Getting the right white balance is one of the challenges that we have to deal with when shooting a wedding. Video cameras like film do not compensate the way our eye-brain system does for differences in reddishness or bluishness of light. If we set the camera for daylight and move indoors, we end up with video which is excessively red. The same happens if we have the camera set for tungsten light and we move outdoors. The resulting video is too blue.

Professional video cameras have a variety of ways to set the white balance. We can use a preset (usually either tungsten or daylight), set the balance to a specific color temperature, or we can balance to a white card, letting the camera’s electronics calibrate to a known standard. There is also an auto white balance in which case the camera makes an educated guess based on the light coming through the lens.

The problem that is often encountered is that the color temperature of the light that we are shooting in, may vary considerably with a single room. Take a church for example. There is daylight coming through windows, but they are often stained glass, thus coloring that light. There is also incandescent light from lamps inside the church. If we were shooting a movie we would light the interior so there is little variation in color temperature, using whatever Hollywood techniques are required to get it right. If you have ever seen a film being made, you know how much effort and special equipment is used to light a scene.

But wedding videographers don’t have that luxury. We have to work with whatever available light there is. Particularly when filming a wedding ceremony, we don’t want to use additional lighting. So what do we do? The bride might be coming down an aisle that is mostly lit by light coming through the windows. The altar area on the other hand might be largely incandescent lighting. Every situation will be different.

The first step is to analyze what you are dealing with. I usually eyeball the location. I decide first what the primary source of light will be in different parts of the room. I then decide how I will compensate.

Here are some ways to compensate for mixed lighting.

• Set the camera to one setting, either tungsten or daylight and leave it there. Then correct in post. While this has the advantage of setting the white balance to a known setting, it often requires considerable work in post to compensate, and the results will never be as good as if you had it right in the first place.
• Balance using a white card. This will give the the correct balance for the location where you are holding the white card. The problem is that it may not be correct for other parts of the room. Also if lighting changes you will have to set another white balance, not the easiest thing to do in the middle of a wedding ceremony. When I set white balance this way, I do it at the spot where most of the action is taking place, usually the altar.
• Use auto white balance. While modern cameras often do a good job with auto white balance, they can be fooled. It is like any other automatic setting, you are giving up a degree of control over your camera. That is not to say never use it. Many times using auto white balance will give you the best results in difficult lighting conditions. Just use caution and don’t rely on it.
• Set the white balance manually to a certain color temperature. Not all cameras let you do this (you can’t on a PD-170, but can on an A1). If you have the experience to know what setting to use and a good eye, this will often give you the best results. You can also change this setting on the fly as your subject moves from one area to another.

If you have a camera that allows you to preset multiple white balances, you can do this for different locations and switch between them as needed. As I mentioned, there is never one right way to white balance, you have to look at each situation individually.

One issue that videographers have to work with is restrictions that are sometimes placed on us by churches. We want to cover your wedding ceremony in the best way possible. However we also need to be respectful of the fact that we are in a house of worship. Rule number one is always that we will abide by any any restrictions placed on us by the clergy or church wedding coordinator.

I always talk to the officiant and the church’s wedding coordinator before the ceremony. I let him or her know where our cameras are and what we will be doing during the ceremony. I then ask them what considerations that we should make to assure that we will be working within the guidelines of the church. Most clergy appreciate the fact that we talk with them as many photographers and videographers do not communicate.

This is also the time when I ask the officiant if we can place a microphone on him or her. If they object, we tell them that the bride and groom would really like to hear the words that they will be saying. This flatters them and more often than not, they agree to the microphone.

What if the officiant does not agree to allow us to cover the wedding properly. In this case we have little choice but to work within the guidelines set down by the church. We will do the best we can, but if we can only shoot from the back of the church, you can’t expect to have those wonderful closeups that you may have seen in our sample wedding videos.

Most of the time however, we are not restricted in a way that we will be unable to cover your wedding properly. You should talk to your minister or priest well before the wedding about having video. That way you will know about any restrictions. As I mentioned, we can often get some of these lifted just by talking to the officiant. They may have had a bad experience in the past and just want some reassurance that we will conduct ourselves in a respectful an professional manner.

We found this video on YouTube recently. In it, a couple discuss their decision not to hire a wedding videographer.

It goes without saying that having video at your wedding is a decision that you will never regret.

There has been a lot of press lately regarding the imminent demise of Toshiba’s HD-DVD format for high definition DVDs. The entire war between HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray format wasn’t good for the industry, as consumers were not interested in purchasing the next Betamax. Wedding videographers have been following this closely. Many have invested in high definition equipment, but have only been delivering standard definition to their clients due to the fact that few had purchased either a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player.

