To give Raw footage for Wedding?

[Tom Hardwick]

I certainly do get the idea Peter. When you see the big bag of offucts the carpenter gives you, you might ask why the kitchen table wasn't just made larger.

[Peter D. Parker]

Tom, slightly off topic here but I remember doing woodwork at school. Wasn't very good but somehow managed to get GCE certificate. Started to make a rectangular tray with obviously mortice and tenon joints. Soon realised that if one of the joints on one side was no good, you had to saw off the opposite joint to keep the thing square. Doesn't take long to make a tray that is only big enough to hold one cup.

So Tom, re your table, I was that carpenter!!

Peter

[Chad Whelan]

This is a great discussion and I would like to give my thoughts here as well in general on raw footage. I have recently started including all of the raw footage with my video package. Let me back up for a second... In the past I have always had multiple packages, a long form traditional video, a short form 25 min vignette and a package that included both versions of video. I am sure you know how the pricing escalated with these. I love to put out my best creative work which is obviously the short form vignettes. This year I decided no more long form 2 hour boring videos as a primary option. I decided to go with a one package option that was built around my 25*min vignette video and I include all of the raw footage with that so they get lots of dancing, entire ceremony, etc. etc. Ideally with this one package pricing structure It would be great to include a long form edited video also instead of raw footage. With the economy as is, including the raw footage allows me to lessen the cost of the package and offer the long form edited video as a a la carte add on. I will breeze through the footage and actually do a quick rough cut taking out all glaringly bad shots. This 1 package approach is new to me, so feeling it out. Your thoughts are welcome.

[William Smyth]

This topic makes for great debate. Twice this year I was asked to provide raw footage of weddings. One, the bride is a coworker at the TV station where I work full time. Because she's a friend, I gave it to her (the QuickTime files at no charge). I shoot with her all the time, she understands the process and isn't going to comeback complaining about the garbage shots - out of focus shots - all the stuff that didn't work and ended up on the virtual floor of my cutting room.

The other, I agreed to reluctantly and only sold it after much begging by the groom. But, I only agreed to give it to him if it was lightly edited. I took out all the crap. It turns out, he didn't really want the raw footage - he was looking for a really long video of the day. It was a 2 camera shoot and an 10 hour day. We shot about 6 tapes/6 hours of video. When he got that tape he calls and asks where the rest of the footage was. He said the day was 10 hours and with 2 cameras we should have had about 20 hours of video. I had to explain we shoot what we need to capture to make our edit. We don't just roll video the entire day.

So, there is no way I would ever again agree to giving up the raw footage again. I'd rather be fed to fire ants than deal with that again.

I don't believe we should let the customers peak behind the curtain at the almighty Oz. Also, as they say, those that love TV and sausages should see neither being made.

[Marty Welk]

i would and have given customers the raw footage, and just like i wouldnt put Nasty junk in the sausage :-) I wouldnt have much bad stuff on the tape.
But i wont give them the raw footage UNEDITED , any more than i would just hand them a pork carcase & intestine tubings :-) I am going rip through and cut out the ground shots, and the complete useless trash, just like the photographer isnt going to make prints or even proofs of blank/ruined negatives, i am not going to hand them blank/ruined portions of tape.

it is still raw because it is everything, the repeats, the run-ons and the booring, anything else has ZERO value to them so they have no call for asking me to give them my errors, they just want everything that was shot.

[William Smyth]

Mark, I hear what you're saying, and it may be matter of semantics, but even if the video is edited lightly, it's no longer raw footage. I don't mind doing that - if they want to pay for it, but from now on I explain to them what the difference is between raw footage and and edit.

[Marty Welk]

Well i will say this one right here, i LIE, that IS the "raw footage", but of course i will LIE by omission, i will say that was "everything that was shot". the other stuff the camera shouldnt have even been on :-) it was not shot ?
and ripping through and tossing out the complete trash, takes so little time, then its all up to the slow machines after that. If they PAID for the whole thing, what the heck is another hour of work, and 6 hours of the machine going off while sleeping.

