When we followed the bride and groom during the day, I always had a lighting guy (and girl) with a 12v handheld 5k kino rod. It was nice to fill shadows, though really not absolutely necessary. Sometimes you get a more cinematic effect without lights. There have been many situations where the sun blasts through the window to give a certain glow to the room ... a look which would have been ruined by extra lighting.

At the reception the kino was much nicer than the camera-mounted halogen. The camera mounted lights always make the video look so harsh -- and people squint and run away from it. With the hand-held it's also nice to have the light coming from the side.

My "opening" footage includes the summary of the rehearsal in sepia tone and in widescreen. Then we go into the Wedding invitation card animation (a al Ken Burns) introducing the Groom and Bride. Then the main titles.

The only light I use is a diffused VL-10Li during the wedding and receptions.

Due to the nature of our documentary filmming style, we don't use any other lights. We basically let the action happen naturally and we capture the shots from afar using the 16x XL1 lens with the 1.6 extender. From this we can get extreme CU of the bride's face without her ever noticing we were there. The 16X lens stabilizer really helps out here. A lot of the comments we get from the couple and people who watch the video is that they never saw us and are amazed as to how we got those CU shots.

Again your mileage will vary depending on your shooting style.

Thank you Daniel and Norman. I've seen some great stuff from a company called Bluecore Media up in Vancouver. I thought they must have been lighting that stuff for it to turn out so good.

I like your idea of using the 1.6X. I had to shoot the ceremony from the rear of the church and the 16x alone would only get me bride and groom, no facial close ups. I had my 953 behind the altar near the choir benches locked in on the bride's spot and they placed a flower decoration right in line with the shot at the last moment. Ah well, they liked the video anyway even though it became a one camera shoot.

Thanks for the help.

=gb=

Re: Opening Scene
 

<<<-- Originally posted by David Phillips : .....as oposed to wedding video's that chug along for 2-3 hours.
Our normal run-time is about 60-75 minutes for an all day coverage...>>

Consider yourself lucky!

I have done a few Asian (Indian) weddings and the common preference of the paying customer is to include as much unecessary footage as possible.

With Asian weddings, there are so many various ceremonies and rituals and the wedding itself usually runs over two days.

Asian families like to have every aspect of the big day(s) to be included in the video and so this usually results in a wedding video that lasts for about 6-7 hours and spans four DVD discs!

So if I was approached to make a wedding video of only 60-75 minutes in length, I would consider it the greatest relief!

:-)

Isn't 60-70 minutes even too long? I've only done 5 so far, but none have lasted longer than 40 minutes and that includes an opening intro, bridal prep and recap videos in addition to the ceremony and reception stuff.

Typically 35 minutes is it...

What are others doing?

The majestic mountain scenery of Southwest Colorado is what brings many wedding couples to my little community to get married. So they may take a little of this beautiful place with them I usually open with a scenic landscape montage with the last fifteen seconds or so slowly shifting to their actual wedding site. If the bridal couple has ordered a personal photo montage or a bride/groom interview I work those images in to the intro, which, of course, is significantly longer. The interview footage is very short exerpts from the actual interview video, which is on a separate DVD. I used to do each montage unique to each couple, but have now switched to a stock montage. I am developing a different landscape montage for each season and for each community in the area to speed up the delivery of the finished videos.

<<<-- Originally posted by Billy Dalrymple : Isn't 60-70 minutes even too long? I've only done 5 so far, but none have lasted longer than 40 minutes and that includes an opening intro, bridal prep and recap videos in addition to the ceremony and reception stuff.

Typically 35 minutes is it...

What are others doing? -->>>

For me, it really depends upon the number of events I am contracted to shoot, the length of the ceremony, and the behavior of my clients and their guests during the reception. A ceremony-only video typically runs about 25-35 minutes. A ceremony plus reception which includes a photo shoot, cocktail hour, traditional events and general celebrations can easily run 70 - 90 minutes. My most common videos run just under an hour.

35 Minutes is easy peasy if you cut down the service and speeches... but that's typicaly not what my customers want!

Jon

I recently shot a Catholic wedding and the ceremony itself ran about an hour. I actually had to change tapes during the ceremony on my primary cam. Luckily I had a second camera rolling.