Just a quick question, how much time do you give your clients, both in terms of shooting time and the duration of the final DVD production.

Generally I give the client the option of my whole day, although often I will only be required one or two hours before the start of the ceremony - just for the make up and preparation shots. I stay to cover the speeches and first dance and maybe a few extra shots after that. I may spend one or two days editing finally I give the client two copies of a 60 to 90 minute DVD. SD format - Haven't been asked for Blu-Ray as yet, but everything is shot in Full HD (1080p)

Anyone else have any alternative shooting editing ideas?

Hi Vincent

Much the same for me ..the onlt real variable is the speeches on long form ...if you happen to have a full blown Catholic ceremony and then speeches that go on and on it can easily make it to 120 mins..my DVD sets add up normally to between 60 and 100 minutes. It's not often where I fill a 16GB card on each camera and need a third so on average I probably shoot around 2 odd hours of raw footage

Chris

Same here, about 60 to 90 minutes, as Chris points out a lot depends on the length of the speeches. With very long speeches, such as the Irish wedding I shot last year, 1 hour 20 minutes!!!!! I edit the speeches down on the main DVD and supply a second DVD titled Speeches uncut

I never tell the bride and groom the 'final' length of a documentary style DVD (as the even hasn't been shot yet, and there are too many variables). I do give a range (45-90 minutes typically). I know that a full-mass wedding with a bridal party of 14 will be a longer final video than an outdoor wedding of 80 guests. It's rare that you'll get tons of long speeches from a smaller wedding. That being said, I also put in my contract that hours of attendance DO NOT equal hours of footage. I do my best to bring this up during the consultation as well. Some couples think that 8 hours of coverage equates to 8 hours of raw footage. Then they would be sorely disappointed with 30 minute final edit if that wasn't their expectation. My analogy is this: if we recorded 8 hours at an 8 hour day, you'd be looking at a security camera.

This also helps avoid trouble with certain cultures that expect everything to be documented (even the parts we consider inconsequential). If I sense hesitation or pushback, then I gently explain that I might not be the ideal choice for their event.

It's actually quite important to know however, that most Middle Eastern cultures DO require the entire event to be filmed and you dare not leave anything out either. When they want the reception covered from 6pm to midnight, they expect to have a neat stack of DVD's covering from start to finish..sorta CCTV footage. I don't do those at all as I shoot solo and I couldn't imagine doing a non stop shoot for 6 hours!

My reception DVD basically consists of a video guest book during pre-dinner drinks, bridal entry, speeches in full, cake and first dance and then I normally do a maximum of dancing to 3 songs and finally the farewell circle and arch and the limo driving off into the night. I would say 99% of brides (excluding the cultures above, are more than happy with that sort of coverage) ... It's more important to tell the bride what you are going to cover rather than how long it is...I doubt whether she will time it with a stop watch!!!

Chris

Thank you all for sharing your suggestions. Although I have covered many weddings over the years as both a stills photographer and over the last ten years with video, I had a wedding on yesterday and for some reason I started to doubt myself, perhaps losing confidence - this was my first wedding since last August (2011)..Weddings are not my main source of income and I do not advertise, I only do it on recommendations etc.

The job went OK and I needn't have been so worked up. Started at 1.pm and finished at 11.pm, shot enough material for a 75 minute DVD, without any overkill.

The one thing that I had forgotten was just how much of a pain the stills photographer can be (X2) They just dominated the entire photo call and when I wanted to shoot the bride and groom walking, the photographer told me to be quick as he had more shots to do. I told him in where to go in a very clear manner. After that I just grabbed the bride and groom when I wanted to do my shots. I wasn't too happy with this part of the day.

I will start editing the footage on Monday.

Hi Vincent

We have all "been there and done that" ..What I do is give the photog the entire shoot to himself BUT before he starts I take the couple on a 15 minute stedicam shoot and then he has them until the reception..they seem to like to be in control and they appreciate the way I do it. Works very well!!

Chris

Thanks for that tip Chris, I will bear it in mind on my next shoot. I did get some nice footage of the couple walking which will look good in slow motion together with some tear jerking music.

On the whole I did get a lot of good footage throughout the day, it's just when you get a superb location that you want to do more.

Shooting - At least 6 hours (3pm to 9pm). Covers the wedding in the afternoon, reception at night. Sometimes, until midnight if they dance all night long.

Pretty much stick with them until they leave because I can't get them departing until they leave. I know others leave prior, but I hate to do that because they often get worked up when something fun happens and no ones around to record it. Plus, wedding's not over in my book until they leave.