[Kevin Fox]

Peter nailed one of my experiences. My boss's (against my recommendation!) offer the raw footage, but only if asked. We had a bride look over the raw and say exactly what Peter is talking about. "What about this person" and "you only had uncle Fred in this shot, why didn't you use the others?". Not exaggerating, she gave me over 3 typed pages of re-edits!!! Now, the reason these shots were not used is that they were NOT GOOD SHOTS! At any rate, we offered to do this (again, against my recommendation!) at our hourly editing rate, but she said we should have shown her the raw before we edited anything so SHE could pick what footage she wanted. Weeks (and considerable frustration) later, we simply agreed to a reduced fee based on our shooting time and gave her the masters to take elsewhere. Nothing we could do was satisfactory. I don't foresee any client standing up for your reputation when their friends say, "Wow, this video is not very good" by explaining that they asked for all of those poor shots to be included. You and I both know that their actual answer will be, "Yeah, you're right".

FWIW, I feel that clients pay for an EDITED WORK. As others have mentioned, there can also be an arrangement that "you will shoot the day and hand over the footage........", but then you can shoot with this in mind.

[William Smyth]

Kevin, I've run into situations like that. That's why our contract states that all artistic decisions are at our discretion.

That bride would drive me nuts. If I had a bride tell me she wants to pick the shots, I'd say fine. Then I would explain I would charge the same I would charge to sit and edit with producer when I edit commercials - $200/hr. I'm sure as the clocked ticked on, and the bill got fatter and fatter, she would start to see the brilliance of me editing on my own. ;)

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by Kevin Fox

so SHE could pick what footage she wanted. .

sounds like a new wedding price plan


The Bridal Director Plan: $45000.00
Direct your own wedding from beginning to end, you decide on the shots, you pick the edit points. Includes 800 hours of edit suite time, with you as the director. Bridal director must be present for all editing sessions.

(after about 2 days, you will never see them again, they will say whatever you want to do is fine)

[Tom Hardwick]

Originally Posted by Kevin Fox

We had a bride look over the raw and say exactly what Peter is talking about. "What about this person" and "you only had uncle Fred in this shot, why didn't you use the others

Makes you wonder how such a person can bear to read a newspaper. What, only 2 pictures of this earthquake? Where are all the other ten thousand? And what's with this 3 column inches? What about all the draft submissions the editor was sent? I want to see those as well!

[Kren Barnes]

Tuck in an extra fee on your pricing and provide the B&G an external hard drive with the raw footage you've transferred from your workstation. Im not sure what you'd do with the footage anyways.. Us, we just delete them after we get the B&G's approval of their final copy.....given that most videogs only provide a 20-30 minute "cinematic" final product im sure that they will appreciate the gesture especially if they paid lots of money for their video...

[Kyle Root]

the bridal director package. I love it. Hey for $45K, i'd be willing to spend a couple months editing one wedding. Ahaha. Do 6 of those a year and you are bringing in about $300K!

[Bob Sintas]

I'm wanting to get into the wedding videography business and I also happen to be getting married this year. One of the main things I was looking for in a company was someone that would not only have their editing package, but an option to where I can have the full enedited footage so I can practice my wedding editing skills. I will only use it for personal use and that footage won't be commercially used as an example of my editing skills.

Since wedding lengths are all different, this company charges $50 per disk (either DVD or Blu-ray, depending if it is shot in SD or HD). I would estimate that the cost would be about $50 for every 2 hours, which I consider reasonable. As was mentioned above: If someone had 20 hours of footage, then that would be $500, but if another wedding only had 1 camera and they just wanted their short wedding ceremony recorded, then that would probably fit on 1 disk.

As for the post saying: "Its their video, not yours." Technically, the videographer owns the copyright. Like in the photography world, you just you can't go into a walmart/walgreens/etc and scan wedding pictures taken by a professional photographer because the client does not own the copyright to those pictures. You will be refused service because that company will not want to be held liable for being involved in illegal activity. The same applies for taking any copyright disc to a disc duplication facility.

I have seen photographers turn over the copyright to the client and they usually charge a hefty fee (about 200% - 300% of their print package).

So if a videographer was to give someone their RAW footage, YOU would still own the copyright. If they wanted to copyright to the footage as well, then I would most definately charge about 200% of the normal cost. (If I typically charged $2,000 for a wedding, then the copyright would be $4,000 for a total cost of $6,000).