Ask a Videographer

Question: What is a Telly.

2007-10-23T10:38:00.000-04:00

What is a Telly?
Carol to Jeff June 08?
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Well it's British slang for a television. But I doubt that is what you are actually referring to. ;-)

The Telly are awards presented for video production. They are up to their 28th year of presenting awards.

Should you put any stock in the awards if the company you are talking with won one, is a good question. My answer would be no to maybe leaning on no. The Tellys are consider by many to be an award farm. The Tellys are graded on a curve, meaning there isn't just a single bronze, silver, gold winner as there is in events like the olympics or just one winner like the superbowl. There is actually a percentage of winners of gold, silver, bronze based on the number of entries, in each category. That to me isn't the best of the best. However maybe because there are a larger number of losers than winners. But honestly, they are predominantly a award farm that sells the statutes to the winners for $150 a pop, then encourages you to buy more statues of your winning category.

I'm sure someone who has won a Telly will have a different opinion than mine about their validity, but for me if the goal seems to be to sell you a statuette if you win, and many can win, then their selling awards not recognizing quality.

If you are looking for a social event or wedding videographer who's awards mean something, then I would look for winners of the WEVA Creative Excellence Awards. With the CEAs there is an entry fee, but the plaques for the winners are presented for free. And there are only 3 winners in each catagor, 1 taking gold, 1 taking silver, 1 taking bronze. There can be 1 or 2 honorable mentions for each catagory if the judges so decide, but these aren't presented on plaques but are certificates on paper.

And that point brings up a slight warning about some businesses ethics in this; if your videographer presents you with a CEA plaque make sure it says Gold, Silver or Bronze. I know of one "honorable mention" winner who has carved his certificate onto the same award that was used for the gold winners to appear more impressive. To me this is unethical and misleading to clients.

I consider the Creative Excellence Awards to be the equivalent of winning an Oscar in the wedding and event video industry. Far more impressive and difficult to win than the other awards like the Tellys. And due to this some videographers are willing to be less than honest to have something to impress their potential clients with. So if your potential vendor presents you with the sales pitch they have won a CEA in the past, I'd suggest going to WEVA's website to check, unfortunately they only list the present year's winners. Bridal Films is working on compiling a list of winners as far back as we can, along with as many of the videos as we can get permission to display. Presently we have the 2006 and 2007 winners listed.

So in conclusion, Creative Excellence Awards, impressive, all others not so much.

Hope this answers your question Carol.

Brian

Coming Soon

2007-10-21T21:21:00.000-04:00

Like the changing color of the trees, the main wedding season for 2007 is drawing to a close, as we move into the holidays. With the holidays comes new engagements as couples plan for the future.

Videography is probably one of the least understood services a bride and groom can hire. Chair covers, flowers, cakes, it's easy to tell when they look good or taste good. We all know what a good looking photograph is. But I have found that many brides and grooms and their families do not understand what makes a good wedding video, so over the next few weeks I'm going to publish a series of blogs detailing exactly what makes a good video. Hopefully this will allow you, the customer to make informed decisions when you go and look at video production services!

So subscribe to the feed in your favorite blog reader or bookmark this page and check back soon.

-Brian

A Brief History Of Wedding Videogaphy

2007-10-21T20:02:00.000-04:00

Back in 2006 I stumbled across the wikipedia entry for "wedding videography". At the time it was a disaster, mainly a link farm for spammers. For about a month I dug around, verified a few things and completely rewrote the entry, myself. Well since then a few knuckleheads have claimed the entry for their own. So before they butcher it beyond recognition, I've gone back in the archives are grabbed my original entry. Why not share it here? So what follows is my history of wedding video production with updates.

'''Wedding videography''' is the documentation of a wedding via video. The final product of the documentation commonly called a wedding video is also commonly referred to as a wedding movie or a wedding film.

==History==
Wedding videography can trace its roots back to before the advent of the modern video camera. After the introduction of the moving picture, families began documenting weddings with the film formats of the time, usually 8mm and and 16mm films. With the start of the 60's Super 8mm was introduced and became a popular film stock to use. But these were limited, while some cameras during the 60 and 70 could capture audio most cameras could only record the moving image and the audio was lost forever. If the individual was industrious enough they may have captured the audio with a separate device fore syncing with the final film but this was unlikely.

Film formats were also limited further by the short load times of the cartridges, on average 4 minutes, the film's need for bright light, usually limiting it's use to church exits and outdoor activities and the high cost of processing. Documenting a wedding on film was usually limited to 1 or 2 film spools of highlights or for more complete coverage for the affluent. Even then a few enterprising individuals would take out the family 8mm camera and film the weddings of friends and family. There were a few individuals who had turned the documentation of weddings into a business.