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DVD length is typically 1:30hrs. 30 minutes to wedding ceremony. 30 minutes for speeches. 30 minutes for photos, reception, dancing, etc.

Length has gone longer if there's more material, Catholic mass wedding, etc., but if it pushes 2 hours+, it'll have to be mastered to DVD+R/DL discs because of the quality issues.
(Not quite enough bandwidth at 2 hours for my tastes, just about borderline at 1:30 hours on single layer DVDs.)

I also wonder if anyone has done any research on how much material the wedding couple actually want. My own opinion is that 1 hour is more than sufficient, this includes edited highlights of the ceremony and possibly speeches. Generally the service includes one verse of each Hymn the complete vows, and an edited version of the sermon which always seems to go on for too long. I try to include video messages from many of the guests including the parents, best man, bridesmaids and grandparents whenever possible.

Hi Vincent,

We only offer all day coverage which usually commences with the preps and ends after the first dance and a bit of bum wiggling. Sometimes we can be there until 2am when everything finally ends.

Our full film is around 16-20 minutes long (you can find a full film on our blog).

I also wonder if anyone has done any research on how much material the wedding couple actually want.
If you ask most people what they want they will want 6 hours for as little as possible. Because more is better right? We used to do the 90 minute feature but quickly grew to hate producing it. Also, it was what everyone else was doing so what was the point in trying to just do the same old thing. We now find the short form edit to be much better for us. A lot of our couples come to us because its just what they want, the ones who come in thinking they want something longer walk away sold on the idea of a shorter edit after we show them an example or two.

Done right a short edit contains no less coverage or content than a longer edit. Think about this. When you watch a movie on the big screen involving a wedding do you see 90 minutes? Often the entire wedding day is over within 5 minutes. The ceremony consists of "Do you, I do, heres a ring, have a kiss, WOOOO!" and done. A catholic ceremony with full mass will usually be around 70-90 seconds in one of our edits.

The one thing that I had forgotten was just how much of a pain the stills photographer can be (X2) They just dominated the entire photo call and when I wanted to shoot the bride and groom walking
Consider another way of thinking. You want to film the couple during the photo shoot but why not let the photographer cover that part of the day? Do the couple really need the stills AND a video of the same thing? Often couples are being posed and on photo that looks great, but video we found it often feels awkward. So we spin it that while they are having their groups and couples stuff done we will be doing something better, filming their guests enjoying cocktail hour, kids playing, adults drinking and having a laugh. Let the photographer have his moment. When we ask photographers how many weddings have a video its often 1 in 10. They just arnt used to having anyone around and they often find it hard to adjust their routine to accomodate anyone else (although the good ones have no issues whatsoever). So we made the decision to let them do their thing and we do ours.

Interesting that your final production time is 16 to 20 minutes, it must take a lot of courage to tell the couple that they will get that duration for the fee. Of course it may depend on how much is being charged, I would assume that if you are there for a full day coverage then the fee must be excess of £1000 +.

I put chapter points on all my productions so they can skip through sections. I have also started to include a shorter version (same version but with complex chapter points which skip though to defined chapters)

I had a look at your blog and thought you put together some excellent footage which I am sure would have pleased your clients.

I forgot to mention on the blu-ray bit. Do you currently offer BD? If not then that will be why one one has asked for it.

We include BD for nothing extra and 80% of our clients take it. Even if they don't have a player they like one for when they do.

I put chapter points on all my productions so they can skip through sections.
This is why we do the shorter edit. When you watch your favourite movie do you skip bits? There shouldn't be anything to skip.

To get started with shorter edits just take one of your regular edits and cut it down to how YOU think it should be. Show what you want people to see. Make the ceremony as long as you like, cut out anything you feel you would skip. Then show it to future clients and see what they think.

If you show them a long edit as an example then that is what they will want.

Our shorter edits start from £2,495+

This is why we do the shorter edit. When you watch your favourite movie do you skip bits? There shouldn't be anything to skip.

Point taken, I guess maybe I am thinking too retro. Personally I feel that a 1 hour production is the minimum that should be offered.

Does anyone else offer a 20-30-40-50 or 60 minute production? Maybe we should provide time packages instead of the corny "Platinum, Gold, Silver, Deluxe, Superior Deluxe services" etc.

I've been offering 10-20 minuteish edited tight videos, with the ability to add the full ceremony, dances, speeches, etc onto a bonus disc for the couple. It just saves so much editing and shooting hassle, and it's a lot easier to have fun shooting when you don't have to be paranoid about being running constantly.

