Wedding film - looking for feedback

Hi, I am a new wedding film-maker and am looking to get some constructive advice for the upcoming wedding season. Here is one of the wedding films that I've done last year.

Camila & Greg -

Wedding Videography in Vancouver // Camila and Greg - On the road to happily ever after on Vimeo

PS: Please be honest but civil

[Adrian Tan]

Thought it was damn brilliant. Much, much better than anything I've done. I'm very jealous. Since you're asking for feedback, there's some very, very, very minor matters of taste I wanted to mention, about which there is no right or wrong anyway. And it's testament to how good the video is that it's only silly little things like this that I'm commenting on. If you ever saw one of my vids, there would be a billion bigger things to worry about before getting to as fine a level of detail as this.

Main things I noticed:

-- Some momentum lost after the vows at 3:05. I mean, up to then, the vows sort of carry the viewer through, and your attention is fixed, because you're in suspense for the climax. But then the climax is reached, the couple kiss, and the drive of the video is lost. But I have no idea what you could have done to keep the momentum going if you even wanted to. The ending of the video is interesting -- definitely anticlimactic in comparison to the middle (given the way the shots, vows, music build up the middle), but then it has a nice sense of new beginning.

-- Some bits for me personally felt a bit "illustrative", a bit heavy-handed. Like, talking about opening a new door, and then you see a door; mentioning a guitar, then you see a guitar. But I know that reasonable minds will differ on this point. What's heavy-handed to me will strike many people (most people?) as lovely and a perfect fit.

-- Slight shame that your reverses of the couple during the ceremony were different shot sizes, so didn't quite match. But I think most of us are limited by our gear (ie, you might not even have had two matching lenses; I certainly don't have two of everything), and I think in reality it's too big an ask for two videographers to communicate this sort of thing under the pressure of the moment.

-- What's with the vignetting towards the end? Were you trying to hide a photographer or something? I think it stuck out a little bit, given that there's no vignetting through the first part of the video.

Some even smaller observations:

-- Great slider move during the groom interview at the start.
-- Loved the low angle shot of the feet dancing.
-- Loved the singing with the music. Amazing! Also, great angle on the bride when she starts singing -- quite flattering. Women often photograph well from above and men from below, I think; it's probably partly a matter of what features are emphasised and de-emphasised, and what shapes are created. But such a shame that the video didn't somehow carrying this motif of singing throughout the rest of it. I mean, you see the bride singing in a different location, but it felt like a missed opportunity that you didn't do a return to the singing at the end.
-- Felt like I wanted to see a little bit more guests, and less of the couple.
-- When the groom walks out of the door, looks like a dip to white to cover up overexposure -- and it worked!
-- Loved the harp shot.
-- Some of the ceremony coverage really surprised me -- the wide angles of bride and groom. Mind you, I don't know if the way you used these angles necessarily added much, apart from the sense of good coverage. If you're already doing an intimate vows sequence, and you're in a fairly tight close-up, doesn't it detract from that emotion and doesn't it disconnect to cut to a wide (unless you're trying to cover something up)?
-- 1:00: looks like you peed that photographer off and were right in his shot. But maybe he deserves it for thinking it was a good idea to photograph her butt and the back of her head.
-- Limousine shots -- wow! I basically never get these. Good planning.
-- Loved the close-up of the ironing with the steam rising.
-- When bride is spinning on the pavement, I loved that you did contrary motion, doing a roundie-roundie the opposite direction.
-- Golf shot -- might be a sort of interesting scene-setter, but if that golfer is just a random (is he?), then maybe that detracts from the video.
-- 2:29: over-the-shoulder hair or make-up shot. To be really picky, could you have moved the camera slightly, or asked the bride to reposition, so you don't get that slash of white wall on the right side of the frame?
-- 2:35: love this shot of the couple kissing while someone's signing the register. I very rarely get this sort of shot (my attention -- probably misplaced -- is on the register), but it's true -- it's often a moment when the tension suddenly deflates and the couple do have a natural kiss, and laugh and smile, etc.
-- 3:47: very interesting food shot, because the camera moves to its final position while other action is happening on the way there
-- 4:01: entrance at reception: I wish the camera had panned around to reveal a room full of people
-- speeches: could you have positioned the camera closer to B&G so that you're seeing more of the face of the speaker, and less of a flat side-on profile?

[Noa Put]

I think it looked and felt great, good editing as well, was a shot with 2 manned camera's?

[Oleg Solo]

Thank you Adrian for your very detailed comments!

This is amazing to see others be as involved in the community and offer such detailed feedback.

You are right on many of your comments and I deliberately filmed the door shot because we knew that that was going to be part of his vows ahead of time. Personally, I thought it was going to be a nice touch. :) (Guitar was a total accident as we didnt know that the best man will talk about it, but I thought it fit well also)

As far as the Ceremony coverage, it was 3 cameras, 2 locked down and 1 roving. You are right, we totally didnt have the same angles and totally different cameras/lens also. I also didnt like the way the groom's face was obscured by the bride but that was a limitation due to church layout and restriction on where we could put the camera.

As far as dancing and the blurry edges, I thought it would draw more attention to the couple because otherwise it just looked a bit too busy with all the guests being kind of in focus.

This was actually shot with 3 people but we only had the 3rd camera on during the ceremony. I know that we should have gotten more reactions from the guests and probably better coverage of the entrance but for whatever reason it didnt happen.

As far as climax, what would you recommend ? Possibly leaving the "kiss" moment until the very end of the film or simply ending with something stronger and more couple focused ? Like photo session or whatever ? I know its nice and strong to end of a good couple shot (sequence) but we didnt really have much of a photo session at all so all of that wasnt good.

Also, we had major interference with audio at the church and groom's mic was pretty much unusable, luckily we had a mic on the bride going straight into a recorder so that was the only audio and I think it turned out pretty well! ( I was very anxious at the wedding day because I knew the audio could be an issue.) To add to that... My 2nd shooter forgot to turn on the H4N for the speeches; however, I placed a 2nd mic nearby going straight into the recorder as well and we had to boost that audio.. luckily it sounded acceptable (for the most part).


Again, thank you for your very detailed feedback and we are going to be trying to improve our storytelling techniques and style this wedding season.


Do you have recommendations for other great wedding cinematographers to get some inspiration? (besides Stillmotion, I think everyone knows them :) )

[Paul Mailath]

check out these guys, plenty of inspiration here..

https://vimeo.com/papercranes