Weddings and technology
 

Hi There.

I am a journalist writing for PCWorld in Denmark specializing in digital media. And there is something about the media marked i need to clear up. I have been talking to Canopus, Matrox, Adobe, Canon, Sony the lot, and they all mention WEVA as a very big driving force behind design and feature of their products.

Now in scandinavia wedding and event videos are something that is usually done by a relative on purely ad hoc basis. It is somebody's uncle with a camera and a shaky hand. I've spoken to 50 % of the danish wedding video business (one out of two) and 80 percent of their business is non-related to weddings or other family events. Their biggest job ever was a two camera production at 1.000 USD.

So this event video business is something very foreign to us. Unfortunately I have never been i USA at a time where I had any chance of attending a wedding, so I have only the Hollywood POV. I can see from WEVA's website that it is biig business. But I would like to have a better understanding of the video marked dynamics. I would be very happy if any of you would take some time to point me towards mere information on this. If there is sources on the web, that I have missed pls. forgive me, but some googleing only gave me a lot of producers.

More precise:

What happens media-wise to a typical american wedding?
What are the typical demands by the customer?
What is considered quality in productions of this type?
How is this boiling down to demands for the equipment?
What is the economics in this event/marked?
What is the current trends/fashion?

Any information would be most appreciated and again thanks for your time.

And there is some more.
Some of the vendors would mention porn as another driving force, especially in DVD-design. But has anybody any views of that kind of technological push that this frictional business is leading to? There is some business in Denmark, but every source do an oyster-imitation, when the subject is brought up. I have no idea how working in the porn-production is regarded in the USA, but in Denmark it is considered shady business and bad reputation, so I do not expect a lot of feedback on this subject.

I can say that in Spain (not your question, I know) there is a demand for wedding videos. price approx. 500 euros, so it's a one man job, typically XL1 or PD150, on board sound and then standardised editing: lots of slo-mo imitation, b/w footage, soft filters etc. There seems to be no demand for anything more creative or elaborate.

I've done a location hunt for a British porn flick here in Spain. Great script ;-). Nobody objected when I mentioned the type of production, Spanish aren't very prude. It never materialized, unfortunately. It would have been DV (XL1s at that time).

Thanks Dan for your reply. Interesting that a event thats common worldwide takes so many forms.