So, a couple for next week has asked for: 3 hour film, with natural sound only -- no music.

To many people on this forum, I think that might sound easy. But I'm rather stressing over it. How to make this interesting, and beautiful, and not just CCTV footage? And how to make the edit smooth if you're only allowed natural sound? I don't really know. No movie I've made has gone that long. I'm more used to 20-minute, 15-minute or 5-minute highlights; and to recording periods lasting around 10 seconds before I jump to a different angle.

Instinctive reaction as to how to fulfil the brief -- set it up on a tripod or your shoulder, press record, do long, long takes. But wouldn't this lead to boring video? Does anyone, including the couple, really want to see 20 minutes of someone sitting in a chair having makeup be put on? Or 20 minutes of people dancing? Sounds like the perfect cure for insomnia to me.

I've sometimes heard people say they don't envy the fiddling DSLR shooters go through. Well, I definitely don't envy the in camera editing documentary shooters do...

Hi Adrian

Mt sequences are seldom more than 30 seconds of raw footage! The only time the main cam is running a long clip is the ceremony (so I have the audio from start to end) but that's intercut with the two other cams. The speeches main camera also runs the entire speech but is also intercut with the B-Cam.

Wow 3 hours ...I'm lucky to get 90 minutes for a full wedding and you have to double that! I guess film a LOT of dancing ...My DVD's have a max of 3 songs of the dancing otherwise it does get boring.

So if your edit ends up as, say, 2 hours instead of 3 will they get upset?? Did you tell them that 3 hours is a bit crazy??? Unless it's a LONG ceremony and LONG speeches you don't have very much else to shoot apart from dancing which is very boring! My preps (guys and girls) are cut to a song so they are sorta 3 -4 minutes tops ...even a Catholic ceremony now rarely exceeds 45 minutes.

The only request (which I refused BTW) was the bride wanted CCTV type footage of the reception from 6PM to midnight ..yep, 6 hours non stop!!! It's supposedly common practice for Middle Eastern weddings..everything is filmed and nothing is missed!!

Chris

Hello, my most common wedding style is to include the entire ceremony and every speech and introduction. I connect everything together with montage footage. With the last one I finished, the main feature ran for 2 hours 41 minutes, and I can honestly say it was entertaining throughout.

If the ceremony is particularly long, and the speeches are long or if they have other interesting things planned for the reception (music or dance performance, cultural rituals, etc.) then I think you might find that it'll be easier than you think. If you're really struggling, you may want to include a Messages From Guests thing in the feature or something like that.

Either way, I'd probably suggest not guaranteeing a specific length of your final video. I usually tell couples that my videos shot and edited in this style typically go anywhere from 90 to 150 minutes, but it can vary depending on the length of the ceremony and speeches.

Hi Adrian, sounds like they want every single thing on a limited budget.

But if they're paying for it like that, do what they want, the best you can and deliver it. Decide whether you should include your credits.

The additional challenges will be, to explain that you don't consider it your usual professional product, to keep notes
where you can cut it up and down to basically fix it, and lastly, work out what that new cost will be. Good luck.

Cheers.

It's pretty hard to find 3 hours of 'continually interesting things' at any wedding.

I've turned a couple down jobs where the bride wanted extended coverage for a number of reasons. One job in particular was because:

• I don't want to make a boring epic.
• I don't want to have to edit a boring epic.
• I don't want to have to watch the final boring epic cut through to make sure it's all OK.

The fourth reason was because the bride wanted to see and hear 'everything' that 'everyone' said during the entire day, not just the speeches, but what they were saying about her during the drinks reception in private groups! After I got over the initial surprise at the request, I suggested that people won't be natural and keep talking if I stick a camera and/or microphone in their faces during the entire drinks reception to capture their conversations, multiplied by however many small groups of people there were going to be (don't think I'd have enough cameras and/or operators!). She didn't care, she wanted it ALL.

Oh, and the final nail in the coffin, she want it for the usual price less some discount because she didn't have much budget ;)

She doesn't want a typical wedding product, she wants a record of the wedding. The only real snag I see is actually getting 3 hours of steady, in focus material. You normally throw stuff away that in this case you can't!

I'd suggest that you arrange an extra camera on a very high mount that you can take an overview with, so there is always something they can see that has lots of stuff to see - Auntie flo in the top corner, falling off her chair - the 'where's wally' shot where there's just so much going on. Intercut with whatever closeup material you have. It's just a different video style.

How to make a 3 hour DVD interesting?

nudity and explosions.

So, a couple for next week has asked for: 3 hour film, with natural sound only -- no music.

If you are not allowed to add extra music you can't make it "interesting", just see to it that you have nice stable, good framed, good exposure and good in focus footage with good sound and edit chronological. something like this is fast to edit but takes a long time (3 hours) to check that you got it all right.

Nothing would make a 3 hour wedding video interesting, I can assure you that if the couple shows their wedding dvd to friends, they will zone out after 30 minutes. However the paying couple will watch the 3 hour video, over and over again. IMHO, we cater to the paying couple not what others would think and certainly not what we the videographers think. I use to freelance for a retired photog who does 60 weddings a year and one thing he taught me was " Give the client what they want".

My 2 cents.

There are certain cultures where 3+ hour wedding videos are considered normal, last year I had to film a Kurdish wedding but only the dancing part. They specifically requested that I would let the camera run for 4 hours straight and I had to deliver the footage at the end of the wedding on a harddrive as they wanted to edit it further, easiest money ever made :)

There are certain cultures where 3+ hour wedding videos are considered normal, last year I had to film a Kurdish wedding but only the dancing part. They specifically requested that I would let the camera run for 4 hours straight and I had to deliver the footage at the end of the wedding on a harddrive as they wanted to edit it further, easiest money ever made :)

Yeah - I don't mind doing that - but I really don't want to sit through it all again to edit it ;)

I wouldn't worry too much about making it "interesting." It sounds like they just want an accurate recording of their event. It's not that much different from some of the conventions I shoot where speeches, resolutions, discussions (sometimes outright debates) must be faithfully recorded. Some things won't be interesting at all to us making the video, but can be very important to the client paying us.

