Advice for shooting a double header weekend?
 

This weekend I have my first ever double header wedding shoot. As in, wedding on Sat and on Sunday. That means the 9am rehearsal on Sat for the Sunday wedding comes right in the middle of the bridal prep time for the Saturday rehearsal.

Any advice from those of you that have shot back to back weddings? I am a little concerned about getting enough sleep for wedding #2 due to being up late from wedding #1. I usually crash into bed for 12hrs of sleep after a 14hr wedding day. No time for that this weekend because 9am sunday is prep filming for wedding #2.

Also, it will be quite a rush Sat night to unpack all the gear, find the batteries nad charge them up and then re-prep the gear for the next day!

Unfortunately for my allergies the reception for #1 is outside, which means I might be in the middle of my allergic reactions when attempting to shoot wedding #2!

It will be interesting to see if I can still be technically competent and come up with artistic shots after roughly 30hrs of filming in two days.

Jason, I don't know how your energy level is but when I do double or triple headers, it usually bites me at the Reception. I just want the event to finish. I stick a tripod and document the event. I am dead tired by that time.

Just take Red Bull perhaps and double check your gear before leaving the venue, it's during this kind of shoot that I tend to forget things. And resist the temptation of prepping the morning of.

my 2 cents

Skip the Red Bull, your crash will be worse than before. But nutrition/hydration is important. Drink plenty of water throughout the day and find some PowerBars/Cliff Bars or Protein bars like bodybuilders eat. You want low-glycemic index type foods that provide enough energy for extended periods of time without the roller-coaster effect of sugars and caffeine.
Try to snack every 2 hours...and drink a full glass of water every hour. Your body is an engine and it won't run without fuel.

This might go without saying, but I should mention it anyway, avoid alcohol.

Maintain your cool and pace yourself each day. Think of ways to prevent running back and forth to equipment.

Best of luck.

I suggest during the reception of the first wedding have batteries charging for the second wedding.

I just came off a shoot (non wedding) where I had an 18 hour day 1 (7am-1am) followed by a 5:30am crew call the next day for an 8 hour shoot day. I almost vomitted on the drive to the first location but felt much better after a 5 hour nap afterwards.

the trick is definitely healthy nutrition throughout the day.

good luck man

The trick is to be in shape! As discussed earlier, drink lots of water. Eat a small meal every 3 hours. I have 2 weddings tomorrow (Saturday) 1 on Sunday, then on Monday I'm playing in a volleyball tournament at the park! I should be fine though.... I'll probably sleep in on Tuesday.

My advice is a little late, and with the way bookings have been this year it would be hard to take, but I would say don't double-book a weekend. We refuse to do this anymore, even this year with the slim bookings.

I go all out on the wedding day, and trying to do another wedding the next day just results in lower quality work. So we just don't do that anymore.


But like I said, too late for that advice now, lol. I would just be very careful to have the dates and times clear and organized so you don't get the schedules for the two days mixed up.

I'm actually printing out the schedules now so I can hopefully keep them straight.

The only reason this double booking happened is because the family connection really meant I "had" to do it. The wedding Sat is family, the second is full price paying customer. And to make matters worse the reception for Sat is on a grass lawn (to which I am horribly allergic). So I'll need to spend less time on the lawn so I am not in the middle of an allergic reaction (eyes swell up / shut) for the second wedding the next day!

As far as scheduling, I suppose I could try not to double book, but honestly, it was a welcome $600 (for the Sat wedding . . . yeah I know, you all can wag your fingers at me for that) and I'm using it as a practice for the "real" weding the next day. I'm trying two new things, a dedicated steadicam camera (instead of swapping off & on to the multirig based tripod) and a small 6 channel mixer to take house sound and combine with an audience mic and send that into my PC recording the house sound. There is a house sound setup for recording the service but . . . you guessed it, the sound guy that got stuck doing the wedding doesn't know how to run the garage band system to record the service, so I'll have to get my own audio.

