What do you do if it rains?
 

Hi Guys

We are into our short Winter here which is always a wet one and usually only a few weddings in June and July but this season seems to have extended itself and of course last Saturday it poured buckets!!

If your package/coverage lists various parts of the whole day that you say you will cover and due to the weather you simply cannot do it (or the couple really don't want to do it) do you "make it up to them" with something like extra reception footage or do you simply just leave out that coverage and they get less than they should have?

Due to our normally sunny weather I always include an outdoor romantic shoot in a park or garden on stedicam but last weekend the bride obviously wasn't too keen to go out in the rain and howling wind (me neither!)

Do they get what you are able to shoot and no more or do they get some bonus footage to compensate??

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I have had my share of weddings with rain, some drizzling to "run to your car and get soaking wet" kind of rain, I don't mention anything about it in my contract, it's just a part of the day.

I once had a photog do the photoshoot in the city while it was pouring, he had the couple hold an umbrella while he continued to shoot, I have a small umbrella with me at all times (it's always in my backpack) and just hold it in one hand while I hold my handicam in the other, it's great OIS and smooth zoom does allow me to get usable shots under those conditions without getting soaked and I also have my gh3/12-35mm which is weather sealed so can use this one if I can't guarantee my camera will stay dry.

Last years we have had some bad storms with massive rain and one time it was raining so hard on a weddingday the water came running into the venue and there was a power loss, in those cases I don't have any outdoor shots and I know the couple will understand :)

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Nothing worse for sapping the fun out of a wedding day than rain! The scope of good things to film falls dramatically when the heavens open - I find I'm pretty much limited to filming damp people hanging around the bar or hotel reception area, killing time waiting to be fed!

I've seen many brave togs coax the bride and groom outside but even if the rain has stopped I've rarely got anything good as she is not getting her dress mucky, so the groom usually walks behind her holding her dress up - never a good shot. Then when you find a good location such as a picturesque bench she won't sit down as it's wet - I can't blame her to be honest but it makes for a difficult shoot.

I've gotten my EA50 pretty wet on a few occasions this year getting 'must haves' such as the bride arriving - I've gone through 2 golfing umbrellas that simply turn inside out as soon as unfurling them! After 2 very wet weddings on the trot I've gone out and bought a Sony PJ780 as my CX730 cams are always up on light stands, and a very small small TOTES umbrella just for that purpose.

I can now get bride/guests arriving and B&G leaving etc with my handycam nice and dry in one hand and my umbrella in the other - pretty much impossible to do with the EA50 - TBH I'm not bothered about getting wet but do like my gear to stay dry!

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Exactly the same here :) you do look like uncle bob shooting in that way but the couple will never notice when viewing their video.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Actually I wasn't asking about how you keep yourself and your gear dry..that's a no brainer but I did like some of the mini umbrellas!

What I was asking was if you have to skip an event due to rain, like an outdoor shoot that has been planned, do you give the client an extra bit of footage at the reception where it's dry and cosy?

Sort of "We couldn't do the video shoot at the park as planned but I added in some extra stuff I don't usually do to compensate"

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

That's a tough one Chris - I always tell my couples that as a documentary style film maker I record their day as naturally as possible and as it happens. Normally I shadow the tog as he does his couples thing and usually get enough for my own sequence but.....If the tog doesn't do it because it's raining or does the bare minimum on a gloomy staircase - well I suppose as long as I capture the essence of it then my work is done! In reality though in a situation like that I'll try and get some footage on my own but it's not always possible. A recent wedding it poured down and the bride was nearly 40 minutes late so the time between the church and the sit down meal was massively reduced - no time to do anything fancy.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

The photoshoot is the photogs responsibility, if it rains he has to find a indoor location, I don't worry about that, I just follow wherever the couple goes that day but I don't pick any places where they go.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I quite agree Noa but I do like a good sequence with just the bride and groom, and I usually get when the tog does the photoshoot.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Chris,
Over the years I've had a "few" rain days so I'll give the short version of what I've done.

