$99 Wedding Video Package ( i kid you not)

[Kren Barnes]

What do you guys think of this ad?

Wedding video taping services Manitoba Canada

"Your wedding should give you lasting memories...not lasting debt. Check out our wedding video package for $99."

[Shaun Roemich]

As a former Winnipegger, Dollar Store Capital of the World, this does NOT come as a huge shock and surprise...

Who needs Craigslist when we can slit our own throats in the race to the bottom!

[Chris Harding]

Hi Kren

I guess if you bought a domestic DVD camcorder and did the ceremony only you might make it for $99.00 .... You going to drop your prices to $59.00 now????

We had a bunch of students here offering weddings for free!! The catch was you had to pay their gear rental!! Of course, they had no takers and disappeared off the map!!

I wouldn't worry too much about the $99 operator!!

Chris

[Christopher Figueroa]

The $99 video package gets a client what exactly? If it's only 10mins of coverage for the vows. Seems like a possibly good idea. If you can get 10/day and work on volume. Why not? But $99 for the whole wedding, is just ridiculous. The guy is better off working at Wal-Mart for $8/hr, at least there, he doesn't have any capital investment costs.

[Gints Klimanis]

Many get their initial work experience at very low or even negative pay rates.

[David Barnett]

Probably as Harding said a DVD Camcorder on a tripod for the ceremony uncut/unedited. Then they probably upsell from there ($50/hr for the reception, $250 editing costs etc) so that a full wedding might be upwards of $500 or more. Not a terribly bad advertising strategy. And for them even if the party only purchases the ceremony deal, $99 bucks for an hour travel, and hour shooting, and handing over the DVD at the end. Sure it probably looks pretty bad, but it's a cool $100 for 2 hours of their time.

[Ervin Farkas]

Please pass on their phone number.

I need to ask them if they can do my wedding 12 years ago... they seem to have to keys to some sort of magic...

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by David Barnett

Sure it probably looks pretty bad, but it's a cool $100 for 2 hours of their time.

And THESE words prompt me to wonder how many of the "Video-O-ographers" that are working on this sort of "business model" are the ones asking questions on DVi like "how do I capture my footage? How do I make a DVD? Which microphone under $3 should I put in the trunk of my car to capture good church audio?"

And 2 hours? Plus the phone call(s), emailing, in person meet up to discuss/deliver/blah blah blah....

I get it: The media and social marketing folks have told us that digital video is the great equalizer and now EVERYONE can be a video-O-ographer, regardless of training or story telling skill. Just remember that when you want to go from "hobbyist making beer money" to "pro able to make mortgage payments", I'll be there, pushing my shopping cart with my tin foil hat on to keep the Government and Aliens from broadcasting their messages directly into my brain because I lost the ability to earn a living long ago due to undercutting to tell you "I TOLD YOU SO!"

And then maybe it will be MY turn to beg...

[Noel Lising]

I believe you Kren. Give me the guys phone number, I will hook him up with a local photographer who charges $ 100 (not kidding either). They can conquer the world, Imagine a Wedding Video/Photo Package for $ 199.00. Then make it a business empire hook-up with the $ 150 DJ (not kidding either).

[Andrew Smith]

Imagine admitting years later to your kids that you bought that shaky-cam combo wedding package!

Andrew

[Philip Howells]

The trouble for all of us behind this nonsense is that it's this guy and his $100 photographer friend who'll get the publicity on your local TV station when the clients find out they've completely wasted their money - but the fact that they paid peanuts won't be the headline, it'll be the unfortunate couple who were ripped off by their wedding videographer/photographer. and a part of each of our promotional efforts goes down the pan.

[Chris Harding]

Another very sad thing is that some brides don't even appreciate a decent wedding film and just seeing themselves on telly is joy enough..even if the vision is terrible!!!

