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Shooting non-repeatable events: weddings, recitals, plays, performances...

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Old June 25th, 2007, 01:14 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by Jason Robinson View Post
Holy crap. Since we work the same town let me know her name and I'll be sure to avoid her when the second marriage comes around. :-)

Jason

EDIT: Wooooo 400 posts!
Honestly I don't remember her name (I'm not the best with names). But if I ever saw her face again . . . .
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Old June 25th, 2007, 10:24 PM   #17
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Ok, these posts are making me ill. I've only recently gotten into this business. I just shot my 4th wedding (2nd paid) last weekend, and it went over very well. But WHAT THE F@#$. If someone starts hand cranking me, I would be compelled to start finger cranking back.

I got into this biz because 1. It's fun ( I think), 2. It pays for my expensive equipment habits. 3. It's something interesting to do. My other job pays very well, but my X gets half of that, oh and it's generally boring.

What totally chaps me, is that video is like 10X more labor intensive, more creative, and difficult to produce. I mean, we have to run live camera, worry about audio, having a constant stream of images, make it interesting, worry about music syncing and copyright concerns et al. It's more technical. I have to edit with NLE's, master DVDs, worry about color matching between cameras, presets, wireless audio cut-outs, lighting and exposure issues, and hope the whole things turns out. After all that, we get second billing to stillies?

Frustrating....
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Old July 2nd, 2007, 11:30 AM   #18
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Originally Posted by Travis Cossel View Post
Anyways, that was probably my worst wedding story. I highly doubt I'll ever "cover" for a fellow videographer again.
I think that every wedding videographer who has been in the business for a while can tell a horror story, so far I didn’t have any problems with my Belgian clients (Knock on wood). I think the reason for that is that I am very well familiar with Belgian tradition in regard to weddings and the 30-50 minutes wedding movie I deliver is what people expect to get, only when tradition changes I have noticed that this can lead to more horrorstories. :)

What I mean with that is if I have to work for a client from another country, last year I had a Serbian/Egyptian wedding (Hope I spelled that right) in Belgium, the bride was very specific in her demands. The weddingmovie had to be at least 4 hours long and divided over 4 different dvd’s which all had to fit in one dvd cover. Normally I never make such long movies but thought that it would be interesting to do..… I spend a lot of time writing all the details down and she even showed me a Serbian wedding on dvd shot in Serbia so I would have a better understanding about their culture. They had a traditional dance which was very important for them to have tons of footage of that.

The wedding day I filled 6 hours of tape and was pretty confident that was more then enough make a 4hour + movie.
The day after the wedding the bride called me and said they would leave on holiday to their family in Serbia and needed the finished dvd’s latest 3 days later. During our first meeting I already had told them to expect a 2 week waitingtime and I was surprised that she suddenly changed her mind. I said this was not enough time to do it properly but she was quite persuasive and demanded that it should be ready in time and that only then she would pay me in cash. (I always have my clients pay in cash upon delivery of the finished dvd’s)

Because I was afraid to get into a lot of discussion and not getting my money I worked almost around the clock to get it done, I was a wreck 3 days later but managed to get everything finished in time. I delivered the product, I got paid and they were happy about the movie, I thought…

A month after I delivered the dvd’s she calls me again, on the weddingday in the evening they had a Serbian group performing live on the dance floor and because that took 1 full hour I had put that on a separate dvd, I made a special dvd menu for that and I thought it would be fun having a special kind of music dvd. Wrong thinking ofcourse, because I had put that on a separate dvd it was not clear were exactly it would fit into the other dvd’s, she said it was very confusing for the guests and she wanted me to redo the complete editing and place the music part in chronological order on the dvd, and not on a separate dvd.

Because this was not agreed before I told her I had to charge them per hour if I had to redo it and that it would be quite expensive, well, that was not really the answer she wanted, I had to do it for free because I made a mess out of it in the first place.

You probably can guess what happened further, I had numerous phonecalls from her were each call got more violent. She was like a pittbull and didn’t let go and I was like a rock, not intending to move an inch if she didn’t pay me in advance. :)
Her husband started to interfere at a certain point as well but he was a little bit more polite, eventually I sold them the original tapes and they would have someone in Serbia redo the editing part. When they picked up the tapes I handed the guy the invoice, he paid and ripped the invoice in small pieces in front of my nose and gave it back to me. :)

Since then I only have been doing Belgian weddings and I will think twice before accepting “another culture” weddings. Some of my best friends are from other countries, but I find it a risk working for people who have totally different traditions and expectations. If you don’t manage to get into those traditions they will surely be disappointed about the result, even if your film is technically prefect.

That’s my horrorstory, not so bad actually but thought it would be nice to share.
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Old July 2nd, 2007, 08:59 PM   #19
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Wow!! I'm known for my patience and I don't know if I could have been as cool headed as you guys. Its amazing how some people have to terrorize the person working for them. These bridezillas get on a power trip and think they're the boss of everyone. You have to imagine that most of these women have been waiting for this moment all their lives and they get frantic if anything goes wrong. The real problem is that they get so worked up they ruin their own wedding. Hopefully I don't have my own horror story anytime soon. Probably next week ;)
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