Example : Nathan And Alllison - A True Love Story - Wedding 2012 - YouTube

Our full film is around 16-20 minutes long (you can find a full film on our blog).Danny, I thought that you also included the full ceremony & speeches as separate chapters on the disc? or do you now literally deliver only a single 16-20 minute film as the only video on a Blu-ray disc?

Extra disk with ceremony and speeches in full but lightly edited. It's litterly the rough multicam edit on a disk. Only one copy and it keeps the parents happy and gives us creative freedom. I don't think anyone has ever actually watched that disk :)

Some couples opt to have all the raw footage instead of the extra disk. It's their choice.

We offer a multitude of choices from a 90 min doc style video to a 20-30 min short form style. You can get a package that has both also. I have found that a lot of people still want a long form video which is the reason why we still offer them. Of course in a perfect world they would have both but that is not always in the budget for most couples. I don't think there is one perfect answer, everyone wants something different which is why offering choices seems to work best for us. A quick word about Blu-Ray... we have been including it with every package for a couple years now. I think this day in age it should not be an upsell it should be a given. Most of our clients have a blu-ray player now. If they don't most will go buy one as cheap as they are. We of course offer dvd copies as well but always make sure they have a blu-ray copy wether they can play it now or not.

Extra disk with ceremony and speeches in full but lightly edited. It's litterly the rough multicam edit on a disk. Only one copy and it keeps the parents happy and gives us creative freedom. I don't think anyone has ever actually watched that disk :)

Some couples opt to have all the raw footage instead of the extra disk. It's their choice.I don't think that any couple is going to be happy with just a 16-20 minute short & literally nothing else when they know that you have been there shooting video all day with multiple cameras. Just as photographers will deliver an album with just 40 stunning images (their 'short form') they also deliver a disc containing 300-600 images that were taken throughout the day.

I think you have hit the nail on the head Nigel, I don't think I could stand in front of a couple and tell them that they will get a DVD with 16-20 minutes of footage for their special day.

Last year I was flown out to Zurich to cover a wedding, I started at 7.30 am (grooms wedding breakfast at a coffee house) and finished the entire day at 3.30am (reception.etc.) I only stopped filming because I had run out of storage media. I can't begin to imagine what they would have said if I gave them a 20 minute production, the end result was a 2 hour DVD. The groom also asked if I could produce a set of DVDs with everything that was shot. This was un-edited footage which I embedded with a time-code overlay. Needless to say the couple were very pleased with the product and as a result I have shot two .weddings on the back of this. Having said all this, it did take a long time to edit the material.

I have looked at Danny's video (Andrew & Jessica) and technically it is excellent, however I have also noted that there is a lot of ambient fill in material - scene setting etc. At first I felt that the content was self indulgent with creative shots of scenery, but after watching the entire 20 minutes I couldn't help agreeing that 20 minutes was more than enough. The spirit of the wedding was beautifully captured without going Over The Top. I can imagine that this video will be played many times to friends and family without their audience dropping off to sleep. I wonder how many times my two hour production would be watched.

Maybe it is time for us all to re-think how we do things.

Nigel, I have also worked with photographers who give the couple a CD/DVD of images and never understood why anyone would want 600-1000 photos. I like the printed photo album book that are now so popular. I think Danny's 16-20 minute concept is to produce a video that is the equivalent of the coffee table photo album.

The album of wedding photographs is what is traditional from the days of film. Old school wedding photographers would rigidly pose the couple & their guests & shoot 2-3 rolls of medium format (24-36 photos) & every image would be printed & delivered in the album. With the advent of digital cameras has come the trend for reportage or photojournalistic style of wedding photography because it costs nothing to shoot 200 or 400 or 1000 images. Most photographers do sort & process those hundreds of images to a greater or lesser degree. Some photographers particularly at the budget end of the market just deliver on disc but if the couple can afford it some of the albums are absolutely beautiful. Peter Riding of this parish has some lovely examples on his website wedding albums and photo books by ashton lamont professional photographers (http://www.ashtonlamont.co.uk/albums/index.html) The advantage that photographers have always had versus videographers is being able to deliver a desirable artefact (the album) that gives people the feeling that they got something for their money. No matter how nicely you package up a DVD or Blu-ray it will never have the same impact as a hand-tooled leather album with glossy pages as thick & stiff as plywood.

I agree with you about a beautifully presented album v DVD case. However, the video itself brings everything to life, add a good music track and supply a box of tissues and you have an unbeatable combination.