Obviously if it's raining about 30 minutes prior to the ceremony it get's moved inside or I don't shoot it. Period. That kind of thing is covered in my service agreement. Same for the reception if it's an outdoor kind of party. Usually for those they had a big tent so that wasn't much of a problem.
Now for the real question. Would I do anything if say the photo shoot got rained out. My answer is a resounding NO! Not my problem. I don't control the weather and if they got rained out and had to sit around while it rained too bad. If we were at say a golf course or a hotel for the ceremony and were killing time until the reception and there really wasn't any place to go and get some footage, on occasion I would do some "well wishes" with the bridal party and the parents but that would be the extent of it.

Now having said that I have to admit over the years I've been pretty lucky and it's only happened a small handful of times which is really surprising considering the weather here in Chicago. Of course around here if you don't like the weather, wait around 5 minutes...it's probably going to change.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I on the other hand never follow the photog around and that way I never get in his way.

I really cannot see any point of taking footage of the photog taking stills of the bridal party ..I figure I'm doing a wedding not a personal portfolio of the photo guy.

I usually go to whichever stills venue is suitable to do a stedicam shoot (usually a nice park or garden area and with a lot of venues here being wedding centres we do the ceremony photos and reception all at the same place as their gardens are usually stunning! I just grab the bride and groom and take them away from the group and do lots of movement and what Don Bloom calls roundie-rounds and then hand them back to the photog and go back and do my video guestbook during pre-dinner drinks.

I had to skip that part on Saturday due to the rain and wind (and cold) but the couple did realise that it was impractical. It seldome happens that we have to cancel that part as we tend to have around 9 months of no rain (or any chance of it) and since August last year, last weekend was the first one I had to cancel.

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

The problem I quite often have Chirs is the lack of time - as we all know weddings can often run late and once the tog has finished with the B&G the last thing they want to do or don't have have the time to do (they might be getting nagged by the planner to get ready for their lineup) is spend another 10 minutes with me so I take the opportunity of getting some creative shots around the tog doing the portrait shoot.

Quite often the time between the guests and couple arriving at the reception venue after the church, and the sit down meal is only an hour and a half - not a lot of time at all (plus I'm spending a small chunk of it setting my kit up for the speeches). Safe to say hotel weddings (civil ceremonies) are easier as there's usually much more time, and it's at these where I tend to get some time alone with the couple.

Pete

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

You have the same way of working as I do Peter, the photog and the photoshoot is a part of the couple wedding day so I will include him as well in my footage, that's the advantage of working docu style, I just document their day and trow in some creative shooting and editing to keep it interesting enough. For some shots during the photoshoot I will try to keep the photog just out of the frame by standing just to the left of right of him. I let him do all the work of setting the poses and I make a quick shot each time, the past weddings I started to use my rx10 to make photo's at the same time for my dvdcover and I"m surprised about the image quality.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Hey Pete

I get that all the time! Our ceremony has been planned for 4:30pm and Reception at 6pm ...Even with a civil wedding they never realise that once the ceremony and congratulations are over it's nearly 5:30pm

I even have a booking next weekend where the ceremony has been planned for 5:30pm and then I can take the bridal party to the garden next door to the venue for group photos (I'm doing both) ...Great planning Bride!! Did you bother to check that sunset on the 8th June is at 5:17pm??? It will be pitch black in the garden after the ceremony!! They just don't think straight! I am now doing a pre-ceremony shoot at 4pm! and have to do the group shots inside the venue!

Don??? Nice to see you back here ...haven't seen a Don Bloom post for a few weeks ...thanks for the comments too!

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Well I'm just looking through the schedule for tomorrow (just been emailed through as 'revised) - Arrive at reception venue @ 15:30 - Sit down meal @ 16:30

Says it all really - I feel sorry for the togs more when this happens - I've seen them get pretty stressed, especially when they've been given loads of formal shots to get but not the time to get them! God help the poor guy tomorrow if it's raining as well!

Pete

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Chris,
I was gone for almost 2 weeks and now I'm keeping my head down out of the line of fire as it were. I'm reading the posts and sometimes I'm almost answering but honestly, trying to stay out of everyones way!