This all changed in 1980 with the introduction of the first consumer camcorders by Sony, and other manufacturers soon following suit. With the introduction of these first camcorders wedding video documentation evolved from something for the affluent or celebrity into something for the masses. Early adopters were primarily hobbyists who, at first started recording the weddings of friends and family, then went on to do jobs for pay.

The early days of professional wedding videography was primitive at best. The equipment was generally of low technical quality. Cameras required bright lights, had fuzzy pictures, poor color saturation and mono audio recorded with cheap microphones that didn't reproduce good audio quality. The cameras were bulky with the camera being a separate unit that connected to the video recorder via a cable. Many wedding videos weren't edited in post production and those that were, were primitively edited at best, usually just removing the mistakes. If titles were added you were lucky if they were legible. Generation loss (the copying of a copy) was also a major problem with analog video tape. Each time you recorded the video to a new tape, it caused errors to build up and picture and sound to degrade.

From its earliest days and through the 1980s Wedding Videography had a negative reputation of being an interference on the festivities. The bright lights required to produce a quality image were damaging to the mood many brides and grooms wanted to have. As the market expanded, it was flooded by many individuals who had little experience and technical knowledge, which left the consumer with fallen expectations. And the consumer technology that was available to the wedding videographer could not match up with broadcast quality at the time.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state of the industry began to shift for the better. Videographers began to get organized behind regional and national orgainzations, the largest and still active organization being Wedding & Event Video Association International (WEVA). The manufacturers woke up to the fact that there was a market between the professional level and the consumer which became known as prosumer. With this realization the manufacturers began to listen to the wedding and event videographers and introduced products that specifically met the needs of this niche market.

Towards the mid 1990s, the manufacturers introduced the next evolution of cameras with digital cameras which removed the last of the technological barriers that had impeded wedding videography since its inception. The cameras were small, mobile, worked even better than the already good analog cameras on the market in low light situations and allowed the videographer to be discreet and not an intrusion on the events. These prosumer digital cameras have also been adopted by broadcasters and Hollywood. Many television shows and several movies have been made by the likes of Spike Lee, using these cameras. (Sony VX1000, Canon XL1, among others.)

Post production took a major leap forward with the introduction of advanced tools like the Newtek Video Toaster in the early 1990s. The introduction of the lost cost Video Toaster lead a few years later to the introduction of several relatively inexpensive non-linear editors (NLE, computer-based editing. The next revolution in post production was the introduction of the burnable DVD in the '90s which removed most of the problems caused by copying multiple generations of the same video image. Videos were now able to be recorded digitally, edited digitally and delivered digitally. The resulting product when properly done could look as good as the most expensive Hollywood productions.

As the 1990s ended Wedding Videography had exploded beyond being just the documentation of weddings. The majority of Wedding Videographers prefer to add the additional term of Event to their description of services, so it is now Wedding and Event Videography. New offerings like Love Stories, Photo Montages, music videos, family biographies and such appeared. Anniversaries, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, graduations, etc were also being documented in large numbers on video. The skill levels of the industry had progressed, post production took on the skill and quality of Hollywood movies and television shows. The consumer began to have options as to what they wanted in a video, as post production techniques evolved the long form videos which could run 2 to 3 even 4 hours in length, saw a new highly edited and polished form appear called the short form video which ran as little as 10 minutes but on average 30 to 40 minutes.

==Present Day==

Ironically the progenitor of video, 8mm, super 8mm film stock is enjoying a revival within the Wedding Videography industry, as videographers use a combination of these films with their video tape.

Another major shift in how wedding and event video is produced and delivered is occurring with the introduction of High-definition video Technology. Still in its infancy, its impact at this point is not known. This is mainly due to the lack of a viable consumer delivery format for High-definition video.

== Typical styles==
Common styles range from "journalistic" to "cinematic".

Video Journalistic style is typically described as a documentary of the event. Segments are edited as they occur to preserve continuity. This style of editing will produce a polished documentation of the day as it unfolds. Also can be referred to as Documentary Style

Cinematic, the term is defined as making a movie or film. Within the wedding videography industry it has taken on the following meaning: It is captured and edited for the dramatic effect and mood. It is usually presented with a particular style and "wow" effect that may not be present in a "mere documentary" of the event.

Storytelling a video that relies on sound bites recorded pre, during or in post, usually from the bride and groom. These sound bites are then added to the audio track for dramatic effect and to push the story of the day forward.

Short Form Wedding, is a video of the day that has been edited to fit within a time frame that is no less than 15 minutes and no longer than 50 minutes. Some videographers consider anything under 60 minutes to be short form, but according to the entry form for the WEVA Creative Excellence Awards it can not exceed 50 minutes.