Hopefully this will change. Toshiba is about to cease production of HD-DVD. Netflix and Blockbuster are only renting Blu-Ray. Best Buy and Walmart have announced that they will exclusively carry Blu-Ray from now on. The only thing in the way of mass adoption by the public is the high price of Blu-Ray players. It is hard to find one for less than $350, where an HD-DVD player can be had for $150. The Sony Play Station 3 has a built in Blu-Ray drive, but it isn’t the most popular game console.

Standard definition DVDs look very good on high definition televisions. With an upsampling DVD player (available for under $100), the quality is very good, not quite HD, but close enough for most people. If you have a really big 1080p television (over 50 inches), you will see a significant difference. If you have a smaller set, you may not. TVs are getting bigger though. I bought a 32 inch set 2 1/2 years ago for about $2000. That will get you a television twice as large these days.

So what does this mean for delivering wedding video on HD? I believe that in the future as prices drop on Blu-Ray, it will become the norm. There are those who don’t think that high def DVDs will ever catch on, that online delivery will take over. The problem with using the Internet is that the enormous bandwidth required for HD video may not be available. Also there is a significant portion of the population who still does not have broadband Internet.

Also people like to have something tangible. If everyone just wanted to rent movies, stores like BestBuy wouldn’t be stocking so many DVDs.

Since a wedding video is a keepsake, most couples would prefer to have a disk to keep. DVDs will be around a long time. As long as Blu-Ray catches on, it will too.

Our plan is to deliver both standard DVD and Blu-Ray in the future. This will allow our clients to watch their wedding on any DVD player, and also have a high definition copy to view on Blu-Ray.

By the way, lest you think of me as a Blu-ray fanboy, I bought an HD-DVD player in December. At least I didn’t purchase too many movies. I did get used to watching HD-DVD movies from Netflix. Now I will have to buy a Blu-Ray player to do that.

One comment that I often get from couples is that they will always have memories of loved ones who are now gone. That is one thing that your wedding video will do. There is much more though. What about the vows, the minister’s sermon, the readings? What about the best man’s toast? No matter how many pictures you have of your wedding, without video you can never hear those words again.

I will relate a story here about my own wedding. We didn’t want to pay for video, but we had a friend shoot with my camera (a Canon GL1). The resulting video was shaky, with poor audio, but because it was a very small church and reception location, at least the day was preserved on tape. I am happy that we do have a video. One of the bridesmaids gave a beautiful reading, and the minister did a funny, upbeat sermon. If we just had photography, we could never hear any of that again. I mentioned that because of the small size of the church, we had intelligible audio. But just barely. Two of our friends sung a song that they had written. But it came out too distorted to listen to. This is why we should have hired a professional. So say the least, this is before I became a videographer, although editing my wedding as well as my sister in law’s wedding the following year, got me thinking about wedding videography.

I am not discounting preserving the memories of those who are no longer with us. My father passed away last month, and although he really didn’t play much of a part in our wedding, at least I have him in the video when he was still vibrant and healthy.

So when you think about whether you can afford video, remember, while your photos will preserve the look of your wedding day, nothing but video can preserve the words.

Too many couples today choose not to have a video of their wedding because they have heard “that it will be obtrusive”. Often this is because they heard a story from a friend or relative who had a bad experience in the past. Most of this comes from the 1980s and 90s. At that time cameras were less sensitive, and larger. So it wasn’t uncommon for the videographer to use large lights for their big shoulder mount cameras.

Today it is much different. Our cameras are smaller and much more sensitive. Videographers are more sensitive too. We know that it is your day, not ours.

Every videographer is different, but here are a few things that we do to maintain a low profile.

• Minimal lighting. For wedding ceremonies we only use the light that is already there. This is true of most videographers today. While we usually have to use additional lighting at most reception locations (these are often very dark), this is usually a small (10 watt) light mounted on the camera.
• Respect. We often encounter reluctance from the clergy about video during the wedding ceremony. This as mentioned above, is sometimes the result of a bad experience in the past. While we want to place our cameras where we can get the best shots, we always work within the limitations placed on us by the venue. This may mean filming from the balcony, or off to the side. Even when we don’t have any limitations, we prefer to have two of our three cameras tripod mounted at all times during the ceremony. The tripod mounted cameras stay put. The only time they are moved is if our view is blocked. During the ceremony we always keep our distance. That is what zoom lenses are for.
• We wear dark clothing at a wedding. This doesn’t seem like it would do anything, but we have found that it really helps us to remain inconspicuous.
• As videographers we do not have to interact with the wedding party as much as the photographer. So we will not pose people, or ask them to look at the camera. We prefer to work with the photographer when shooting formals rather than duplicate their efforts.
• Speaking of photographers, it is important to know where they are and not get in their way. While I admit that I haven’t always been successful, I make sure that I maintain an awareness of the photographer’s location. I expect the same of them (only a few photographers have ever been a problem).
• At the reception we can be somewhat looser. However we are much closer to the guests here and have to respect them. One thing that I like to do is to be mobile during the main dances. I will not go on to the dance floor unless the couple agree to it (most do). The same thing goes with using a light. While I highly advise using one, I won’t if the couple doesn’t want it.
• We are at the reception to work, not party. While we are happy to talk to guests, we avoid joining the party. You will only find us at the bar to get a soft drink.
• We never stick a microphone in a guests face and ask them to say something. In fact we only do interviews outside of the main reception room, and only with guests who come to us (we ask the DJ to make an announcement that we are doing interviews). Also interviews are only conducted if specifically requested by the couple.

