Where have all the wedding videographers gone?

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by James Manford

Something I discovered the other day reading a few posts on a facebook group .... there are many so called "pro's" who hire equipment a day before the wedding.

So all year around they don't have professional gear to play with, they just hire them before an event and just shoot on 'Auto'

There can be good reasons for hiring gear a day before the wedding & it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have any pro gear the rest of the year e.g. a backup camera body or two &/or extra lenses.

[Danny O'Neill]

The market has become saturated for sure and as our graphs show the actual number of weddings has gone down and continues to slide. So just means more competition. This must how the photographers have always felt :)

Hopefully this latest economic blip will thin the herd a bit.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Danny O'Neill

The market has become saturated for sure and as our graphs show the actual number of weddings has gone down and continues to slide. So just means more competition. This must how the photographers have always felt :)

Back in the days of film you had to be relatively skilled to take photographs. Now anyone can take halfways decent photos due to the dumbing down of photography (or democratisation of photography depending on your point of view). At least editing will always remain a major hurdle to the complete dumbing down of video.

[David Barnett]

Personally I think photography has become more saturated than video. I've seen alot of photogs who are almost more like 'friends/guests' shoot the wedding, moreso in an effort to get a port going. They claim to be pro's, but seeing them go thru the day its just spray & pray for some or trying too hard to get that photo for their port (had a photog send a bridal party out in 0 degree weather, wanted to take family photos outdoors too, I kinda recommended against it as we cannot send Grandmom outside). Then just color correct in lightroom using instagram style filters & effects.


While I admit photography is a skill set thru the day, and more leadership & posing of people, I feel video is a harder/more labor intensive day.. Carrying bags, tripods etc. Also, if there are any startups renting gear or new to it, they likely become overwhelmed at the amount of post production/editing it takes. And suddenly the $700 or $1000 they charged becomes alot less per hour. Add in the fact good editing takes a bit of talent & practice, and they're likely delivering a pretty shoddy final edit, it doesn't surprise me if many bail out.

As for quitting, how could someone not complete out their weddings? I could maybe understand if you had one way out (Fall 2019), and asked if they'd accept a refund and looking elsewhere, but I'd still feel obligated to shoot it if they didn't want to switch. I couldn't just say "I'm out of business", that's weak. (I get it when large national chains close like that, they can't continue to pay their staff. A few wedding dress companies have done that now & then. But not a 1 man show.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Danny O'Neill

Blog post is finally up.

I"m not sure if appearing on the first page in google is that important for a videographer, a lot of my work is a result of photographer referrals so I find it more important to make good friends with most photographers I work together with. I say "most" for a reason because sometimes there are photogs I rather not work with again. I think it's rare that there is no photographer at a wedding but from what I hear from them maybe 2 out of 10 weddings they see a videographer so they can play a key role in assuring you get enough bookings every year.

[Danny O'Neill]

Originally Posted by David Barnett

As for quitting, how could someone not complete out their weddings? I could maybe understand if you had one way out (Fall 2019), and asked if they'd accept a refund and looking elsewhere, but I'd still feel obligated to shoot it if they didn't want to switch. I couldn't just say "I'm out of business", that's weak. (I get it when large national chains close like that, they can't continue to pay their staff. A few wedding dress companies have done that now & then. But not a 1 man show.

I would imagine they've realised they had to go out and get a day job and either could no longer have that and the weddings or just thought "F' it!"

[Chris Harding]

Weddings haven't really dropped that much here in Australia but they have most decidedly gone from lavish $40K affairs to $10K to $15K which has affected a lot of the fancier higher priced venues. Brides seem to looking a lot more for caterers and halls rather than dedicated wedding venues.

On the video side there seems to be a huge increase in videographers and photographers .. mostly female that have done a uni media course and offering crazy stuff like full wedding photo and video for under $999 and they seem to pop up on Facebook Groups on a daily basis so there really must be a LOT of them out there without work!!!

I wonder if they are shooting on auto and just transferring images from card to USB? or are they doing full image editing and working for peanuts? I must admit I have seen them at weddings with just one entry level camera, cheap Thailand made kit lens and rely on the pop up flash!

[Danny O'Neill]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I"m not sure if appearing on the first page in google is that important for a videographer, a lot of my work is a result of photographer referrals so I find it more important to make good friends with most photographers I work together with. I say "most" for a reason because sometimes there are photogs I rather not work with again. I think it's rare that there is no photographer at a wedding but from what I hear from them maybe 2 out of 10 weddings they see a videographer so they can play a key role in assuring you get enough bookings every year.

The importance of page 1 depends on your marketing and referal source. Our no1 source has always been photographers. But as their work has been dropping and becoming more competitive then that source has also fallen off for us.

Most photographers we work with have all said the same thing. The past 2 years now they have seen a 30-40% drop in bookings. Thats 30-40% less to refer to us.

For us we like to have a number of lead sources. A friendly dj,lighting and production crew we know reminds us of the perils of putting all eggs in one basket after their regular venue which gave them 80% of their yearly work decided to start taking commission and without even giving them the chance went with another DJ. He was in such a pickle.

The only graph we didnt include on our blog post was the search patterns for wedding videographer. THis is the ONLY wedding related supplier which actually has had an increase in traffic over the past 5 years.

[Roger Gunkel]

I know I have mentioned this before on past threads, but we still find wedding shows give us a constant flow of bookings. We avoid the big expensive shows as they have sometimes 100s of stands and thousands of visitor. That sounds great in theory, but if you are selling dresses or supplying suits you can take many orders, but videography and photography only allow for a limited number of bookings and the cost of the big shows make them uneconomic for us. We also find them just an impersonal leaflet collecting exercise for many visitors.

