Yes , But fortunately She is actually a very good Working Partner and calming influence, I am usually the one that turns into the bastard from H***,under stressful conditions.
Ahh so I miss out on a little excitement occasionally ;)

Okay, I have only done one wedding in my life, and I didn't even shoot it cause it was my sisters wedding and I was in it.
But I used four cameras (3 XL1s, and one trv900) all manned, cause I had some friends that had the cameras anyways. Anyways, long story short, I didn't regret it at all, being as all the operators were very amateur except one who was supposed to be professional, who endded up being a total twerp who thought he was the god of weddings and video. he did things like completely rearranging the chairs just before the wedding... so yeah, when it came to editing, I needed all the footage I could get, to cover up all the mistakes.


So when you shoot a wedding with one manned camera, how do you do it?
How much do you move around?

In the church or civil ceremony - not at all.
For the rest of the day I move around a Great Deal, I can tell you.

Bingo. Any time you move is footage you cannot use. So either time your movements to well thought out and planned breaks in the ceremony (like when someone gets up out of their seats to read a scripture, or when the musicians get up to play their number, etc).

If you didn't attend the rehearsal or are not VERY familiar with the order of events, then just plant yourself on the groom's side facing the bride and get lots of B-roll before & after to provide more interesting footage before and after.

One trick I did was use a still camera and capture some stills of the family sitting watching the ceremony. That way I could cut to a still if something catastrophic happened to the video footage (like a big bump, or someone standing up in front, etc).

Many people here frown on the use of stills in a wedding video, but if you are doing a single camera shoot, then it probably already is a rock bottom priced package so you might as well use everything in your tool kit to produce what you can for the customer's price.

I have another philosophy - if I'm doing a two camera shoot and one of them is unmanned (as it invariably is in my case) then shoot as if the unmanned camera wasn't there, and as if it had no tape in it.

Why? Because once I set that camera going at the back of the church / high in the balcony, I let it be, and position myself so that I cannot be seen by it. I've had guests, priest, organist, bell ringers and even a stills photographer 'helpfully move' the tripod it sits on, rendering its hour of footage useless.

OK, the audio is a backup and not to be sneezed at, but again - treat your own cam as the footage they'll see and hear. Make no sudden moves. Shift position only when you must, and like Jason says - choose your timing well.

Come the edit and the second camera's footage is perfect - rejoice! An added POV to enliven the service.

tom.

I man one up front and have one stationary in the back. How do you keep people from blocking your stationary camera?

a very tall tripod, or a hired assistant to tap photographers / guests on the shoulder to ask them to move.

2 cameras 100% of the time, the second camera is with my assistant videographer.

I have a set of Bogen 3046 tripod legs that I can get up to 8 feet if need be using the leg extensions and center column. I have yet to meet a person who can block it.

That's my answer too Gerald - use a tall tripod. Here's me showing how useful the Manfrotto 075B can be - as an unmanned tripod it sees above the heads of congregation, toasting guests and dancers. Yet it collapses small enough to easily fit into the car.

Always 2 cameras for us, sometimes 3 (the third is either like the first, that means not stationary, or on glidetrack or with 35mm adaptor). As many already said, the second cam is stationary and high, but one solution we've found is one handle that is attached high on the lights tripod and keeps the HV20 so there is no need for extra tripod. That makes the setup of a 2nd camera very easy, since you don't occupy extra space in church. During the reception though, we always go with 2 cameras on steadicam and flowpod.

Or for the "cheap" solution, look for the Sunpak/Quantaray 75" tripod (going by various model #'s). Fairly sturdy, heavy enough to stay put, not so heavy to be a pain to lug around. If you compress the legs in a bit it will be even taller, but it's plenty high fully extended.

The head's not the greatest thing around, BUT if all you need is a tall locked down shot, it's sub $100 (which is nothing for a tall tripod...). I've got a couple of them, plus an old 72" Focal brand with a surprisingly decent head on it. You need the height, may as well have all tall 'pods... you've got to both be able to shoot over heads AND be high enough to angle down a bit if needed - hopefully your couple will be on a riser/stage type setup, but if not...

That is exactly what I did. I bought that tripod, which was the most expensive POS at Best Buy and it works just fine for a locked down tripod. The tripod I got was silver-ish and has a "monopod" center that can extend up an additional 2 feet (no crank, just friction locking screws). The total height is easily around 7' which is extremely very absolutely handy and unobtainable for that (or almost any) price for a "real" video tripod.

But no one touches the tripod while it is shooting, so it does its job just fine.

