Need a bit of help

[Kren Barnes]

Here you go buddy, this might help you out a bit.

How To Shoot A Wedding Ceremony. Canon Cinema Caravan (2010) on Vimeo

[Mark Whittle]

I'm chiming in a bit late but here's my tip:

Go to the rehearsal. Take your camera, introduce yourself to the priest, couple's parents etc and keep quiet until they're done. Then ask any questions, outline any issues you think may affect your coverage. Ask the priest's permission to locate in certain spots. That way if he says no you have everybody there to hear why you're not able to get the angle you want. Take stills and show the couple the shots from various angles.

Adrian's crossing the line comment is most important. If you shoot that way it will not cut together at all. Even two cameras upstage and one in the aisle is technically crossing the line but you can get away with it with careful editing. If you don't know what crossing the line means, look it up, learn it and practice it!

Welcome, good luck & enjoy.

[Peter Riding]

crossing the line comment is most important. If you shoot that way it will not cut together at all.

????? for weddings?????

Crossing the line/180 degree rule broken - Camera Operating - Cinematography.com

The audience won't have any problem figuring out whats going on in a wedding video and multiple camera angles enhance the final product greatly. Also with weddings more often than not you have to make the best of what you'd got and you cannot shoot from the most desirable positions either because its not allowed or not practical or would be too intrusive.

Pete

[Mark Whittle]

Peter if you look at Alan's diagram at the top of the post You'll see what Adrian & I are talking about.
I often shoot 2 cameras on the altar side & one in the aisle so aisle camera shows bride on left, groom on right.
My bride cam has groom on left of screen with bride on RIGHT looking left.
Groom cam has groom again on left, bride on RIGHT.

These all intercut fine, even though the aisle cam has them the other way around. It makes sense to the audience.

Alan's diagram crosses the line between the bride & groom, so both of them would be on the right looking left. Good luck intercutting between those cameras!

[Dave Blackhurst]

Yup, good catch on that diagram - the cam "behind" will be right in the frame of the other front cam...and vice versa.

Better is to use the two front cams to catch #1 the brides face (shooting from the right), and #2 the Grooms face (shooting from the left), shoot at an angle such that the opposing camera is worst case at the far edge of the frame (if zoomed in a bit the camera shouldn't show).

[Peter Riding]

Mark I'm still not seeing a particular problem other than each front of church camera operator will be in the others background and the operator on the left at the front will be blocking the view of the VIPs on the front row - but when did that ever bother a wedding videographer :- )

I've used that placement many times through necessity, all be it with the cam on the left moved against a side wall and higher than the guests supported on a lightstand so it doesn't grab the attention in the background of front right's composition.

The ideal is of course to have both front cams forward of the bride and groom in order to get their facial expressions plus cutaways to the first few rows of guests. However its often the case that one side at the front is completely unsuitable due to a dominant pulpit or lectern etc occupying that space.

OP note that even if the space you would have liked to have put an operator in is inaccessible you can often attach an unmanned cam with a bracket to fixtures or furniture with great results.

The viewers of wedding videos will easily relate to what is happening - there are lots of points of reference. "Crossing the line" ..... thats cinematographer seminar talk :- )

Pete