We rely on the smaller shows with generally 30-50 exhibitors and much more affordable.There are less visitors, but they have more time to talk and are much more likely to remember us. We also rely on very friendly and non selling conversation with visitors which seems to go down well and encourages them to talk longer. Many of the visitors are interested in the venue that is holding the show, so we try to show a wedding that we have filmed there to encourage conversation. It also means that the venue send visitors to our stand so that they can see a real wedding at the venue.

Sunday just gone was a good example, with the show being only £40 at a local golf club. It is way cheaper than any other we would usually do, but being local was worth trying. It was well run, visitors were slow but steady, but we had a lot of long conversations with couples. As of this morning, we have already taken 5 bookings from it which is amazing.

We also keep a blog on Facebook of clients we have visited, reports on our shows and of course updates on weddings we have filmed. It has been very popular with Brides, who particularly love waiting for the 20 or so pre delivery stills that we post. Our wedding page has brought us a steady flow of work and seems to be increasing gradually.

Roger

[Chris Harding]

Hi Roger

Glad things are going well for you guys when others around you seem to have suffered massive drop offs in business. I have seen many, many new "wedding expos" spring up lately (even over Winter) and it seems all seem to realise it's easy money for business starved wedding vendors. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these expo organisers are even ex-wedding vendors who have decided having a few expos a year is a lot less work than actually being a vendor. Shows obviously work for your market and then others rely on other vendors like photographers (I have found that so many photogs here are also offering video as well so that wouldn't be a good source for us) We do get work however from wedding celebrants as they are normally the first point of contact for a bride but I guess the UK is still more traditional and the couple have a Church wedding?

[Chris Harding]

Just going on the theme of this topic I have noticed that some photographers have either closed up shop or are turning to other adventures. I have worked with a great (and very expensive) photographer a couple of times and then he sort of vanished into thin air and I never ran into him at all at weddings. I found out a week ago that instead of doing weddings he now just does landscapes and then also hosts "learn photography" day sessions at a nice venue ... To come to think of it, it's not a bad way to put a few pennies in the jar either. He normally has 12 camera enthusiasts per session and charges $59.00 for a couple of hours wandering around a nice venue. (the event is mid-morning so the participants get lunch from the venue so I'm sure he doesn't get charged to use the venue ... "I bring you 12 lunch clients and you let them take photos in your gardens"

What would you do if the wedding video market got to the point where brides were booking cheap videographers that used cell phones and it just wasn't worth your while to continue? Would you still keep with video and do something else??

[Steve Burkett]

I don't think Chris we need to worry too much about cell phone Videographers. Most who enter this craft will be using mirrorless or DSLR to film. In short we love our toys too much to settle for a phone. Those who do are simply looking for a gimmick to be different, but if it became commonplace, it's no longer a novelty item to sell. I clasify phone Videographers with those who also film some stuff on super 8 film. It's a little bonus extra. But requires too much work to be viable in the long-term for vast majority of footage filmed.

Most newbies who come in offer only Highlights videos. They see a good return for a short, easy marketable video that earns them kudos online because keeping it short means the quality can be reasonably high. However there are too many clients wanting something a lot longer and I can't see a drop in clients for me until the newbies stop chasing the Cinematic videos and embrace the longer documentary edit.

However as longer edits can mean more footage and longer hours to edit, and a finished video they can't always post online and earn respect from their fellow Videographers, it's not something I expect many new to the industry will choose to do.

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Steve Burkett

I don't think Chris we need to worry too much about cell phone Videographers. Most who enter this craft will be using mirrorless or DSLR to film. In short we love our toys too much to settle for a phone. Those who do are simply looking for a gimmick to be different, but if it became commonplace, it's no longer a novelty item to sell. I clasify phone Videographers with those who also film some stuff on super 8 film. It's a little bonus extra. But requires too much work to be viable in the long-term for vast majority of footage filmed.

Most newbies who come in offer only Highlights videos. They see a good return for a short, easy marketable video that earns them kudos online because keeping it short means the quality can be reasonably high. However there are too many clients wanting something a lot longer and I can't see a drop in clients for me until the newbies stop chasing the Cinematic videos and embrace the longer documentary edit.

However as longer edits can mean more footage and longer hours to edit, and a finished video they can't always post online and earn respect from their fellow Videographers, it's not something I expect many new to the industry will choose to do.

I totally agree with this Steve!.

I delivered a video last week to a couple who booked early last year. They had completely forgotten that we supplied documentary video and had seen a number of recent friend's wedding videos that were cinematic short form. They were totally delighted that we had captured the whole day and remarked at how envious their friends would be.

Roger

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Guys

I actually find the trend quite amusing. In the past all we ever did was film documentary style on "proper" video cameras and covered the entire day then along came the first video capable DSLR's and the so-called "war" began and actually became quite heated if you remember and the in thing was to supply cinematic videos ... short and set to music and we struggled with crazy camera shoot limits as short as 12 minutes on Canon which made editing a mammoth task. It seems that everything has done the full circle now and the full day coverage is back in vogue and appreciated by brides too so those that are producing only a short cinematic highlight of the complete day will probably fade into the background.

[Hakob Hakobyan]

From my perspective as I have been getting busier and busier with work I have less time to post on any social media and forums and in fact anywhere else for that matter.
Just the reality.