This is the way we work. Your videographer may be different. The important thing is that if you have any concerns, to express them to your videographer. We will make sure that we respect your wishes. We will also let you know if there will be any impact how your video will turn out.

Even though we work in a visual medium, sound is very important. So important that some high end wedding videographers actually employ people a professional sound man for each job. Most of us don’t however. We do our own sound. More than anything this is what separates the professional from the casual person with a camera.

First, a microphone on the camera is next to useless for quality audio, unless the subject is only a couple of feet away (not the usual case). The most important thing in audio is closeness. If you can’t get a microphone close, you are not going to get decent sound, period. So in most cases that means multiple mics. In a controlled recording session, these mics are usually routed to a mixing board where an audio engineer mixes each channel and sends the output to a multi-track recorder. In the event videography business we are usually not able to do that. We don’t have a dedicated sound person, and we can’t run microphone cables all over the place.

So what we do is to use multiple recorders, and/or wireless microphones. This way we can have microphones where we need them, but without the need for a mixer, and without long cables.

I will place a microphone near all significant sound sources. For the groom and officiant I will use a small clip on mic. This is connected to either a small digital recorder or a wireless transmitter. As most brides do not want a microphone on their gown, the bride is not mic’ed. Instead the groom’s mic will pick up the bride’s voice during the vows.

In addition I will place a microphone on the podium if there are going to be any readings. Music is another issue. If the ceremony music is only from the church’s organ, a stereo mic near the rear is often all that I need. If there are instrumentalists I will put a pair of microphones in front of them. A singer will get her own mic.

The reception has it’s own set of audio challenges. I always try to connect a stereo digital recorder into the DJ’s board. This is often all that I need to pick up the music and the toasts (which are almost always through the DJ’s microphone). I will also mix in some natural sound from an on camera mic for applause etc. If I can’t hook into the DJ’s board, I will place a mic near one of the speakers. This a far from optimal, and can be a problem due to the high sound levels. In this case I always use a dynamic mic instead of a condenser mic, as dynamic mics are usually somewhat more tolerant of high sound pressure levels.

Recording the audio is done in several ways. One is a wireless mic. This has the advantage of sending sound to a receiver that is hooked directly into the camera. The audio is placed directly on the tape, and doesn’t have to be synced up when editing. Typically I will use the wireless for the groom or officiant. The other method is a digital recorder. There are a couple of types that I use. One is the iRiver 700 and 800 series mp3 player. These are no longer made, but have the advantage of a microphone input on the body. They are also very small. I will often use one on the officiant, as well as another on the podium. The other recorder is the Edirol R-09. This is a 48khz/24 bit 2 channel recorder that records to a flash memory card. I will use the R-09 for ceremony music, as well as at the reception, where it is used with live musicians. Recently I have been hooking the R-09 into the DJ’s board instead of using a wireless. This allows me to get CD quality stereo sound of all the music played.

Second in a series

You have picked out a videographer who you would like to know more about and have arranged a meeting. As I explained in the first part of this series, a meeting is not strictly necessary. If you feel comfortable with your choice, or it isn’t practical to arrange a face to face meeting (you are booking someone in another city for example), you might be doing everything over the phone. Even if you do, this article will still be relevant.

You might have the meeting at the videographer’s studio, in your home, or at another location (coffee shops are popular). First impressions are important. Is this someone who you would like to have with you on your wedding day? They don’t have to be the life of the party. I am much more of an introvert than an extrovert. That works for many couples though, as I prefer to stay out of the way and let my camera tell the story.

If you haven’t seen samples of the videographer’s work, now is a time to do it. Is their style what you want? Does it look and sound good. If you have a hard time hearing people, if the camera work is shaky and unfocused, or if the editing is choppy, you might want to look elsewhere. Ask if they have a video that was done at your ceremony or reception location. If they do, you can get an idea of how it will look in your video.