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Hey Chris, I guess one question is -- why do you need to specify the parts of the day and tell them the video will contain x, y, z? Does it help to engender more trust in the couple, and make them feel like they've got more control over what exactly they're getting? I guess most videographers I know talk more in terms of hours of coverage, and the couples take it for granted they're going to capture all the usual parts anyway.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I had a wedding last month were it did rain. When we had our video chat prior to the wedding we talked about why she was getting married on the beach and part of the reason was because she had wanted a beach wedding every since she was a little girl. Before the wedding we were presented with the option to have the wedding under the beach house facing out toward the Gulf, but we chose to just get some bags and make it happen. Luckily it wasn't a flood type of rain, but it was still kind of heavy at times. In the end everything worked out and it gave the film a nice tone. Please enjoy their trailer.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Awesome work.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Did you use umbrella's above your camera's? I would have hated to shoot under those conditions. 2 years ago I had to shoot a weddingceremony out in an open field, when I drove to that locations it was pouring rain but when I arrived it had stopped and heard they still where planning to do the wedding outside, eventhough heavy rain was predicted on that day. I had set up 3 camera's on tripods and just when the ceremony started I felt the first drops, within a timeframe of one minute it was raining so hard everyone had to run for shelter, I had picked up my camera's and was hiding under an umbrella but had to go to my car as it got worse and worse and a heavy wind was pulling my umbrella in all directions, all guests had parked their cars several 100 meters down the road as there was no parking space in the middle of that field and they all ended up soaking wet at the venue where they eventually had to do the ceremony, that was a horrible start of their weddingday.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I'm actually doing a photoshoot tomorrow (pre-wedding engagement photos), and we've got rain predicted. Rather than change location to somewhere safe, I'm going to try to persuade the couple to shoot firstly with umbrellas, and then without umbrellas, so that they're running around drenched. I think it will be epic. Just need to backlight the rain, with my non-existent skills at using a flash, so that you can see the raindrops.

Whether this is adaptable for weddings... Most weddings, not really. She won't want to ruin her dress, hair, make-up. But I have worked with photographers before you have gone for the umbrella shots.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Hey Adrian

I'm sure you will get away with it for pre-wedding but when a bride has spent a fortune on hair, makeup and a $3000 wedding gown, I think she would be a little hesitant. In April we literally had 10 drops come out of the sky after the Church ceremony and the bride freaked about her hair! It stopped as fast as it started so the video shoot went without a hitch!

Now here is an idea for video ... How about an umbrella with a short stem with an "L" bracket that could attach to your video camera or stills camera and sit neatly above it ...Something I have used before was a round umbrella that had a circular frame with elastic straps in between and you wore it like a hat so it was totally hands free ...dunno where I found it though !

Good luck dodging the rain !

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I live in Ireland.

What do you mean 'IF' it rains!!!

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

You could start your own thread with the title: "what do you do when the sun shines?" :)

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Hi Mike

I guess the term "Emerald Isle" is taken from all the greenery caused by the almost constant rain.

As tropical as it is, someone once wrote about Fiji that the main attraction there for him was the Brewery as they had free tours and free beer and planning the weather was easy. If you couldn't see the Brewery from your hotel balcony then it was raining and if you could see it then that meant it was about to rain!

Gosh Mike, you must be an expert now on how to keep your camera dry

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Be very careful about taking risks with your kit - its not supposed to be submerged :- )

Just found a gallery of mine from a few years ago in which the heavens opened whilst we were a very long walk away from shelter. First off the group tried to take cover under some trees:

Ref 162-0579-04_srm Ashton Lamont Photography, Copyright

But that wasn't enough and we had to abandon it:

Ref 168-8568-03_srm Ashton Lamont Photography, Copyright

Ref 171-8574-03_srm Ashton Lamont Photography, Copyright

then the couple got away in the bridal car:

Ref 179-8590-03_srm Ashton Lamont Photography, Copyright

I had recently switched from Canon 1 series bodies - which are totally weatherproof - to 5DII bodies - which are only weather resistant. Carried on using my L-series lenses which of course are also weatherproof.

Both 5DII bodies totally failed shortly after. Fortunately there was a long gap before the wedding breakfast in which there was nothing to shoot. I was able to open up and dry out the 5DII bodies in a warm cupboard and they started working again.

