Still Motion Feature

[Bill Grant]

Chris,
I was in that same workshop this week and came away with a completely different mindset. I have been in the business about 8 yrs so I don't consider myself inexperienced. I am looking to find those things that can take what I'm doing now... which is short form DSLr weddings to the next level. I would not expect that they would spend one second on what to do with video cameras because they just don't do it that way. They wouldn't substitute a grey card for a light meter because a grey card is for white balance not exposure. So, I got a large amount of inspiration from their approach without the need for technical info. I was frankly very happy they stayed away from technical lessons because I think that conveying the feelings with your shooting and editing is far more important. BUT it is good that we both could see the same workshop and take totally different things from it. :)
Bill

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Bill Grant

Chris,
I was in that same workshop this week and came away with a completely different mindset. I have been in the business about 8 yrs so I don't consider myself inexperienced. I am looking to find those things that can take what I'm doing now... which is short form DSLr weddings to the next level. I would not expect that they would spend one second on what to do with video cameras because they just don't do it that way. They wouldn't substitute a grey card for a light meter because a grey card is for white balance not exposure. So, I got a large amount of inspiration from their approach without the need for technical info. I was frankly very happy they stayed away from technical lessons because I think that conveying the feelings with your shooting and editing is far more important. BUT it is good that we both could see the same workshop and take totally different things from it. :)
Bill

Thanks Bill, I can certainly appreciate those points.

I do want to stress that I'm not unhappy with what I took away from the event.

It would have been helpful for me if they had stated in the advertisement that it was a dSLR centric and wedding centric event. They only used the word filmmaker in the advertisements. The use of the term filmmaker is what drew me to attend.

To address the comment about the grey card, an 18% grey card is much more than a white balance tool. If you understand what it represents you can understand its power and usefulness. It is absolutely an exposure tool that in addition can be used as a white balance tool and not the other way around.

Light meters are electronic versions of grey cards and are easily fooled. You can't fool the card. It is what it is. Assuming you don't get it dirty that is. ;)

[Patrick Moreau]

Hey Chris,

Thanks for joining us at KNOW.

While at first glance it might seem like some of the information we shared at KNOW was for beginners or at a lower level, I do believe there is so much more there to be found that we can all learn from. I would substitute the word beginner with something more like foundation.

And while we may feel like we have a solid foundation, i do often wonder how many decisions we actively make based on story and how many we make based on habit, convenience, or availability. KNOW was very much about questioning every decision that is made and inspiring others to look deeper into their own decisions.

We started in weddings but we aren't wedding filmmakers and our education isn't centered on that. We believe that a story is a story and the tools and techniques we learn in one genre can equally affect an audience in another genre.

As for the technical side, I'll let our work do the talking there. Our cameras aren't setting our exposures, lighting our scenes, or grading our edits. It is absolutely true that questions about grey cards and light meters might not have gotten then attention or response you were looking for, and i apologize if that was the case, but that was certainly not the focus of KNOW.

We have had a wonderful journey in just a handful of years and it has all come from our approach. We spent months boiling that down into a well-communicated, designed, and thought-out talk to try and help others. I know you have clearly said you weren't unhappy, but if you weren't ecstatic with the time we shared together than i do apologize.

P.

[Bill Grant]

Too bad there's not a like button. "LIKE"

[Daniel Latimer]

Has anyone else seen the feature that Still Motion put up on their blog? (This One’s Different Because It’s Us – stillmotion)

They obviously have an awesomely unique approach to wedding film making. Other than being a unique take on this wedding, I love how much they get to know their couples so that the wedding film is adapted to them. I need to do more of this.

I wonder how much feedback the couple has in the wedding film. I would think the couple would have to want something very nontraditional to ok with a film like this.

Personally, I thought it was fantastic.

The Story Miffy + Mr. Bee, a Stillmotion wedding feature on Vimeo

[Adrian Tan]

Thanks for the link!

And thank goodness someone is doing something different with wedding videos.

Contrast it with some other "evolutionary dead ends".

There's the game of image quality -- heading towards higher dynamic range, 4K cameras, RAW, etc. But I've got a feeling this might quickly hit the point of diminishing returns, because couples just aren't as image-savvy, and the investment in gear and post processing isn't cheap. And when you do find a couple who recognise the quality, will they pay for it? And you can't rely on how much money you've invested to distinguish you from the competition -- all someone has to do to trump you is spend more.

I think my own work falls into this sort of category -- only real selling point over some people is that my cameras are a little better at low light, or have shallower depth of field, etc -- but my image quality isn't as good as people shooting with primes or C300s, so the market position, barring things like spending more on advertising and gear, is stagnant.

Then there's the game of creative shots. Find the most creative ring shot. Find the most creative shoe shot. Someone like Bob Nicolas is wonderful at this style -- motion-controlled jibs, etc. But at the end of the day, you're producing a music video like everyone else, there's no guarantee of consistency in your work, because you're limited by the "production value" of the wedding, creative shots are easily copied by your competition, and you're heading towards making the video about the images and not about the emotions or the couple. Photographers can easily be lured down this route. And, really, if you're shooting weddings for 20 years, how many creative ways can you find to shoot a dress being laced up?

In contrast, I think what Still Motion are essentially doing in this video is combining a prewedding love story with wedding footage. It might not sound like some great leap forward, but if you're thinking of wedding videos like any other movie or short film, then there's a lot of potential room for your own creative growth, and for differentiation of your product (in the same way that one might hire Ron Howard to direct one kind of movie, and Michael Bay to direct another).

But is there enough of a market for such a thing? Who knows... Perhaps you could offer a range of products -- one of which is the short film, and the others are more like, "Here goes another bride-getting-ready montage set to the theme from Twilight"...


Edit: Thinking about this a bit more clearly, there's a billion ways to grow a wedding business. Franchising, advertising, etc. There's one Sydney company I can think of that's doing very well going a traditional route -- doing decent work, doing advertising/getting awards, employing more staff to keep up with demand, etc. Now shooting 100 weddings a year. So I think what I wrote above is nonsense if it's interpreted as speculation about business growth ceilings. Won't delete it though -- I think it still has some merit if you're locked into the mindset of a sole operator or husband/wife small wedding business without diversification, or if one interprets "evolution" in terms of work satisfaction or creative growth or something like that.

[Nigel Barker]

Kudos to Still Motion for being so successful in finding a 1 in a million couple who are actually prepared to pay the true cost of a great video like this. $10K? $20K?

[Noa Put]

They only get hired by very rich people, their wedding videos start at 12900 dollars...They have always been trendsetters but at their current rates you can afford to do something a bit more special.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

And thank goodness someone is doing something different with wedding videos.

Indeed! (Excellent post, Adrian!)

And yet that's not all that Still Motion does... they also make a great little iPhone app: SMAPP

Not only is it most cool and handy -- it's also free!

Get Creative with SMAPP on Vimeo

[Peter Rush]

Truly a great wedding film - I wonder how they'd approach a registry office wedding on a wet Thursday in Barnsely ;/

Joking aside I do like to watch high end stuff like this - a source of great ideas if only a solo shooter had the time!

Pete