Help with my first Wedding shoot

[Johannes Soetandi]

Out of all my recorded audio wedding, my fave usually comes from the lav mic on the groom/officiant. The audio from mixer, onboard camera, etc are usually for my backup only. During reception, I stuck my lav mic on the podium mic.

Although I dont use wireless system and have used audio recorder to remove all the worry of signal interference, etc. Once your audio is set, you can concentrate on the camera throughout the procession.

[Corey Graham]

Originally Posted by Johannes Soetandi

Out of all my recorded audio wedding, my fave usually comes from the lav mic on the groom/officiant. The audio from mixer, onboard camera, etc are usually for my backup only. During reception, I stuck my lav mic on the podium mic.

Although I dont use wireless system and have used audio recorder to remove all the worry of signal interference, etc. Once your audio is set, you can concentrate on the camera throughout the procession.

I've found myself having the same experience. I will normally have 5-6 audio sources to work with, but end up trashing all but the groom's mic (which I end up using for the vast majority of the ceremony) and the podium/speaker mic (for readings, sermon, etc.). I keep questioning whether it's all necessary, but, you know . . . I'm paranoid.

Also, in my mind, the audio recorders are far superior to any wireless systems. They've vastly increased my audio quality -- and stress level -- at the shoots. Again, I can concentrate on being creative, and not on whether the wireless mic is functioning clearly and properly.

[Johannes Soetandi]

Originally Posted by Corey Graham

Also, in my mind, the audio recorders are far superior to any wireless systems. They've vastly increased my audio quality -- and stress level -- at the shoots. Again, I can concentrate on being creative, and not on whether the wireless mic is functioning clearly and properly.

That is, if you remember to hit "record" before the groom pockets it! I've once had this experience, I forgot to hit record on the audio recorder on the groom while my backup audio recorder ran out of battery mid way through ceremony. And because you have no way of monitoring it, I only realized this when they finished the vow!!

Luckily, the audio on my RODE is usable. The B&G never complained about the audio. Phew.

[Corey Graham]

Originally Posted by Johannes Soetandi

That is, if you remember to hit "record" before the groom pockets it!

Haha, true! I'm very paranoid about that -- even with the hold button on and secured with tape -- and I always end up checking that it's recording a couple times. Then when I get the recorder back from him after the ceremony, I always feel a wave of relief when I see it's been recording.

[Paul Owens]

I'm much more confident today... I went over to the venue last night to help decorate (and get a feel for the way thing will work. They don't have a balcony but they do have a Very large sound booth that is elevated by 3 steps and surrounded by a half wall a the back left side of the auditorium. I set my camera up there with the tripod fully extended and no matter where my tall friend stood I still had a view of the entire stage as well as most the aisle. This is going to be my main camera and if all else fails

I did (contrary to advice) get that second camera after talking to my sister-in-law. the whole first row on both sides of the auditorium is empty. The plan is to get a low angle shot from the aisle of them all walking in and once the bride passes move to the outside of the first row and get a good angle on her face and the reading lecture.

I'm really happy. The room is nice and bright, the sound guy is more then a volunteer, I have some redundancy between the 2 cameras and 3 sources of audio...

I'm feeling much more confident now about the whole event.

Thanks for all the help! I hope I grasped on to the advice you all were giving.

[Paul Owens]

I just (against all advice I've heard here on this forum... but it's my sister-in-law so who cares) played the opening 13 minutes of their video for them tonight in a rough form. I just wanted to show her how i was cutting back and forth between the 2 cameras and make sure she liked that instead of just focusing on her as she came in. They both LOVED it!!! I told her how self conscious I am especially after seeing a bunch of the videos on here including the one shot with the Red Epics. I showed her that video and all she could say was... "that's nice, a bit over done, It's not us. What you have is our wedding and it looks great."

I know this wasn't a paying gig, and it was the best possible client for my first try... but this makes me very happy that they are content with what I am able to produce.

I'm going to post a few clips here for critique in the near future. I would appreciate some feedback.

[Corey Graham]

Congratulations Paul! It always feels great when a client (paying or non-paying) really digs your work.

Originally Posted by Paul Owens

I showed her that video and all she could say was... "that's nice, a bit over done, It's not us. What you have is our wedding and it looks great."

