow for the full DVD review and subsequent changes once I've seen it on a large TV. Hmmm..... need to keep raising prices ;)

Although I'm interested in Danny's rationale for a longish wait, we generally aim to turn programmes around as efficiently as possible, though at the end of the summer season that can be three months. We have the additional motivation that until we deliver the finished programmes we don't get our final payment.

If all the people who take a variable period of up to 6 months to deliver have already taken all the money before the wedding then frankly I think they're taking the p***. No wonder the business has such a bad reputation for being unprofessional. After all, on what basis can you justify having all the money before you've recorded a single frame of material?

Try that in the professional world and see how many clients you get running to your door - not! The standard terms are 50% on commissioning (and that's after a pitch and probably a script outline and storyboard) and 50% on completion. Only in exceptional circumstances eg series or very long shooting periods, is there a stage payment and that's generally taken from both "normal elements".

It's hardly surprising the one constant we hear is that couples "still haven't got their pictures - but of course the damned photographer's had all their money."

Producing programmes as efficiently as Chris - and I know how he's able to achieve that - is simply good business - and clients who pay up front knowing for certain they're not going to get their programme until 6 months after their wedding I can handle as well but having an open ended schedule when you've already been paid is frankly unjustifiable.

And please don't give me the "I don't know if they'll have the money after the wedding" thing - I've got a client who's are trying that at present and it's very simple, a) remind them they don't get a single thing until they've paid, and b) build a penalty into your Contract Terms that requires them to pay surcharges every month/three months after they've been advised the product is ready.

Thanks Philip

However I do appreciate that special effects, colour grading and cutting to music are long and tiresome tasks. Remember I don't have to do them. In fact that's the very reason I shoot docs and not creative masterpieces as docs make for better business sense.

Yes, my brides pay me 1/3rd on booking, 1/3rd 2 weeks before the wedding and the balance on delivery..that gives them a bit of faith and me some incentive to finish. I have yet to have a bride who has not paid me and sometimes I have delivered packs on a promise that the funds will be transferred during the week or on pay day... they always honour their obligation!!!

Although I have have some bitter in-forum fights (not here!!!!) with a videographer who said that 6 to 12 months was perfectly acceptable and the bride was complaining bitterly about not getting the service after paying up front I felt that a little compromise on each side is good for both parties!!!

Chris

Because I have given my personal opinion on the subject, I'd like to clarify that we are not receiving full payment before the wedding, but on delivery. That means (at least for us), that we don't care for the quick cash-in. If we did, we'd make it fast (and I said, we are pretty slow, regardless the reasons), take the money and bye-bye.

But I don't think there is a problem whether the time it's 2 weeks or 6 months, since the couple accepts that this is the reality. After all, I have talked with some high-end (I mean worldwide high-end) colleagues that admit the 6-month (and more) period is a reality. Of course, I won't put myself at those levels, but I wonder why in these "inner circles" this amount of time is acceptable (especially if you think the money the top wedding videographers are paid) and not for the rest of us who try to deliver a good result.

Dimitris, I don't think you should bother about comparing your work with the so-called high enders. Who are these people anyway? And on whose judgment are they given that epithet?

I've never entered a competition since I was a simple amateur and never would. There is no empirical measure of right or wrong, good or bad and when you see some the rubbish these bodies approve and praise it makes you wonder if there isn't a market for better spectacles.

The only view that matters is that of the person paying the bill. I think your terms are businesslike and anyone else's opinion is irrelevant. In this field especially with so many variables outside your control when you can produce a programme of which you are proud enough to pout your name on, then you're getting there.

Yes, it is very acceptable. The couples will rarely bother us before the deadline (6 months) and that's because we let them know the times before they sign. As for the workflow, its pretty alright. as a matter of fact we work so hard that for a period of 5 months, wife sees my face for 1 hour every day. It seems simple to do fast, but its not. Because when the season starts and you have 2 weddings plus one or two christenings every weekend and also have the older projects like tv commercials, corporate videos etc running then you know that editing that fast is impossible, and we are pretty used to editing. So we have two options. We will either edit super fast, give a crappy DVD and take the cash or we will take it slow and have it ready when it will be ready. The couples respect that and I respect the couples and the money they pay me to give them something decent (at least). Ok, maybe we are slow or badly organised but the couple cares more about the result. At least most of our clients do.

Dimitris, I'm with you. 4 months is totally acceptable.

Dimitris, I don't think you should bother about comparing your work with the so-called high enders. Who are these people anyway? And on whose judgment are they given that epithet?

I've never entered a competition since I was a simple amateur and never would. There is no empirical measure of right or wrong, good or bad and when you see some the rubbish these bodies approve and praise it makes you wonder if there isn't a market for better spectacles.

The only view that matters is that of the person paying the bill. I think your terms are businesslike and anyone else's opinion is irrelevant. In this field especially with so many variables outside your control when you can produce a programme of which you are proud enough to pout your name on, then you're getting there.

