Do brides mind noise?

[Arthur Gannis]

I never had a bride that minded noise, and I mean the type that is very noticeable at dark venues when the gain is up like 12db or more. Not that they don't mind it, it's like they don't NOTICE it even being there, even when you specifically pointed it out to them. But they will mind and surely take notice if your camera was pointed a few wee seconds longer at the young girl with the red dress. The groom, on the other hand......oh well, like Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind" 'Quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn ! "

[Bernard Lau]

Well, the bride is hiring us for the product that we've been producing, right?
So unless we drastically change the way we film, the bride shouldn't mind the creative choices we make. That being said, when we tried Film Convert for the film grain, the "film look" didn't really work for us.

[Adrian Tan]

That's interesting. When I've experimented with grain for wedding videos, there were two things: (1) visually, felt unattractive -- felt to me like a clean look was better; certainly you wouldn't want to use Film Convert with 100% grain anyway; (2) grain seemed somehow to distance the viewer from the emotions on screen, make them less immediate or less real; maybe the look is somehow too film-like.

Compare to something like Black Swan -- a very noisy film. Not only was DSLR noise intentionally used for some of the scenes, but they added more grain in post. And what was the feeling? Maybe the noise somehow visually conveyed the pressure or the madness Natalie Portman's character was feeling.

That said, the companies that actually do shoot on 8mm often produce work that feels warm and intimate. And in this case the grain helps! I think when the grain is combined with all the other film artifacts, and the shaky, dodgy camerawork, it creates the sense that these are home videos, and the look also evokes nostalgia.

[Chris Harding]

I just had a bride's mother want to book me for a wedding but she said her daughter wanted no camera light at all as it's intrusive. I explained that we strive to get the best lighting for video so as long as the venue are prepared to lift the lights a little during speeches then I'm happy to do it with a fast lens. I did also explain that video needs light to look good and she said that's not a problem ..just no camera light and if the video looks a bit dark we don't mind!

Guess this potential client is happy to have a little noise in the background instead of camera lights??

I actually did speeches once where the groom wanted "the light just how it is now" "no more!" I showed him the LCD and what his speeches would look like (the venue was very dark!!) and he said "perfect! I'm 100% happy with that!!" Grooms also don't seem to mind noise and a darkish image either. In these cases what I also do it limit the gain on the camera to ISO5000 on my Sony's which does give a wee bit of noise in black areas and then show them what it will come out like and then it's their decision!!

Chris

[Kyle Root]

Never had any complaints or concerns from clients about noise.

Back in the day when we were shooting DV (and before we bought some external lights) with Canon GL1s and XL1s, I know we routinely pushed the gain on those to the max at wedding receptions. Never had any issues.

Even now, I push the gain on my NX5 to 12db or 15db when I need to at wedding receptions. No one ever complains.