Are you suggesting people are actually interested in seeing uninterrupted footage of their own boring wedding and guests and stuff?

Surely they just want rack focus shots of inanimate objects - and slider shots of bushes outside the ceremony venue instead! Are they mad!!!???

Add a long car chase!!!!
People will watch keenly 3 hours of the day, looking at relatives, friends, flowers. As others have said before, what we dont find entertaining, they do.
I wouldn't worry about entertaining the masses, just the couple. Will be a boring edit, I'd add a 'boredom loading' to the price.

Hi John

I guess the creative guys look at a wedding slightly differently than the bride and doc shooters. Most brides will tell me "I watched the DVD's 10 times!" Are you kidding?? They obviously want to see what went on on their special day so just give it to them. Most brides will tell me the day was a blur and they remember very little so they appreciate all the coverage....Then again a 20 minute wedding for me is boring but not to the bride.

Yeah, some cultures want start to finish at the reception ..I read here that Jewish weddings often need multiple shooters as you produce an awful lot of footage!! Luckily I don't do them!!

It simply a matter of giving the client what she wants not what you want!! Rack focus and slider shots of the flowers outside the Church don't feature in my coverage either but I use my stedicam for the photoshoot ..otherwise I just film the event as it happens

Chris

Are you suggesting people are actually interested in seeing uninterrupted footage of their own boring wedding and guests and stuff?

Yes they do exist, I have shot for them but I have to say I did do a occasional pan and a zoom (and moved locations) for creative purpose. :)

Hi Noa

John is delightfully sarcastic which is why I love reading his posts. I think we tend to elevate brides to a Steven Speilberg level cos we expect them to be as critical and as creative as us..when it comes down to the bottom line all the average bride wants to do is ooh and aah over how pretty her dress and the bridesmaid's dresses are and how handsome her husband looked. The normal bride is seldom a creative artist who expects perfection but a simple creature who simply wants to watch her special day again.

Yes most brides actually will savour every moment of a 2 hour DVD that we almost died of boredom editing but remember her wedding day memories mean a whole lot more to her than it means to us.

If a bride does ask for 3 hours of DVD then you can be sure that she will watch every minute of it and enjoy it too...the new hubby, of course, seldom will watch more than a few segments and only because he feels he has to.

Chris

Lord of the Rings is 3 hours long & also has a lot of boring parts, that had a budget of a few hundred million. You're out of luck a 3 hour long wedding video is going to be boring to everyone else but at least the couple might enjoy it.

I am new to this forum, but have been filming weddings since 1986. One of the things that I learnt very early on, is that couples have absolutely no idea of how to construct a video to show their day. Most brides think that if their wedding runs from 2pm until midnight, that you will need to take 10 hours of footage to cover it. The concept of a watchable shot length is beyond the comprehension of most non video people and you can't easily explain it. I never let clients make editing decisions from raw footage and never take written instructions on what they want filmed unless there are special events planned.

I once paid the price of going against my better judgement when I filmed a wedding for a TV producer. She presented me with a shot list for her entire wedding with written instructions not to include anything that wasn't in her list. Upon delivering the finished work she was extremely upset to find that there were no shots of her brother who had given her away, no cake cutting, no bouquet throwing and various other missing shots. I had to explain quite carefully that they were all shots that I would normally take but were omitted from her comprehensive shot list, She reluctantly admitted that it was her fault, and is the only time I have diverted from my own judgement.

I get round client fears that we might miss something quite simply, by showing potential clients a typical wedding, and after they have watched several minutes, explain to them that the 5 minutes or so that they have watched covers about 30 minutes (or whatever) of real time. This usually causes genuine surprise and is an opportunity to explain that the art of the videographer is to capture everything important in a watchable way. I always capture the entire ceremony and speeches, and make sure that everybody at the wedding features somewhere, with more shots of close family members.

As has already been said, couples watching their wedding video want to see their vows, speeches, clothes, friends, family and venues. Providing the flow, high points and atmosphere of the wedding is captured, they will be very happy. Never forget that they will remember little of their day in reality and nearly every detail of the video will be something that would quite likely otherwise be forgotten.

Roger

Hi Roger

Absolutely!! Over a 10 or 12 hour wedding gig I probably do an hour and a bit (or a little more if it's a Catholic ceremony) on my A-Cam ...that is really the only camera that records the entire ceremony and each speech in full. My C-Cam is a high elevated static cam (usually on a stand or on a balacony) and that also does the ceremony from start to end and that's all.
My B-Cam which is on my shoulder does all the rest..bridal prep, ceremony wide shots and cutaways including arrivals and departures, photoshoot and the reception and again I seldom have more than an hour's footage on that camera ... a 10 hour wedding is usually around 100 minutes max on DVD and done in clips by menu so the bride can watch bits and pieces as she feels... It's a well known fact that the human brain loses concentration completely within 15 minutes so it's good to give the viewer a mental break to "reset" their mind prior to watching for this time....I will often split a longish ceremony into "the service", "the vows and rings" and then the "register and exit" That way brides (and especially family and friens" only are watching fairly short segments ... I normally also have speeches split into each speaker but on the rare occasion where the FOB relates a 30 minute episode of his daughters life there is not much you can do!!

This certainly helps making a wedding a lot more watchable and from an edit POV it's much easier to work with an 8 minute clip than have an hour or more on the timeline.

Chris