How to Avoid a Problem That Ruins Four Out of Five Weddings

[HankCastello]

Brides, as one who goes to roughly three-dozen weddings a year, I see a very common problem that puts a big damper on four out of five weddings.  If you want to avoid this big, big problem, then you must read this -

How to Choose a Wedding Photographer

[DavidPartington]

Broken Link ?

[HankCastello]

Darn, I really need to finish posting all those old articles!  Thanks for the tip.

[HankCastello]

Fixed!

[DavidPartington]

There are definitely some truths in there Hank!  I've had the photog stand in front of the video camera like any one else - but not an unmanned one - oh no, they stand in front of the manned ones too!

Interestingly, the last two weddings the photog was gone by the end of the speeches, and the last one was not even there to cover the speeches!  And they got paid MORE than the video guy.  Doesn't seem right to me     We got the cake cut, the first dance and the second dance too (it was on the DVD because of some special comical things that happened).   

One of the selling points I use at wedding fairs is the fact that we can get reasonable size stills from HD video where as our competitors using SD can't.  OK they are not as good as I get from my Nikon D700, but they are acceptable to most people.   

For wedding fairs I take a book with me that I produced in photoshop (with full color video frame wash backgrounds etc), printed on double sided photo paper and bound at home.  It has lots of stills taken from video, not only the great stills that the photographer couldn't get (because they were no allowed at the front of the church for instance), but also frames taken from (say) three video cameras at the same point in time, and in some instances showing the photographer blocking one of the cameras.  I use this as a sales tool to show why they need to hire a videographer with multiple cameras and operators instead of the cheaper one-man-one-camera outfits that are half the price.

I make sure they understand that while camera 1 couldn't see the ring exchange, nor could camera 2, "look - camera 3 got it", and that's the one we used in the edit.   You can see the light come on in their heads as they finally understand why they need to spend more money!

[HankCastello]

Good points, David!  It can get really frustrating.  Good / bad photos been running about 50-50 lately (now that we're in the higher price range, maybe we've weeded out some of the riff-raff), problem is we seem to get runs of bad ones, then runs of good ones.

Multiple cameras are definitely the way to go and hi-def certainly gives you better chances of decent stills.  Post a sample image of that photo book if you get a chance.

[DavidPartington]

Here are just two of the full page spreads.   The first one shows three camera angles at the same moment in time.  The top and middle camera were blocked from seeing the ring, but the back camera could see it.    On the right side you can see the photographer stood right in front of that same camera that got the ring shot during the first kiss, but the front camera got it nicely.

There is no real text on these pages because they are really only for prompting discussions, rather than spelling it out in text that they have to read.  It's easier to explain by word of mouth and it means they were involved, rather than their eyes glazing over and not bothering to read it.



Adding the background to the pages (reduced opacity) makes things look a little less stark than they would if it were left plain white, and of course gives you another image (or camera angle) to talk about.  Reducing the opacity also allows you to enlarge it to a full page spread without looking too bad, whereas I would never normally enlarge a video frame this big (even HD).  Obviously there is the binding down the middle of this two page spread.... but you'll have to image that for now

The one shown below prompts us to talk about the Diary Room feature we do for guests so that they can leave their personal messages for the couple.  Almost all couples like this idea when they see it, but it's some times hard for them to imagine what we are talking about without a picture stuck in front of them.

[HankCastello]

Good job!  Great marketing too.