Those of you with a "highlight only" or "short film only" business model...

[Max Palmer]

I realize that there may not be a lot of people in the industry offering this type of thing. One of my favorite wedding studios in my area has this model, and charges a verrrry pretty penny for it (although their films are drop dead fantastic in my opinion).

For those of you who may have this sort of business model, can you explain a little about how the approach to your clients work? How do you sell your clients on the idea of providing them only with a short film, (anywhere between 5-10 minutes) and not a "full-day" documentary style piece? If you previously offered a "full-day" edit alongside a highlight, how did you come to the conclusion that a different style of offering would appeal to enough of your local clientele?

[Tim Paynter]

Does your wedding man have a link so we get a better idea of what you would like to do?

[Danny O'Neill]

The thing to remember is that if you offer short films you attract clients that want a short film. Your no doubt thinking "my current clients want the longer film, how can I convince them they should have a shorter one?" the truth is you don't. We turn people away who want the longer 3 hour films as thats what they want and its not what we do.

If you offer a shorter film you will attract a whole new clientele. Offering both long and short can make things messy as people will see the shorter one and assume the longer one is just the same but longer and no doubt cheaper. It leads to a disconnect. I would recommend going fully into one or the other. It also means you can create a much more efficient workflow focused around one product.

[Dan Burnap]

I offer both in one package; a 5 minute 'trailer' then the making of, full ceremony and one hour edit of the reception. Most clients see it as the best of both worlds.

[Max Palmer]

In my area, the place producing the most notable films in my opinion is Fairytale Studio Wedding Films, New York Manhattan. I love their approach to filming and post.

Originally Posted by Danny O'Neill

The thing to remember is that if you offer short films you attract clients that want a short film. Your no doubt thinking "my current clients want the longer film, how can I convince them they should have a shorter one?" the truth is you don't. We turn people away who want the longer 3 hour films as thats what they want and its not what we do.

If you offer a shorter film you will attract a whole new clientele. Offering both long and short can make things messy as people will see the shorter one and assume the longer one is just the same but longer and no doubt cheaper. It leads to a disconnect. I would recommend going fully into one or the other. It also means you can create a much more efficient workflow focused around one product.

Right- I don't really want to offer both. I do this part-time, and I only want to shoot a limited number of events a year, ideally maybe 10-12. In doing so, I'd really like to focus on creating really high quality short films, instead of the time I spend on the long-form edit. I wouldn't be so hesitant to that approach so much if I could just give them a dump of raw material alongside the short film, but the raw footage still has to be edited since I have no intention of giving clients a heap of good footage mixed in with a lot of shaky, out of focus, or accidental footage.

Originally Posted by Dan Burnap

I offer both in one package; a 5 minute 'trailer' then the making of, full ceremony and one hour edit of the reception. Most clients see it as the best of both worlds.

I offer pretty much the same, and at the prices I'm currently charging, nobody has reason to complain.

[Christian Nachtrieb]

Danny's right, the more you showcase on your site, the more you educate, the more those types of clients will flow your way. When we made the switch to offer short form only, we even convinced a few clients that had booked us way back if they'd want to "upgrade" at no charge, and despite the shorter length film at the same price, they all agreed. We'll never look back.

We're in an urban area, but in my opinion short form is the way to go. For just a highlight film we're fetching between $6-$7k depending on location, coverage, etc. As a bonus we include cleaned up raw footage that's all dumped together in a timeline and exported as a 1-2 hour long video, but we outsource that work and the cost is built into the package.

[Max Palmer]

Originally Posted by Christian Nachtrieb

Danny's right, the more you showcase on your site, the more you educate, the more those types of clients will flow your way. When we made the switch to offer short form only, we even convinced a few clients that had booked us way back if they'd want to "upgrade" at no charge, and despite the shorter length film at the same price, they all agreed. We'll never look back.

We're in an urban area, but in my opinion short form is the way to go. For just a highlight film we're fetching between $6-$7k depending on location, coverage, etc. As a bonus we include cleaned up raw footage that's all dumped together in a timeline and exported as a 1-2 hour long video, but we outsource that work and the cost is built into the package.

So when you say you offered them to "upgrade", how exactly did your package change? Were you previously only offering a long form, and they "upgraded" to a short film format with a cleaned up raw dump? I can understand that approach easily, and I think I can make that work for my clients.

Right now, I get the feeling that what a lot of my clients care about is the highlight video primarily (because that's what they're seeing when the book with me) and the ceremony/audio.

Do you mind sharing what it costs you to outsource your footage cleanup? You can PM me if you prefer.

[Christian Nachtrieb]

Hey Max,

Our package changed from being a ~45 min. "cinematic" edit, down to something in the 8-15 min. range. In addition, what we did back in the day was give them full edits of the ceremony and speeches. Now, our editor does that longer form cleaned up doc. edit. We pay between $400-$500 per, and it usually takes them between 9-11 hours, depending on if there's rehearsal dinners or anything added.

[Max Palmer]

That's very help, and good to know. Thanks!

[Travis Heberling]

I have been doing a short film as the selling point of the package, but then I also take the best moments of the short film and edit it together with the full ceremony and full reception....and maybe sprinkle in some more bridal preparation/dancing footage.

[Max Palmer]

How did you guys go about finding someone good and reliable to offload editing to?

[Christian Nachtrieb]

Originally Posted by Max Palmer

How did you guys go about finding someone good and reliable to offload editing to?

Took awhile, but we eventually found someone who was a referral from a past producer I worked with. They had edited weddings a bunch in the past but the work wasn't anything great, so they didn't enjoy it much. Like anything, you get what you pay for, they've been loyal to us and doing solid work for some time, and we'll continually use them and soon bring them on full time, salaried.