Recruiting random guests as camera operators

[Simon Denny]

Give the Brides Maid and Best man a Gopro when they hit the dance floor. The married couple will love it.

[Roger Gunkel]

It does seem from this forum, that much of the wedding video market has moved into the cinematic and artistic way of working. I'm sure that a lot of the reason is due to film and broadcast production training added to the ability to achieve those styles using modern cameras and software. There is also an element of admiring the style and perceived professionalism of other videographer's work, together with a desire to create a great work of art.

Interestingly though, many of the television styles used on the most popular younger end of the market programmes, is the camcorder style, with reality tv and following celebrities while they do various pointless things. If you couple that to the huge popularity of youtube and social networking footage, I find myself wondering what the actual expectations of the Bride and Groom are. Do they admire the slickness and quality of highly produced video or do they love the silliness and fun of a friends mobile phone footage?

I suspect it is probably both so will continue to be in the action with my mix of fast moving and tripod based mainly single camera work. Others will continue with cinematic style, but I think that wedding guests will not be invited to film :-)

Roger

[Chris Harding]

Hi Roger

I have always wondered that myself so maybe the technical perfection and clinically accurate cinematic shoot is indeed a product of numerous courses and workshops that concentrate on these methods.

If you watch reality and other programs (even drama) there is a huge swing over to handheld and natural camera motion in these shows and maybe this makes them more human (also less costly to produce as the cameraman hoists a camera on his shoulder and films instead of setting up dolly tracks) Even the multicam aspect seems to have gone and a two shot uses one camera with a wobbly fast pan from person to person and back again. I know a lot of videographers are out to achieve the perfect stable shot but even top BBC docs you can see the wobbles if you watch the top frame and see it move all over...obviously acceptable to viewers as they are still on the air.

Whether brides want a technically perfect wedding shoot or whether they want something natural is hard to decide ... I'm still shooting natural with no sliders and minimum tripod and maximum interaction.

What I REALLY think is the bride is so engrossed in seeing how stunning her dress is and how good her bridal party look she couldn't care less about technical issues that the poor cameraman has struggled to achieve.

Chris

[Don Bloom]

I have always tried to avoid pans, tilts and zooms in my edit especially in the ceremony BUT...having said that, if used properly and in context, IOW, don't show a swish pan or a crash zoom just to show it, it can be an effective tool. Again not so much in the ceremony but for the dancing portion of the reception, for the prep and preceremony and for the post ceremony time, used sparingly and in the vein of the music that is being used, the mood that's trying to be set, it can work.
I've said for years, when shooting any job or any portion of any job, I don't care how many cameras are running, I always shoot as if there are NO other cameras going (except TV work since I KNOW there will be others not just running but actually getting a shot) other than the one that I have my hands on, so if I have to do a pan, tilt or zoom, I try to do it in a slow controlled method.
Styles change, technology changes, but people don't. I think they still want solid stable footage properly exposed and composed! After that, it's a matter of what style, doc or cinematic but the most fantastic style means nothing with out good footage! So what's important? To me, it the quality of the footage not the style. One has nothing to do with the other.