Sending samples and getting turned down

[Noa Put]

We ALWAYS without fail arrive at the ceremony 1 hour before it starts.

Lucky you, I often have ceremonies with no setup time meaning driving from the civil wedding straight to church and while I just have my tripod set up the groom is waiting to enter the church, fun times...Then I only can place a recorder in front of the church soundspeaker and I have a small pocketrecorder with lav on the groom, that covers the absolute basics.

[Chris Harding]

With regards to ceremonies I always too get there an hour early if I'm not doing prep. If I am doing prep then I insist (and I mean insist!) that the bride is in her dress 45 minutes before she leaves the house so I'm assured that I'm an absolute minimum of 30 minutes ahead of her. If she is leaving the house at 1:30pm I will even tell her "I'm out of here at 1:00pm and not one second later so you had better make sure you get into your dress now as it's already 12:45pm" She is told that if she is NOT ready by the time I leave for the Church then she will miss out on the final touches.

I'm really strict with this rule and enforce it too! I have left the bride's house a couple of times when she has been running late and I don't apologise for it either ... she has had ample reminders during my time there so when my departure time arrives, I simply pack up and leave.

I had one Church wedding where I was driving down the street with the Limo behind me and I never wanted to duplicate that scenario again. He just pulled up while I had to park and unload and set up so you could imagine the chaos!!!

Chris

[Peter Rush]

Regarding bridal prep well it's not included in my basic packages but is an optional extra - one price if she's getting ready in the same venue as the ceremony, because I can cover this myself, and another, higher price, if she's she's getting ready at a separate location as I have to bring an assistant to cover the last hour while I shoot off and set up for the ceremony.

Pete

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

I had one Church wedding where I was driving down the street with the Limo behind me and I never wanted to duplicate that scenario again. He just pulled up while I had to park and unload and set up so you could imagine the chaos!!!

You just describe some of my weddings with sometimes the only difference that the limo is in front of me :D

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

I know what my panic was like the one time it happened to me so I can only imagine what you thought with the limo ahead of you. Like Pete, sometimes I just have to resort to using an assistant to finish off the girls while I make a run to the Church but I don't like to make a habit of it. If I think that I'm going to have an issue nowdays I'll even get my wife to take the main cam to the ceremony, roughly set it in place and also set up the lavs/transmitters on the groom and reading lectern. Churches like to be exactly on time but quite often civil celebrants are quite happy to go and meet the bride and stall her for 5 minutes if myself or others need to set up which is nice.

Then again weddings are weddings and anything can happen! We were relaxing at a ceremony venue once with an easy 30 minutes still to go when we saw the limo driving OUT of the venue. After a car chase and repeat of the limo arrival all was well ..the bride simply decided to come half an hour early!!

Going back to Clive's dilemma, imagine after giving the bride your very, very best sample, and she books you based purely on that, you only half complete the prep, almost miss the arrival and then screw up the audio ... it sounds amusing and it does happen but after seeing your perfect work exactly how do you explain all the issues to her afterwards. That's why I would NEVER book a bride who has complained bitterly about my sample video!!

Chris

[Craig McKenna]

Clive, one helpful tip I can offer comes directly from Ray Roman.

Ray Roman states that, "If I don't know how long your ceremony will be, if I don't know how long the speeches will be, then how will I know how long your wedding film will be?" If you promise twenty or thirty minutes, yet you only have ten minutes of great, outstanding footage, then how are you going to fill out the rest of the time without hurting your story? Without hurting your film, overall?

The best thing to do is to promise a short edit that will be the best you can offer them for their day. If that ends up being ten minutes, then you will have a ten minute film that the client will watch that ten minute film over and over again. If you have twenty minutes that should have been ten minutes, then the client will have moments when they lapse in concentration and the film won't be as good.

You can, of course, round out your average time limit - say between 15 and 20 minutes - but you can also inform your clients of the above - I'm here to create the best wedding film that I can for your day, however long it takes to tell your story, will be how long your film will be...

Finally, I also remember Ray Roman closing out a high end wedding by stating, "If you go with me, I can promise you peace of mind." He then went on to say that any bride's father would want peace of mind and he knew that he would get the job.

Ultimately, to offer peace of mind, you will need to make those changes. I've seen Noa's and others work here and I can say that their work is incredibly professional and inspiring. But I can also say that I saw loads of amazing things in your A7S film too (as someone else has already mentioned). Like others have stated, you don't want to book these kinds of brides. You can be happy that she will not be a disappointed client - which she is likely to be - and would have damaged your great ratings.

Remember the brides that told you how good you were... rather than the brides who would or have picked faults... weddings are filled with faults... you just have to roll with them and try to never make that mistake again.

Philip Bloom said that he made loads of mistakes when learning as part of a news team, but you can bet he made that mistake once at most since the initial mistake - it's fine to make them, but to always work on changing them... if you can see faults with your wedding films and it's something that you can fix, then work hard at making those changes.

Ultimately, if you're always pushing for better, then you're always going to get better. Five years down the line, the same bride might be flawed by your genius.

You know that you have what it takes, as do many who have visited your thread. That speaks volumes from your peers, so I would be really pleased with what I have achieved and chalk this up as a memory to forget.

Every career has these moments - you just have to work hard at not allowing yourself to become downhearted, as a result.

I would welcome the shorter edit though - personally feel like a 2 hour edit has seen its day... nobody has two hours to watch a film anymore... but twenty minutes? You can watch that over a meal every night of your life...

[Robert Benda]

For DVD samples, if this is something that happens often, pick one wedding, make some copies now, and put them in a box to be ready. I haven't been asked once, yet, to see the full final product example. We've been hired entirely on our website.

I 100% believe it's worth a lav on the priest/celebrant and groom, and a recorder on a lectern or any other key spot. I just finished editing a wedding where the priest refused. Due to acoustics and positions, literally the only audio I used was from the groom's lav. It is not impressive.

For setup, if I'm arriving that soon before a ceremony, I'd arrive a few minutes early to shoot exteriors before moving inside. I'd introduce myself to the priest and ask about the sound. if they're ready, I'd go ahead and mic. If not, I'll see them 15 minutes prior. Same with the groom. All I need from him is 20 seconds. I use fabric tape to put my mic in place, have him say his name and the date, and drop the recorder in his pocket. Done. Pastor is about the same. Let them both know they don't have to do anything, and no one will hear them. The pastor I also mention we have other mics, so don't worry about asides or instructions. Just do whatever you need to.

For the full length... ugh, unless you're charging a lot, a lot of effort into that edit just doesn't seem worth it. I used to waste a lot of time carefully picking every shot for the ceremony, even when it was a full Catholic mass. Now I keep it simple. As long as the client knows in advance, that's all that matters. My professional, vows, rings, and recessional are still heavily edited, though, since I already do those parts for the highlight film.

[Leon Bailey]

Well Clive! First of all, it's good that you ultimately know why you got turned down. Rejection always sucks, but it's just motivation to work harder. Anyway!

My DVD sample dvd includes a 5 min wedding film, trailer, 60 second commercials that explains why you need wedding videography. :)

If you want to go towards the more film like cinematic approach, I definitely say go for it. You don't have to abandon your style, but add it as an add on like you say. :)

Good luck to you!

[Steve Bleasdale]

+1 Danny same here