I'm also experimenting with two aisle cams.... one un-touched for a cut-away wide (the cheap GS320) and the other another GL2 operated by my wife for second unit. If all goes well, then I'll use this setup for my client on Sunday (which is actually my biggest wedding package of the year ... everyone else took the lowest package I offered).

Thanks for the tips on food, I am usually HORRIBLE at getting food on wedding shoot day. My diet resembles that of the nation of Israel on Yom Kippur (aka it is a 24hr fast day, no food, no water). :-)

good luck
 

Hey Jason let us know what happen afterward. Just wondering how much is your low package and your highest package and GL2 it just DV cam not HD and that still sell??? just wondering...

Another reason to NOT shoot double weddings...

I just did that last weekend and as a result of standing for sooooo many hours I ruptured the bursa sacs in my right knee....otherwise known as bursitis.

So now I'm icing, elevating, and taking antoi-inflammitories.

I'm getting old and will not be booking doubles again :(

Let us all bow our heads and say a short prayer for a quick recovery for sister Kelsey, and that brother Jason will survive the fortnight. Amen...

And may we all learn a lesson in our own mortality... I too suffer the ravages of being older than 20... dang. Have to find my reading glasses and my notebook and make a note to remind me not to double book... now where are those glasses...

Amen!

And I think your glasses are probably on top of your head...just a guess?

One wedding down. Unfortunately my left eye is nearly swollen shut due to some allergic reaction (rehearsal dinner food may be?). Standing around on grass for the reception didn't help either. :-)

Packages: my lowest is $800 for just ceremony OR for all day coverage with no edit (just raw footage). My first "real" package is $1100 for 2 cams. And yes GL2 (standard def) bookings are still strong in my area. We are hit pretty hard by the recession AND the area hasn't had a strong HD push yet. I haven't EVER had a request for HD. That could partly be because even in the first few breaths of talking to a potential client I tell them that we shoot SD still.

So far I haven't had a single complaint about lack of HD. But also, the HD end of things is already taken in our town with Travis C. right here on DVi (and he does a great job too).

We do back-to-back weddings regularly in order to maximize the number of bookings we can do each year (still only do around 30). Like many have said, I would say the words of advice that stick out to me would be to:

a) drink lots of water
b) pack up and organize everything the night before (do NOT leave that until the next morning and instead get everything ready and then go to sleep)
c) pack early in the day Friday and then relax at home before the shoot(s) to clear your mind and get your body ready

At least by now your first wedding is done - sorry to hear about the swollen eye. We are in a similar boat in a few weeks with a 12-hour + SDE on June 6th in Vancouver, 12-hour + SDE on June 7 in Vancouver, fly to Hawaii first thing on the morning of the 8th and then film a 10-hour wedding + SDE the next day on Maui. Later in June we're filming 2 weddings in Vancouver on June 27th and then I'm flying on a red-eye to Peoria, Illinois that night to film an 8-hour wedding and do a SDE the next day that has to be done by 3pm.

Good times!!!! Planning ahead and being as mentally and physically prepared as possible will set you up for success. Best of luck on wedding #2 - I'm sure it will go great - can you sleep in on Monday at least?

Bruce

Thank you
 

Thank you Jason for the repsond. Well good luck 1down 1 more to go.

Bruce how do you manage to do SDE when you are out of town. You edit on laptop. What NLEdid you use. did you bring the whole crew with you???

Hey Thanh,

We edit our SDEs on a laptop and talk to the AV people in advance to make sure we have all the right cables/connectors. For our Maui SDE I'm taking my 2nd shooter from Vancouver and also will have a talented colleague of mine fly over from Honolulu for the day to assist. For Peoria, one of my shooters from Vancouver and an assistant are flying to Illinois on the Thursday to pick up gear on Friday and shoot b-roll on Saturday before the wedding on Sunday. I'll have me and my normal crew filming one of the weddings in Vancouver while a colleague of mine from the US and one of my 2nd shooters from Toronto fly over to cover the other one. Like I said...good times - I think I'm nuts...

