What would you have done?

[Seun Osewa]

If the DJ says he's going to wait, then he should. A DJ shouldn't be self-centred. How's the client going to feel if the ceremony flows perfectly, thanks to the DJ, but the best moments are not captured for posterity?

[Kelsey Emuss]

Originally Posted by John Crusan

my possible solutions:
-get tested for ADD
-quit hitting on chicks
-lay off the sauce while on the clock (thats what the dj is for)
-do your job, pay attention, quit slackin'
-roll constant audio
-the world doesn't revolve around you, get over yourself, you are nobody special. the dj runs the show, not you. if hes ready to do the toast, then you damn well better be too

j/k! sounds like you handled it as professionally as possible. i can certainly relate to your frustration... i hate when my performance suffers due to the lack of attention of details by others. lessons like these are the ones that teach you to stay prepared for situations outside of the norm, prevent them from happening in the future, and how to better deal with them when they arise.

This made me laugh!

[Shaun Roemich]

I don't do weddings and events but as a documentary videographer, I ALWAYS know how much tape is left in the camera and if I've finished shooting something and only have 4 minutes left, I change tape. Tape is cheap and with 60 minute loads in DV and HDV, tape is even cheaper than when I paid $30 for 30 minute BetaSP loads.

Hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20 but in future I'd be a little more proactive with tape changes.

Once again, this is only my opinion, in hindsight, without full knowledge of exactly what happened so please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[Joel Campos]

Bummer. I've been there. Live and learn is what i say. Like many, i personally would not re-stage and re-shoot anything.

An on the spot solution for the missed soundbite, after the reception, take the time to do a candid interview with the bride asking her about what she thought of the wedding and slide in "i know tonight's kinda special for your dad, what's something you'd want to say to him right now?". Grab her dad, and have him say something to his daughter. Slam those two together, and end it with the brides soundbite at the podium. Cover the soundbites with a nice edit of the father daughter dance backed by a nice soundtrack and you're free and clear.

For the future, it's a great idea to get a compact flash sound recorder for your audio. This will free you up to make a tape change that you can easily cover up with a cutaway in the edit.

[Louis Maddalena]

One thing I've always done is: 15 minutes left on the tape, is tape done unless its something where I am shooting more than one camera.

But this is one of those things where the bride and groom will never notice, and if they do just simply tell them what happened and if they would like you will shoot some interviews and use the audio as a dub over a cut away shot. As everybody else has said here though, its really important for you to get some kind of audio device, you would not have had to worry about it if that was the case. Also as others have suggested the second camera on a tripod as a safety shot would also greatly improve the quality of your work.

[Noa Put]

Belgian weddings don't have that many speeches and tradition is always the same, I usually know when it's time to change tape, ony 2 weeks a go I had a wedding according to English/Norwegian tradition and I can tell you they speech a lot. Because I noticed that their speeches were quite long (the best man talked for 25 minutes) I think I used 3 cassettes, sometimes with 15-20 minutes left on it because I didn't want to take the risk of running out of tape. At the cake cutting part they surprised me, I just had about 4 minutes of tape left, which I thought was plenty. After the cake cutting they moved the cake and instantly the music started for their first dance, now that was not what I was used to, with about 2 minutes left on tape I only had one option left; take my backup camera which is always ready to start shooting.

It helps a lot if you know what the traditions are, otherwise you need to be in eagle eye mode all the time and calculate any risk in, a backup camera is in most cases sufficient to help you out of difficult situations.

[Chris Coulson]

You've got to make mistakes before you can learn from them.

From now on, every time you stop filming, you'll have a little heart attack, wondering how much tape you have left. That's the great thing about problems - they really improve you as a result of having a problem.

There are a million lessons to be learned like that, and each one makes you a better film maker.

I can't close my front door without jingling my keys now, ever since I locked myself out!

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Chris Coulson

I can't close my front door without jingling my keys now, ever since I locked myself out!

That's funny, I have this habit whenever I leave my house or car. I always pat my pocket to make sure I have my keys, lol.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Martin Mayer

I think it is totally inappropriate and unprofessional to interfere with or re-stage something like this (even though photographers often do). The solution is to have more than one camera and stagger the tape changes, or - IF you can guarantee a total of 60 minutes or less - always start a session like this with a new tape.

I chew through tapes like crazy. 4 tapes for a one camera event.... minimum. But 2 of those tapes are going to be 1/3 used or less. Because I shoot one tape (or more) for everything before the ceremony), one for the ceremony, and many for reception. No matter how long the pre-ceremony footage is, I always start the ceremony with a fresh tape. I haven't gotten bit yet. Then reception Always starts a new tape, or sometimes (if I can find it) I'll put that pre-ceremony footage tape back in to finish it off. But I rarely do this because of your example, I don't want the important part of the ceremony to hit with me being in the middle of a tape swap. The April Epic wedding did bite me on that, but only because there was so much footage to shoot pre-reception and post ceremony that I thought there was no way it would chew through a whole tape (it did). It chewed through almost 11 full tapes for all three cameras, but at least the footage looked good.

[Jason Donaldson]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

My opinion is that if the B&G were not interested in having a set schedule and weren't interested in keeping you in the loop as to when things were going to happen then it's their own fault.

I could not agree more, and as a matter of fact this happened to me about 2 months ago, where I missed a speech of an old family friend of the bride due to the fact that she refused to meet with me before hand to discuss timing etc....all this because she was too overwhelmed with the prep of her wedding!

Anyway, she blasted me for not getting the old fart's speech, but I had reminded her that we had not talked about anything before hand, and that I was basically filming "blindly". She promptly hung up the phone...lol