Heavy rain is often accompanied by strong gusts of wind of course and brollies will be worse than useless. I do always have a supply of ivory coloured brollies ready in my car though for use by the wedding party - venue brollies can be ugly and covered in advertising. UK members I got six from here in 2007:

Large Golf Wedding Umbrella (NOT PERSONALISED) - Pure Treats Store

Brollies can look OK in the shoots when used sympathetically@

Ref sides35-36-hmh Ashton Lamont Photography, Copyright

Now for myself I use a large waterproof jacket complete with tuckaway hood. I can sort of wrap the jacket partly around the main cam to give it some protection between shots. I also have waterproof over trousers on hand :- )

Good luck with any insurance claim if you do suffer rain damage. And good luck trying to arrange replacement equipment in time for the next days shoot. You can only do what you can do, don't take silly risks.

Adrian, if its raining for your shoot try having an assistant hold an open brolly over the couple until the last moment then whip it away, you shoot, then they whip it back again. Works great. Raindrops in shot usually look naff especially if illuminated by flash so take insurance shots by including some without as well as some with flash. It may be a major Photoshop job to remove loads of foreground raindrops from in front of the subjects faces etc.


Pete

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

i have used Canon 1 series cameras in torrential rain - never once failed, i wouldn't risk it with my 5D MkIII ;-)

I have a slicker for the PMW 200 if things really turn nasty, it makes shooting a challenge tho!

last week the photoshoot was rained out so the photographer had to just take the shots in the hotel, i covered some of that but i wouldn't really add anything extra if the photoshoot doesnt go ahead.

I think your onto something there Chris - a little umbrella for a camera!! good idea.

Oh! and btw we have 365 different kinds of rain here in Ireland :-)

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

You lot don't know rain until you've stood in the Irish countryside for hours in January in driving rain so cold it makes your fingers blue.

Jessies, the lot of yiz!

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

All we had were store carry-out bags. It was very last minute and very "okay what can we put over the camera to keep it dry. In retrospect I would have asked a wedding guest to keep our cameras covered with an umbrella because the wedding guest were very friendly people and I am sure someone would have help. Because of the rain and the rush to get down to the beach there was almost zero time to set up and white-balance so our cameras were way off. Great learning lesson for next time!

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

We've actually had a wedding that rained right before the ceremony began. It was a beach wedding. I covered the cameras with plastic, but lucky it didn't rain hard and stopped right in time.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

We had drizzle late yesterday afternoon during both my stedicam shoot and my photshoot (we did both photography and video on this one) and the bridesmaids went running for umbrellas. Both shoots went ahead under umbrellas and they actually added a huge amount of prop value to the stills. The stills shoot was really fun and the bridal party enjoyed it too!! It was nice for a change to have a bridal party to take the weather in their stride and have fun!

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Saturday - Absolutely pi****d it down - I've bought a £15 Totes mini umbrella from amazon - not as unwieldy as a golfing umbrella. Just right for covering my CX730 (The EA50 is too big/heavy to hold in one hand) to film the arrivals and departures from the church - I don't mind getting wet but I do mind it when my kit gets soaked! I look a but like uncle Bob but I got the shots

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Hey Pete

Wait a minute..isn't it Summer in the UK ...It's Winter here so yep my Sunday wedding was wet and most of my photoshoot ( we did photos and video) was with umbrellas and it actually looked great. I think I need a mini umbrella for my EA-50!! ... Surely some bright spark has marketed a camcorder umbrella???

Chris

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Chris I raised that on this very forum I think last year but general comments were about wind and instability - however I think having both hands on a camera with a mini hot shoe umbrella, would beat the 'camera in one hand and umbrella in the other' approach

Someone should produce and market one like this

http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uplo...umbrella12.jpg

Actually I've just seen this with a handgrip!

http://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/...lyumbrella.jpg

Pete

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

That one with the handgrip seems cool as it allows you to operate the camera while staying dry.

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

Yeah looks ok but the brolly itself is too big - It will be unsteady in the wind and more likely to blow inside out - I'd like one just to cover the camera - I don't mind getting wet to get the shot!

Re: What do you do if it rains?
 

I really would like a rectangular one!! That way it covers the camera length and width and the spokes on a round one wouldn't stick in your eye.

Sheesh ... surely a simple light aluminium frame with some plastic glued around it would work .. sort of like a tiny pitched roof (so the rain can run off) and then inside the frame a short frame with a cold shoe connector on the end and you could slip it on and off quickly ...I don't think it would need to fold ? Our cameras are not that big ....1/2" aluminium tubing made like roof trusses and clear plastic on top so you can see your camera

I think I just might have to make one!!

Chris