Ask how long it will take to get your DVDs. If you are getting a basic video in the off season, it might only take a few weeks. However it could take several months. Many videographers are heavily booked during the peak season, and it takes quite a few hours to edit everything, particularly if you are getting a high end package. So don’t be surprised if they say six months or more. I normally deliver the DVDs within two to four months after the wedding, depending on the package and my backlog.

Ask about payment plans.  Most videographers require that a deposit or retainer fee be paid to reserve the date. This typically varies from 20 to 50 percent. Some videographers require that the balance is paid before the wedding date, others before they begin editing, and some when the DVDs are delivered.

Most videographers prefer that editing decisions be left to them. You should certainly inform them of any special request, such as including a favorite aunt in your video, as well as anything that you do not want. However once we start editing, we prefer to edit in our style. We will usually make corrections such as misspelled names or other minor corrections if notified right after delivering the DVDs, but it is impractical to make major changes. If we do, we will charge for it.

You should ask if your videographer carries liability insurance. Not only is this a sign that he or she is a professional, but some reception venues require it. There was an example on one of the bridal shows last year where a couple had hired a uninsured photographer. When the reception location told them that vendors would have to have insurance, they were forced to get someone else.

When you have decided on a videographer, the next step will be to sign the contract and pay the deposit. Read the contract before signing. It explains what is expected and what is not. You should also know what the terms are if you have to change or cancel the date. In most cases the retainer fee is non-refundable unless the videographer can get another booking on that date.

First in a series. 

If you are a bride or groom and you are reading this, you are most likely considering a videographer for your wedding. How do you find the right one? To start with, every couple is different, and an important thing is to find someone who’s style and personality is compatible. The other important factor is choosing someone who they can count on to deliver a quality product. Therefore a good starting place is to ask friends who have had video at their wedding if they would recommend their videographer. If they do, ask to see your friend’s wedding video to get an idea of the videographer’s style. Styles change however. The work that I was doing two or three years ago is different than what I do now. Most of us evolve as we learn new things and gain experience.

If you have already hired your photographer, ask him or her for a recommendation. Photographers will often recommend someone who they work well with. Reception venues can also be a source of recommendations.

The next place to look is on the web. Search for local videographer’s websites. If they have video, look at what they offer. If they post prices, you will have an idea whether or not you can afford them. Overall the web is the best source of leads, as most videographers have a website, and many do most (or all) of their advertising there. Don’t forget to visit some of the commercial web portals like WeDJ for a list of videographers. These often have direct links to individual websites.

Another place to find a videographer is the local bridal show. Not every videographer goes to these, but there are usually a few. The nice thing about a bridal show is that you can talk to them and get an idea whether they will be who you are looking for.

Local bride’s guides can also be consulted. These as well as other print publications are much less popular than they were a few years ago, and you will not find as many companies to choose from.

Once you have picked out a few companies, the next step is to call or e-mail. Make sure that you let them know your wedding date so they can check their availability. But don’t ask the price just yet. Listen to what they can do for you. You might find that the person you are talking to is someone worth spending more on than you had originally budgeted. If they do not have any video on their website, or you can’t view their videos (this often happens if you don’t have a fast Internet connection), ask for a sample wedding or demo DVD. The preference here should be for a complete wedding video where you can view the full product, but if a demo is all that they can offer, request that. Some videographers will request that you visit them at their studio to see their work. There is nothing wrong with this. Many videographers have spent a significant amount of money to display their videos in the best possible environment.

If you want to proceed further, arrange a meeting. This may take place at the videographer’s studio, your home, or over coffee at the local Starbucks, wherever you are comfortable. Most videographer who maintain a storefront studio will want you to meet them there. Many top notch videographers have home based businesses however. In this case you might be meeting them at your home or an intermediate location.

In the next post I will talk about meeting your videographer and what to ask.

You may prefer to do everything over the phone. This is OK if you are comfortable with your videographer, especially if they are someone who was recommended to you. I have booked many clients without meeting them. Occasionally I have not met my clients until the wedding day (although I prefer to get to know them ahead of time). I have also booked clients without even a phone call. Everything was done via e-mail. I do not recommend this however. You should at least talk to them directly.

In the next post, I will discuss what to ask at the meeting.

Couples calling us often ask “what is the Wedding Highlights Program”? Here is an example. The Wedding Highlights Program distills the wedding day down to 20 to 30 minutes of video that more than anything, captures the true feeling of the day.

This is from a wedding that we did last summer. It is 24 minutes in length.

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The Wedding Highlights program is included with our Deluxe Package. Call us for more information at (610) 280-0288.

More examples of our work can be seen here on our Gallery Page.