Kids eh!
 

So yesterday's wedding was outdoors in a wooded area - lots of wind noise in the trees - I had a H1 on the 'top table' with dead cat on and my Rode videomic on a handycam pretty close to the action but was really relying on the groom's lav mic for good audio of him/bride/registrar....

Well unfortunately as soon as the ceremony started their 2 year old kicked off big time screaming and carrying on so the groom picked her up - now I'm at the front on the groom's side with my main cam so instead of his profile I now get the red face of this screaming kid for the duration, also the kid's body was up against the lav mic which resulted in largely crap audio :(

I sneaked over and inched the H1 as close as possible but it's not the best audio I've had to work with!

Should I have tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to pass his kid to someone else as it him picking it up was having no effect, yet was killing the ceremony part of his video ;)

Pete

Re: Kids eh!
 

That's a bugger Pete ... I had one where the groom also picked up the kid but at least he didn't yell and scream but he was quite fascinated with the lav and started playing with it.

Once the wedding is ongoing it's pretty hard to communicate with the groom in sign language and convince him to put the kid down. Our officiants here use a PA system for outdoor weddings so apart from the lav on the groom I also have a stand in front of the PA speaker as a backup (hopefully the kid wouldn't be able to grab that mic??)

All in all it's what happened on the day and nothing you can do about it now except use the recorder audio and give them the real McCoy stuff with the kid yelling all included!!

I could see myself in that scenario making frantic hand movements to the groom to try and tell him to put the kid down ... what else can you do in the middle of a ceremony???

Re: Kids eh!
 

I long ago stopped worrying about those sort of things. It is their kid, and at that particular moment they would have been more concerned about the kid than the video. It happened and you recorded it, plus you have the other audio. It might not be TV quality audio, but it will still be audio. Things happen at weddings that spoil what we are doing, but it's not about us, it's about them.

You are not the only one who had problems yesterday, I had one Panny video cam and the Lumix FZ200 on my tripod with the Panny doing most of the main close up footage. The other Panny was clamped the other side of the aisle for a wider view and different angle. I used a remote to turn it on as the Bride entered the church. Unfortunately, the remote also stopped the main Panny at the same time and being proccupied with following the groom's reaction on the Lumix, I completely failed to notice. I carried on taking some great closeups and medium shots with the Panny, until just before the vows I realised that there was no recording indicator. A cold hand gripped my heart, but at least I got the vows onwards. I looked today and had some good cutaways and closeups with the Lumix and fortunately the other Panny was in exactly the right place to get the full bridal party. Some careful zooming on the edit and cutaways should save the day.

As I said earlier, things happen at weddings and you just have to shrug your shoulders and get on with it.

Roger

Re: Kids eh!
 

Reminds me of a Baptism I did a number of years ago - a beautiful little girl (who up to the start of the ceremony had been perfectly well behaved, and was again after) and she screamed the whole way through the ceremony. I think I ended up subtitling the whole event as there was no chance of hearing any of the adults!

Re: Kids eh!
 

I just had to look on as my only really decent audio source for the vows was disappearing down the toilet in front of my eyes! what makes it worse is that not only was her body blocking my lav mic but she was screaming throughout - seriously someone should have taken her away to calm down IMO and to cap it off when the best man came out to deliver the rings he just stayed there with his back blocking my shot - had to scoot around the back of the registrar with a handycam and do that bit hand held - what a day!

Re: Kids eh!
 

I know those little screamers all to well, often a result of bad parenting, I have had my share of attention seeking little buggers screaming at the top of their longs so everyone was clear it was all about them and not their parents. Sometimes they take these kids outside of church if they continue to scream because they can be very disruptive but it also often happens they just let them be. I have had one occasion of a priest that stopped the ceremony to ask to pls remove a child because he couldn't hear himself speak :)

I honestly would not worry about it, it's not your fault when the kid ruins your audio.

Re: Kids eh!
 

It's not your fault Peter, it happens. The parents may or may not understand. The biggest loss from my perspective is the ability to make a video that will sell other people on the idea of having a video done themselves (friends and family). If anything, this could put them off video altogether whereas before they may have had one.

A couple of years ago I had a cancellation for exactly this reason, the couple went to a wedding where the kids screamed and the video was ruined.

Hopefully you can work something out.

Re: Kids eh!
 

For me, it goes further than hampering your video. It actually has a negative impact on their actual real life ceremony.

I hate the idea that anyone us stuck or locked in to a time line. Why is it so ridiculous for the groom or the bride or the officiant to just hit pause, attempt to cheer the kid up and then continue on.

It's not only poor video footage for you, it's terribly unromantic for them!

Re: Kids eh!
 

I filmed a wedding last year where a very similar situation arose with the couple's young daughter. She ran up crying to the Bride to be picked up and wouldn't take no for an answer. After about half a minute, the Bride very calmly said to the Vicar that she was going to reassure her daughter that everything was fine and would continue with the service when the little girl had calmed down. After a couple of minutes of reassurance, the little girl was very happy to hold Mum's hand quietly for the next 10 minutes of the ceremony, then got bored and trotted off to Gran to play with her doll. All very intelligently handled in my opinion.

Roger

Re: Kids eh!
 

You would think that the ceremony could be halted while the couple sorted out the child issue! We have a string of venues here alongside the river and they also happen to be on the airport flight path. Our celebrants will actually halt the ceremony while the aircraft goes over and then continues once it's quiet again. It commonplace here otherwise vows would be drowned out by engine noise. I'm sure if there was a screaming kid involved they would also halt the ceremony so the child could be taken care of.

Re: Kids eh!
 

Same happened to me Pete in the lake district last year, in the end i just used the zoom h1 on the table and hoped for the best after sprucing it up in post, the lav mic on lapel was useless as the kid was playing with it. I did warn her the kid had ruined the audio i set up and she understood and that's why its in m y service agreement with those issues. Steve

Re: Kids eh!
 

Same here Steve - It's covered in my T&Cs - I once had a groom who had hay fever and sniffled the entire time, his wife got in touch and asked If I could edit them all out!!!

I also once had a bride get in touch and ask that a (very feint) ambulance passing sound was removed - when I told her that would cost £XXX she said it was ok and not to bother!

Pete

Re: Kids eh!
 

Ha ha brings back memories, jeez the things we go through.