Don't want to hijack the thread though - I hope Jason has a great second shoot - they do take a lot of getting used to for sure.

I just finished a double weekend a few hours ago and it went great.

Two things that helped were:
1. I dropped almost 15 pounds in about 2 months
2. Took up golf last year and am in much better shape

Another thing is I really lightened my gear load.
I was shooting with XL1s and a quite heavy tripod, which I used to carry with me all day.
Now am using A1 on a Glidecam on everything but the ceremony ( I got a quick release plate for the glidecam that matches the tripod, so as soon as the bride hits the front of the church, I pull back to my pre-positioned tripod and in by the time they say "We are gathered here..." I am on the tripod.

Another thing I do is make sure the 2nd wedding is a bare minimum package. No extra reception time, no bridal prep time. Just the ceremony and reception. If they are not OK with that, then they should look elsewhere.

In august I am booking 2 in one day (and no, I do not have multiple crews!) I am quite confident I can pull it off. I will be using car adapters for recharging the batteries, but I have found out that on both of my weddings this weekend, the battery that came with the A1 was capable of powering the camera for the whole day!(one of them was a 6 hour shoot)

I just returned home. No major problems, but my feet are on fire! More of a report after I crash or 12 hours or so.

wow mark please tell us how you can shoot two weddings in one day!?

Hi Mark, 2x the ceremony and reception in one day, how can you pull that off. The first reseption can drag on forever and then you have a problem with the second cermony.

Just recovered after my 1st QUADRUPLE header!
 

Like many have said above, drink plenty of water, eat plenty of snacks (energy bars etc...)

I've done lotsd of doubles, a few tripples over the past few years, just done my first 4 in a row (fri, sat, sun, mon)

Went to sleep last night at 2am, had to drag myslef out of bed this afternoom at 1pm!

I'm not a morning person, so I always make sure everything everything is packed and ready to go for the next day before I go to sleep (except batteries that are chargin)

Lightening your load is also good advice, as I start to feel it in my lower back towards the end of the 2nd day.

I'm now taking today off and gonna catch up on 24 and lost!

Hope it went well

James

hey David, it really depends on the territory/location I think. When I was still in the Philippines, I do 2 weddings a day ( Breakfast Wedding starts at 6 am ends at 12 noon) and do an afternoon wedding starts at 3pm ends at 11:00 pm. When I did my first wedding shoot in Canada, I was shocked that I have to shoot 12-14 hours. Maybe Mark has the same set-up.

Yeah, thats about it.
My first wedding will be 10am to 3pm and then #2 wedding will be 4pm to 9pm.
I have done overlapping jobs before, which meant leaving my wife at the reception with 1 camera, but I will probably not do that again, I do not like splitting up my cameras. I have decided to hire another videographer if I need to.
My reception coverage is usually pretty basic. I generally do not do "party" videos. when all of the structured events are over, I may get a little general dancing footage then I am outa there!

Hopefully you are almost recovered by now!

I get a lot of my work by freelancing second wedding shoots for a buddy. I shoot the gig at a moderate fee and he edits and delivers the shoot. I reciprocate or give him shoots I don't want to do in return. You need to find a trusted freelance partner.

I also don't include bridal prep or rehersals, so my workload is lower and more focused. One last thing, my wedding contract provides for a maximum of 8 hours and it spells out where that time will be spent, including travel time. Of course additional time is available.

You are working at too low a cost point IMO. Nobody wants to give up work, but it's not worth it to me to give your work away for almost free.

I agree about the price point. But in order to get a call in the first place I have a "no hourly charge" selling point which is what gets the father of the bride's attention as compared to the 1/2 dozen or so "one man with a cam" outfits here in the valley.

Also, the first gig was essentially a gift for relatives (about 60% off of what I would have charged them).

I've recovered from the shoots, but I'm in full on edit mode from a long overdue client's production that I hope to delivery tomorrow.