That's exactly my view of all the "cinematic," slider-laden, showy wedding videos out there. Way overdone and over-stylized for my taste (for a wedding, anyhow). I know there's a high-end market out there somewhere for this kind of video (what some people like to mislabel a "film"), but in the markets I've been working in, people want a nice-looking documentary of their day -- not what looks like a Hollywood movie trailer.

[Tim Bakland]

For church weddings:

Groom's lapel mic + wav recorder on lectern takes care of the most important stuff most of the time.

Wav recorder set up near instrumentalists at outdoor weddings (like harpist way off to the side) is a must if you want to hear that music well on the video.

Otherwise, be creative and improvise. For those short outdoor weddings that have one single reader who reads from a random spot and in windy conditions, tap them on the shoulder during dinner and have them re-re-record into your wav recording and sync by using cutaways. (They'll read close enough to how they did the first time, that it's fairly easy to sync.).

One cool/creative thing that can be done in certain church situations: while you're setting up your b-cam in the balcony, take a look at the small organ speaker/monitors to see if they're playing the church's main audio. Putting a wav recorder right in front of one of them can get you a very clean sound for times when the priest is in no-man's land with his robe mic (and otherwise very echo-y).

[Corey Graham]

Originally Posted by Tim Bakland

One cool/creative thing that can be done in certain church situations: while you're setting up your b-cam in the balcony, take a look at the small organ speaker/monitors to see if they're playing the church's main audio. Putting a wav recorder right in front of one of them can get you a very clean sound for times when the priest is in no-man's land with his robe mic (and otherwise very echo-y).

I've done something similar at a lot of weddings. I use a Rode Videomic, which goes out stereo miniplug into my MP3 recorder. Then I attach both to a boom mic stand and point the mic directly at the speaker. Most of the time, the speakers are up off the floor, and there's nowhere to set the recorder by itself.

[Tim Bakland]

Very cool, Corey.

May I ask: which speaker do you usually end up targeting?
Are you able to do this fairly discreetly? (I'm trying to picture where they all usually are in most churches).

[Corey Graham]

Originally Posted by Tim Bakland

May I ask: which speaker do you usually end up targeting?
Are you able to do this fairly discreetly? (I'm trying to picture where they all usually are in most churches).

I usually look for the most out-of-the-way speaker, so that it's less likely my setup is seen. And it really depends on the church -- some of them may only have one main speaker, and if it's inaccessible or too prominent, then I'll usually put lav mics on both the officiant and the groom, or on the lecturn and the groom.

Another alternative would be to actually gaff tape the recorder to the speaker. It's usually not noticeable, and comes out remarkably well in my experience.

[Johannes Soetandi]

Originally Posted by Corey Graham

Haha, true! I'm very paranoid about that -- even with the hold button on and secured with tape -- and I always end up checking that it's recording a couple times. Then when I get the recorder back from him after the ceremony, I always feel a wave of relief when I see it's been recording.

Well.. apart from 'forgetting to hit record', I did another foolish mistake on my last wedding. I accidentally plugged my mic on the earphone jack instead of the mic! So it's recording a very audible and clear silence the whole ceremony! Lucky my camera was relatively close, wind was quite, and so my on board mic recorded all the audio. Talk about a backup plan!

I've been taping over the settings button just to prevent the settings on the recorder changes accidentally. Next time, I'll tape over the earphone jack just to make I only have one hole to plug my mic into!

[Chris Harding]

I thought I was the only true idiot when it comes to plugging things into the wrong hole!!!

I changed a battery on my older receiver and to do so I need to take it out of the camera mounting case on the back of the camera and also unplug the output cable....I did just that, changed the battery and plugged the output cable back into the earphone jack.

Luckily the 2nd XLR channel where the receiver plugs into defaulted to internal mic and I still had audio!!!

Even luckier, it wasn't a wedding!!! I was doing a Realty shoot and the audio was simply a narration of the home's condition so I got away with pushing the audio level in the NLE...had it been a wedding I would shudder to think what would have happened!!

Shucks another hole to plug up as I always monitor thru the camera (I have already taped over the audio standby switch when a priest fiddled with it during the ceremony and put my transmitter into standby)

Tape is a good idea for a lot of gear where you might just accidentally plug something in wrong!!! Wouldn't it be nice if audio stuff was intelligent (like cars??) forget to hit record and you get a warning !!

Chris