Philip, I totally agree with you in everything you said. Still, we entered competitions some times and even won some awards (with the more recent been a week old for the "Butterfly Effect"). Of course that doesn't mean that we are better than someone that didn't even bother to send a video to compete. But it's a fact that such things, if well promoted, can catch the brides' attention and also help to enter the "expensive wedding" markets. At least for us, it worked that way. Some couples pay more attention when they know about some award. It's good thing for business.

Regarding who can be called hi-end and who not, is also an excellent question. I consider hi-enders some teams that their work (the one that's been shown on the Internet) is outstanding in general... People that travel all over the world (probably with very good money too) to do weddings, people that upload videos that are far more technically advanced and emotionally involving than the average. I have some names in my mind, but names don't matter. Of course, even this is subjective... Many people will disagree if a certain wedding videographer worth the hype and the money, but I take into consideration their general image and commercial success. This is the hi-end I am talking about.

But I agree... I have seen some works of some so-called hi-enders and I asked myself some questions about what the hell is going on in some parts of the industry... But maybe this is just the subjective point of view I mentioned before. -:)


PS. Have some strange tendency to go off-topic lately! Sorry!

How's this for different? We don't specify a delivery time for our clients in the contract. Verbally we tell them it generally takes 3-6 months, but we also emphasize that it can take longer as well.

Last year we were delivery 90% within 3 months, and none over 5 months. This year we got that down to about 90% within a month, although we're relocating our studio to Miami as I type this so our most recent wedding edits are on hold.

The answer to the 'how long until delivery' question is complicated. First and foremost it depends on what you are delivering. Some guys deliver a lot more than others. We deliver a lot, and by a lot I'm talking about much more than content length. I'm talking about the quality, about how much of a perfectionist you are. I know some guys that brag about 1 week turnarounds but their work looks nothing like ours. So it's a tough comparison to make.

That said, I think no matter what you're trying to deliver, you should make every effort to deliver within 6 months, and if at all possible, within 3. Our couples trust us and know that we go to great lengths to make their films perfect, but it's only human nature to become impatient. Even if you deliver something amazing, if it takes so long that the couple gets jaded, you won't achieve the impact you had hoped for.

6-12 months sounds a bit outrageous. 3-4 months if completely reasonable.

Personally, I tell the couple most videos are delivered in about three months but it could be longer. Then I normally deliver within 2 months. I've had couples ask why it takes so long and I tell them their wedding video deserves attention and I'm not going to comprimise it by rushing. Nobody has ever argued with that.

Granted, I don't spend the full 3 months editing it. Normally it'll be about 30-35 hours but very broken up. Capture one week, cut it the next, review and burn the following week. Much of my work apart from weddings is short form events (2-3 minute news style packages) so I'm not used to staring at the same thing for a week straight. I need to work on a wedding for a few hours, then do something completely different, and came back to the wedding with fresh eyes.

Chris, in regards to pricing, I don't think of it like them hiring me for $100/hr. I picture a wedding to be one and a half weeks of full time work (Around 60 hours including meetings, prep, travel, shoot, edit). So, after expenses and overheads, I expect to earn from each wedding what my mates earn from a week and a half of their regular full time jobs. This works out alot cheaper than most vendors which means I have no qualms (and nor do the couple) with asking for full payment prior to the wedding day. Of course this is would not be sustainable forever, and I've only been doing this a few years - so obviously I'm planning yearly price rises and this might also mean re-thinking my payment deadlines/payment plans.

I agree with Danny's assessment of the post-wedding depression, although I feel that the cost of the wedding hasn't been taken into account with this discussion.
There is always going to be a perception of higher quality+higher cost=greater care with the production..
If I paid £2K for a wedding film, I would expect a great deal of care and attention to go into the entire production process. If the film was delivered a week later, there would be elements of my mind that it was just treated as a factory export. For £2k I EXPECT it to take longer as my "investment" should have the utmost care and attention applied to it. Whether or not the filmmaker has taken a day or a month to edit it is really irrelevant to the customer (although not to suggest the process should be rushed).

At the end of the day, it the length of time to edit a wedding should be discussed at the very beginning. If they know you will be delivering in 1 week/1 month/1 year then they know exactly where they stand.

I'm with you Andrew. I spend more than 13 hours on audio, grading, authoring and case design, and that's after the basic video editing has been done, and that doesn't allow for the full DVD review and subsequent changes once I've seen it on a large TV. Hmmm..... need to keep raising prices ;)

Dave:

I am with you, the tasks other than video editing can take a lot of time. It's nice to hear that other videographers have a interest in full product quality, including QA/QC review. I have had 3 "pro" editors work for me and what some editors believe is a final product is a joke. While my productions are not very artistic, they are technically perfect, or as good/tweaked as the source material permits.

To do things right takes time. I never send any production out if I have any question about the quality of the audio and video edit or even the case artwork.

3 to 4 months is normal fo me.