The gist of it was: I might be able to swing two full days of shooting but my assistant (aka wife) cannot. So I emergency called up a friend to have him help babysit gear, point the B/C cams, etc. I haven't looked at the footage yet, but each wedding generated 7 tapes. Yikes! Not all of them are full, and some times I forgot and left cam C running, so I'll watch it when I log footage and skip storing useless minutes of nothing.

I also on a last minute whime, rented a 3rd GL2 from a friend and used it for groom's cam. That freed up my GS320 for wide angle aisle shots. This will make these two weddings the first I will always have a safe aisle cut-away no matter what the op for cam B does. Even if the quality is less, it will be something.

I'm able to shoot multiple weddings in a day because of the way my order form is set up. Everything we do is ala carte and priced accordingly.

Wedding Day Preparations
Formal Photo session with your photographer
Ceremony
Reception
Slideshow w or without SDE highlights
etc..

This way, the couple can pick and choose, and customize their wedding to whatever they want, from ceremony only to full coverage of the entire day. This way, I don't have to spend 12-14 hours for every wedding we book.

For example, on Saturday I had a ceremony/reception coverage for couple 1. Ceremony was at 1:30pm, reception at 6pm Couple 2 ordered ceremony coverage, plus SDE of the ceremony only at 4pm. After shooting and editing couple 2's ceremony and SDE, I went to couple 1's reception. I had an assistant there on standby just in case I was late with my editing for couple 2's SDE. My wife set up and played back the SDE for couple 1 and I stayed at couple 2's reception the entire night.

On Sunday we had ceremony/reception coverage plus SDE of the ceremony only, so both my wife and I stayed at one location the entire time from 3pm-10:30pm.

On Monday I had my outdoor volleyball tournament, but it was so hot in the sun that I drank 1/2 gallon of water! We came in second place, so we got no trophy....

I thought I would be dead tired on Tuesday but surprisingly I was ok.

My story
 

Look like you guys have everything planned out. Have any of you done a Vietnamese Wedding before??

I kept thinking about how am i can do a wedding just one in one day and get enough coverage to make a video.

most your your wedding is like this. groom prep then you run to bride prep then to the church, then the ceremony and go to reception.

Well this is what i have to cover. Any advice a much appreciate

6am have to be at groom house for his prep (if everyone come to his house on time that easy but what if not). 6:30am everyone start heading out to go to the bride house.

7:30am have to be at the bride house( it take around 30min to bride house if lucky i'll get 20min) for the traditional ceremony at her house. What happen to bride prep well most of the bride are not done dressing up until the groom are at her door step. So one man band can not pull it off.

Traditional ceremony take about 1hours if they are fast. But no so from 7:30 to 8:30 traditional ceremony done then head back to groom's house for another tradition ceremony by the time they done it about 9:15 then they head out to church at 9:45 and from 10:00am to around 11:45 done ceremony at the church. If lucky the reception is not untill 5pm and they don't into the party untill 6:30pm and they not done untill like 9pm. Most of the time the reception is at 12pm and last untill 3pm.

and they want there wedding dvd to be around 2 to 2.5hours yeah 2.5 hours and how much for the work done $800 yeah freaking 800 and some time they will said "why too much for a wedding video".

Sorry for a long post i have more to share so i can a better idea what to do. I'll tell you more on the next post. Sorry

I'm sorry but if I read your post correctly, let me politely suggest you get out of the business and find something else to do. I say this with all due respect but if you are doing what I think you are describing for $800.00 how in heaven do you earn a living??????

I have done Chinese weddings with prep, tea ceremony ceremony, post ceremony, reception and some interviews and believe me I know it is a very long day but I charged a whole lot more than $800 and if they didn't want to pay then they could get someone else. 2.5 hours?
I'd shoot myself. i give a short form but for certain weddings I adjust. For instance, Chinese and Indian wedding you end up with a lot of footage so maybe it'll run a bit over 1 hour in edited form but I'll give them cleaned up RAW footage on a seperate disc, but again not for $800.00. That price is about right for a simple ceremony only and post ceremony.
You need to raise your prices and if they don't like the price too bad-let them go elsewhere. What you are charging is way way too low for the amount of work you are doing. Either that or adjust the amount of time/work you will do on wedding day and then if they want more charge more.
Good luck

