Indian Weddings
 

What is your history with Indian couples?

I just had a meeting with one couple that took 3 hours! My longest ever. They asked me questions that I had never answered before.

Their main concern is that I have never done an Indian/Pakistani wedding before so they are hesitant. But I offered them 40% OFF my package because I didnt have any experience. Seems like they really like the price but are unsure if they want to book me.

Apparently the colours are so loud at an Indian wedding that it's pointless micing anyone.

My experience:

#1- Indians couples are some of the best people to work with and well worth any extra time. They're great people.

#2- Quality is the absolute most important item on your agenda. Not time or price, but a quality product. If you deliver that, they'll be very happy.

#3- The ceremonies have key elements that you can't miss, but the bulk of the ceremony is non-essential stuff. When it's edited down the key moments are more entertaining than a normal wedding so you should enjoy the edit.

Those are my observations. Now this is my tip: If you have no experience with one, hire a second camera operator who does. Pay a good rate and get someone who knows their way around an event like that. In your case, I know that Don Bloom is up in your neck of the woods and you should contact him, or someone else who's had experience shooting an Indian wedding. That will free you up to learn the event and focus on keeping the client happy without stressing because you don't know the flow of the event.

Merry Christmas.

Ben

Andre,

90% of my clients are Indians. Drop me a note if u like a detailed info about the ceremony and the rituals. good luck.

Ram:

Why not post your info to help us all?

Indian ceremonies(generally speaking for multiple religions) are long and often not as tightly organized as western church weddings. There are many delays during the ceremony for various items to be setup in the center of the mandap(the alter). Audience members will loose interest and start talking 1/4 into the wedding and the ambient noise in the ceremony hall will eventually get very loud. They can run longer than 1.5hours. Even shooting with miniDV in LP mode, tape management is crucial.

The family members of the couple will want you to get shots of as many guests as possible - edit them into your video accordingly based on your style.

There will often be dance performances during the reception. You might be pressed for space to cover the whole dance floor if your lens is not wide enough.

good points.
Also generally the night before the families have a dinner and dance for about 3 hours. There might be an Indian band that plays and may or maynot have an audio board and speakers.
For the ceremony don't waste time micing the groom-the only one that speaks is the officiant and when the B&G DO need to speak the officiant will hold a mic for them. Of course each one is a little different but the ones I've done this is how it's worked.
There are a couple of things during the ceremony that are extremely important to capture. One is the 7 steps, they other is when the groom gives the food to the bride. The point about the guests talking during the ceremony is very true. It's really a big social event and people will come and go as they please. Oh yeah, another really important shot is when the bride enters, the groom has a drape in front of him and it's lowered after the bride gets onto the altar. That's when he sees her for the first time.
There is also a ceremony for the groom before the wedding. He rides a horse to the ceremony and all the guests and family that are there follow and dance dance dance. It's really a fun part of the event.
The best thing I can recommend is to have at least 2 shooters. You can cover with 2 3 is better and 4 would be great. Each shooter would have to have a shot list before the event of course. One stays tight on the B&G, one takes a wide shot of the altar, ETC. Also, you can pretty much go whereever you want for the ceremony. One we did, we had 1 guy up front of too the side, one did a wide overall shot, 2 in the center aisle with one tight on the B&G and the other wider BUT the last one we did there were only 2 of us and as long as 1 was on the altar or B&G the other could get cut aways.
Indian weddings can be a lot of work but can also be alot of fun.
Some ceremonies can be close to 2 hours and some can be a lot less, it depends on the couple.
Don

Thanks for all the comments.

I just booked with the B&G not too long ago.

Its going to be a 2 cam/ 2 person shoot.

Since this is my first time at an indian wedding the bride and I are going to meet up one month prior to the wedding date and going over the ceremony in detail.

One question, usually during the day, these types of weddings have a 3-4 hour break (after the ceremony and lunch). For those of you who charge your packages by set hours (not all day), do you count these down time hours?

I don't book by the hours-I specify a start time and an end time depending on the event and price accordingly so if there's a long break (the last one we has almost 4 hours-went back to my hotel room and took a nice nap) that's already been figured in. There are weddings that literally have no time between and some can have up to 6 hours between. I know this before pricing and figure it all in to my pricing.
Don

I also find pricing by the hour to be extremely tricky, if not impossible.

My goal of any project is to do as good a job as possible and of course achieve that within reason.

If I haven't captured "That shot" before the end of the night, I'll stay a bit longer to try and find it. It's simply not worth it to leave on the dot and limit the potential of my project later on in the editing room.

Take a break during the gap after the ceremony. Be glad that they're not asking you to tag alone and cover some religious ceremony that some families perform after the ceremony.

Obviously there are cultural differences from the usual, white American wedding. Anytime I have worked an Indian and Pakistani wedding it has been about quantity over quality. Not that they didn't want quality, but they seemed most concerned about receiving every second of raw, unedited footage as possible. Every single time it has been this way for me.

Also, there is alot more work to do, and alot more expected than my usual wedding. The days are longer, there are more mini-traditions, etc.

Another major difference is that many seem to have a video camera and are very in-your-face and informal about stepping just about anywhere, including in front of you during a ceremony, or right next to the couple in the staging area.

I thoroughly enjoy the cultural traditions and people of India and Pakistan. They have beautiful weddings with amazing colors, food, and people. However, the only way in hell I will shoot one these days is to charge more than I would for a normal wedding. It is always twice as much work and twice as much editing.

I totally agree...

or charge the white ones as much as u would the indian ones! :)

I predict you will kick yourself for giving them 40% off. You will have great footage as their weddings are beautiful, but it will be more work than any wedding you've ever done.

One word of advise, Have a lot of tapes on hand, they are more interested in having every possible second on film.

YES, VERY TRUE

So I booked this wedding and the bride was concerned how much tapes they would get because in a meeting with another videographer, they were told for 12 hrs of footage, with two cameras, which is 24 hrs, they would only get agout 8 hours total of raw.

The bride got scared and this became her primary topic. So she wanted at least 20 hrs of raw tape because her package is also a 2 cam one.

I myself avg 4 tapes per wedding ( Usually 2 cam ceremony and 1 cam the rest)

So im just gona tell my assistan to never hit pause cuz ther will be no way of having 20 hr of quality footage.