I always shoot with 2 cameras. I just found out it's less stressful. Don't have to worry about missing scenes during tape changing. It makes editing a whole lot easier.

I have the second cam unmanned on wide, with the tripod center column jack up high and on dolly (it makes it less likely to tip over when mounted on dolly). Now I hire an assistant ($8 an hour) to control the second cam. All he has to do is to make sure the second is framing correctly, have enough tape and enough battery.

Tom, I just noticed something from your photo. Your head cannot level, and your tripod is leaning forward. If you pan left or right, your shots will be tilted. How do you level your camera?

...Or he could call it "style" and "creativity". That seems to be used for a lot of other shooting slop; why not use it for a crooked tripod as well. Oh wait, "organic" seems to be the latest operative term for lousy camera work. You can even use an abbreviation such as OTS (Organic Tripod Shot). When you use an abbreviation, not only do you create a good cover for rotten shooting, you also create an intimidation factor - - People are afraid to ask what your abbreviation means for fear of revealing their ignorance. If you spin it really well you can hoist some real garbage off on people and make them feel like you gave them an original Van Gogh as well. And if you spin it really, really well, you can feature OTS and charge extra for it.

Good one Jim <wink> - it's not a BUG it's a FEATURE, as we used to say with computers/software...

I took another look at Tom's pic, if you look at the bricks, it appears the camera taking hte still was tilted... looks like the tripod shaft is pretty close to vertical when compared to the mortar seams. If the shaft is close to perpendicular, you can tilt the cam down and pan without it tilting.

Don't know about that specific tripod, but mine have these cheap bubble levels on them, and I'll usually try to reference a known vertical surface from a couple angles if I'm not sure or on uneven ground, gets me farily close.

Exactly right Dave. Warren - take another look at the photo and you'll see that your eye is being drawn by that middle tripod leg. The centre column is indeed vertical and the inbuilt spirit level on the Manfrotto is very easy to use. The markers on the centre stays (insert pic) means it's easy to level.

But as I say, generally this very tall tripod is used for my unmanned camera, so it shouldn't be off doing pans, it should be sitting still and be solid enough to stay there.

tom.

Jim,

Tom took the time to post the pic of his setup and contribute to the discussion in a valuable way. I for one appreciated it. Your comment could be percieved as an insult, even though I'm sure it wasn't intended that way. I wouldn't want others to not contribute for fear that they may be ridiculed. Remember that this is a global forum and indeed that is the beauty of it. What might not be perceived as an insult in Santa Clara, may be considered one in the UK. I've certainly benefitted from posts that you've made, and dialogue that you've contributed to, but this wasn't one of them.

Ken, I certainly meant no harm with my tongue-in-cheek comment. It was so over-the-top that anyone could tell that it was meant as humor. However, I will spell it out for you to aid your understanding.

Tom's post was very instructive and useful. My post was actually in defense of Tom's post using a bit of dry humor to do so. What WAS intimidating was to have someone start a techno-critique about the setup of his tripod, which was what was about to happen to Tom. I used an obviously facetious post to head off the thread from turning into a tripod "symposium" rather than the thread's topic. Tripod leveling techniques have nothing to do with the thread's topic and I didn't want the conversation to head off in that direction. How would you like to post a picture of a piece of your equipment only to have someone tell you how you were using it wrongly - especially if the purpose of your post had nothing to do with the criticism of your "bad" technique?

As for your didactic "observation" about Santa Clara and UK humor, my wife is British and we spend a lot of time there. The style of humor that I used is much more British than Santa Clara humor. As a matter of fact, I learned that type of dry humor in the UK - they are masters at it. If we have to abandon our sense of humor, we will all live in a sad world. I'm sure Tom is a big boy and doesn't need anyone to explain things for him and take care of him. In fact, I'm sure he doesn't need your patronization at all.

Jim,

Sorry... I guess it's my Canadian sense of humor that didn't get it.

Ahhh... I didn't realize there was a spirit level on the legs. I didn't see any leveling bowl, and the head looked too small to have a built-in level. In my mind, leveling would be very difficult by eye. It all makes sense now that you said there is a level on the legs.

Warren - as long as there are buildings nearby, and you have some clearance to move around, it's not too hard to eyeball the verticals... presuming the buildings/objects aren't tilted <wink>. Particularly if you've got a tripod with a fixed column - gives you a crosscheck on the typical bubble level at the top of the leg section. Just stand back a bit and use the single Mk.1 eyeball to check for consistency and parallelism!

I also find I use the guidelines or edges of the camera LCD/VF to confirm...