Thank Don
 

Thank you Don. I have some other income beside Wedding. But i love to create motion picture. Thank you for your advice i think i should find something else hahah. I have increased my price to $1600 for 5 more wedding(and 1 already on the list of 5 already for October) after that will be $2400 and then $3200. I need to educate my cheap ass client in my town for them to see my real work. It just pain in the but that it impossible if i want to do a double weeding even on two seprate day. I'm not even thinking bout SDE or hire an assistance or another vi-de-r-graf-fer. Any advice will be thanksfull heheh. Sorry if i happen to hijack this thread but i think it fit to how to overcome a crowed schedule.Thank you

good, glad to see you've raised the price and are getting paid for the work.
I got scared there for a while when you stated the original price, unless you're living at home with your parents and have no bills or live in a cardboard box ;-)

Seriously though the pricing you have laid out makes very good sense.
Good luck

i am
 

Thank Don
Yeah i have been doing 800 for while but i think it not worth anything. There's someone here do it for 600 and client keep compare it with them that why i can't sell them more than that but i have to move up cause it wast my time doing it for 800. Yes i am living at home with my mom and dad appearently we take care of them too so that why they have company at all time. No cardboard box they all in recycle over here. I need to built my profile too so increase my price twice after every 5 is a good choice i think.

Just wondering how long from the wedding to deliver your DVD 3months 6, 12?????

Thank you all

Thanh,
Some of what I was saying was cynical, I guess perhaps it didn't translate thru but I applaude you for what you are doing. If you are taking care of your parents good for you. I wish my kids would look after me and my wife, then I wouldn't have to do video work anymore ;-)
I also think your idea of raising your prices every 5 bookings is a very good idea. As for the people charging $600 and brides wondering why you charge more, well perhaps they need someone to explain to them that in many cases you get what you pay for.
Best of luck to you

Not having a time limit on your services is a prescription for trouble and amounts to giving away a significant amount of value, plus wearing yourself out in the process. I've settled on six hours as my standard coverage because that's the amount of time I usually spend at "typical" weddings, and it's enough to give me a marketing advantage over companies which start charging extra after fewer hours. Anything over eight hours I consider excessive and try to avoid unless the customer is clearly willing to pay top dollar.

On a related note, you might also consider making rehearsals optional after you've shot enough weddings to be comfortable doing so. Committing to rehearsals can hamper your business schedule and/or personal life, but if you leave them out of your contract then you can decide later whether you want to go or not. If you don't promise the rehearsal and do go you'll look good to the client because you gave them something extra, but if you say you'll go and can't you'll look bad. Some videographers prefer to go to every rehearsal as a standard practice but I feel I can get most of the same benefit by showing up early on the day of the wedding, where I can learn about anything important from the rehearsal with a few simple questions.

Some of what you're doing sounds like beginner eagerness, and if that's right then hopefully you'll soon find you don't have to do all that to get work. Promise a little more than your competitors but don't give your life away at bargain basement prices.

Kevin,

I am still on the "breaking into the market" type of business (I think?) but are market is pretty depressed. I need to offer more than the "one guy and a cam" outfits in order to convince the parents to shell out the extra. There are only about 4 companies in town that do "real videography" and about 10 of the "one guy and a cam" outfits.

For now, it helps me develop a rapport with the client and gives me a chance to essentially "run" the wedding and help decide where people stand so I'm not scrambling during the ceremony trying to cover because the groomsmen stood in an unexpected place, or because they wern't aware of where I would be.

I'm also finding there is little to no time before the ceremony to talk to the whole bridal party to get ideas on where they will be standing.

So yes it is a trade off between extra hours on my part in exchange for what I believe to be a better serve for my clients.

I am by no means the cheapest in the valley, so I am not giving away my time (well . . . not much any way).

In the future I may opt out of rehearsals, but for now, I found that the perfect time to "train" the house sound guy and the bridal party for how to achieve the best production value.