I still think that most brides seem to not take their wedding film anywhere as seriously as the photography so we have to educate them that Uncle Joe's footage just isn't good enough for memories that need to last a lifetime. One of our online wedding directories has a forum and it worries me that the brides there will pay a photog $3000 to work for 5 hours but are quite happy to let a family member shoot the wedding video on a $150 camcorder after saying that $1500 is way too much for a wedding video!!

You obviously will have the really bad videographers..(remember the one in the UK, Philip, that made headlines around the world with his wedding shoot last year????) but I still feel that we need to "re-label" wedding video shoots so their is an obviously difference between a home movie and a wedding film!!! Gosh, no bride would be happy if the photog turned up with his $79 digital camera and did the wedding prints at the 15c each discount store so our creative skills need to be isolated from the "home movie" category!!

Hmmm maybe we need to go back and shoot on 16mm film to be recognised as professionals???

Chris

[Andrew Smith]

Well, there's the stuff that we notice and then there are the bits that a bride / public / client would notice.

I did a wedding for a neighbor recently and what was the thing that they noticed? The clarity of the video imagery on the DVD. Yes, the bit that impressed them most was effectively the quality of the lens ... which we all take for granted and wouldn't otherwise think about.

The next biggest thing would probably be the clear audio that I obtained from using a Rode NTG3 inside a blimp with the furry animal wrapped around it.

I guess these are the things that stand out the most when compared to a home video camera recording.

Andrew

[Chris Harding]

Hi Andrew

I have brides who comment "gosh it's so clear" but mostly they are interested in whether the bridesmaid's dress in your sample video are better than the one's she has chosen for her bridesmaids.

I think that the problem with video is that our product has a perceived lower value than photography... why??? I have no idea!!! Brides seem to think that the stunning photo pack that the photographer has is easily worth $3000 but seem to put just a minimal value on their DVD pack before even evaluating the contents! Maybe it's because you can walk into K-Mart and pick up a complete DVD Set of your favorite TV show season for a mere $39.95 and they compare the wedding DVD to that??

Seriously, we work normally harder and longer than photographers, lug a lot more gear around and yet the photographer seems to be perceived as being better value for money???
Shucks he is usually near the top of the priority list for brides and we are a lot further down.

In my eyes video has so much more to offer yet a lot of brides won't have it or get a relative to produce a shaky palmcorder version.

It would be nice for brides to have us up with the photographer on her list but elevating us there seems to be problematic.

Chris

[Philip Howells]

There's probably not much comfort at being in the company of other "losers" (in this battle of perceived values) but what there is is shared by sports press photographers, embroiderers and music copyists (the people who copy scores for individual players) to name but three professions screwed by technology in some way. The sports photographers whose colleagues leave cameras behind the soccer goal and press their wireless controls like mad any time someone looks like scoring (what happened to composition, lighting etc) and rely on autofocus in their 600m f2.8 beasts; the embroidery machine has scuppered the needleworker and Sibelius (the software not the composer) churns out individual parts faster than the players can play them.

I think we need to be ruthless about two things. First, make it clear to our clients that we are at least as important as the photographer and stop pretending that photographers have any regard for us at all - in truth they give us their left-overs and we turn them into works of art. Secondly devise ways of taking the decision about video earlier up the timeline. Our DVD invitations seem to be doing the job; in the past two weeks we've got two full-price weddings for late September 2010, no deals just "when can we do the invites?"

We have plans for other such devices - the key is to make them compelling enough and of sufficiently high perceived value to make them desirable yet costing us little in time and even less in cash. If they work we'll publish them here - no sense in giving it away.

Finally, Andrew is absolutely right - but it is the first step down a slippery slope if we ever allow the client's ignorance to be an excuse for delivering anything but the best. In the days when I had up to 15 people working for me I earned a reputation amongst the youngsters we used to employ, often straight from college, for preaching this mantra, but I am rewarded by the number I meet from time to time who remember and remark that it is what continues to separate them as pros from the wannabe-pros.