Traditional, is a catch all term for styles that do not fit with above. Traditional tends to look more like a family shot video, it can be edited, but usually lightly. Everything is edited in a linear progression and usually in its entirety. These videos tend to be 2 to 3 hours and even longer, in length.

Wedding videographers are not limited into using just one of these styles, you can find different amounts of styles in every video.

== Types of Video Productions ==
Wedding video has grown in recent years to encompass a myriad of video production offerings. Some are produced to be shown at the wedding or delivered after the wedding.

Engagement Video: A video documenting the groom asking the bride to marry. Quite often filmed without the bride's knowledge.

Photo Montage: (also called video scrapbooks) includes but not limited to still pictures displayed on a video. Can also include sound bites and video footage, but is predominantly still photos.

Love Story: traditionally an interview of the bride and groom about how they met, what they are like together and what their plans for the future are. Quite often the interview is inter-cut with romantic footage of the couple frolicking together or re-enactments of what they are talking about.

Concept Video: Typically a short film that incorporates to tell a story about the bride or groom or both. Quite often not related to the couple's real life.

Same Day Edit: (Also called a wedding day edit) A short video produced from the footage of the wedding shot earlier in the day, usually only incorporating footage from pre-ceremony, ceremony and post ceremony, that is then showed at the reception as a recap of the wedding.

Bridal Elegance: A video shot in the style of a fashion shoot that depicts the bride in her wedding gown. Can be done before, during or after the wedding.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

2007-10-08T22:28:00.001-04:00

So you think a video is unnecessary? Pictures can tell the story?
What does the picture below tell you?

What is the bride doing? Waving a sheet of paper... And the groom? I'd say playing piano. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but does it tell you the whole story? No! For the whole story you need video, click below to learn what was really going on in this picture!

Thieves in California

2007-09-03T09:20:00.000-04:00

In California two thieves have been stealing photographic and video equipment from photographers and videographers since at least 2005. These brazen idiots not only take the equipment but the memories recorded, which are lost forever to the brides and grooms.

Thanks though to some luck and security cameras an ID is now possible of these slimeballs. Below is some links to images and videos of these party crashers of the worst kind. If you live in California and you know who hey are please contact your local police!

Stills captured of the thieves:
http://clients.dahlphotographers.com/camerathieves/marriotmanhattanbeach/

Video of the thieves
http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=18845@ktvt.dayport.com&cid=7

Hopefully these guys will be nailed shortly.

Question: Number of Cameras to Use

2007-08-19T19:15:00.001-04:00

How many cameras should be used at my wedding.

Julie '08
August 19, 2007 7:10 PM

Technorati

2007-08-19T18:32:00.001-04:00

Technorati Profile

Wired Grooms

2007-07-14T09:52:00.000-04:00

Missed this one somehow:
Anonymous said...

Our video guy is insisting that my FI wear a mic. I don't want our video guy eaves dropping into our conversation on the altar!

Dear Anonymous,

A professional videographer will not "eaves drop" on your conversation. While yes we do have to monitor the audio to make sure we are getting everything, for me it usually goes in one ear and out the other. Secondly ask the videographer to only activate their end of the wireless when it is time to say your vows. Third, you would be surprised just how well whispers will carry in some churches. Years ago we had a couple who had a fairly frank conversation during the homily and while either the priest did not notice or chose not to notice the whispering, it was evidently audible to a lot of people in the front pews. Don't say anything up there that you wouldn't want everyone else to hear, save it for private. And good luck.

Brian
River City Productions

Video It's Everywhere!

2007-06-01T11:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was on the phone with a bride who was wanting a video but who's family did not want the reception captured on video. So I asked her why, figuring I'd get the routine answer of "bright lights in the face", sadly the answer was far sadder; The bride has 3 sisters who are already married and the parent's were tired of being embarrassed on video at the receptions and of seeing drunken behavior forever documented.

This is sad because not only will she regret not having the reception on video but the fact that the previous three videographers inserted footage that so embarrassed her parents. There is one thing that I learned early on from my mentor in this business and that is "we are there to make the couple look their best" and that applies to their guests as much as to them. Of course I've had those crazy occassions where a friend or family member just did the funniest thing, like recently on my own company blog I posted a clip of the groomsmen, stripped of their shirts and dressed up as the Village People. Here though the groomsmen were laughing along with everyone else!

However there are plenty of instances where a drunken guest was being cute and in the post production editing session the footage was left on the cutting room floor. A professional videographer recognizes the need for this, the wannabes don't.

Onto a happier theme, Video It's Everywhere!

The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran a fantastic article about engagements and weddings being captured on video. Enjoy!

Brian Peterson
River City Productions

Leave your questions here!

2007-05-25T00:03:00.000-04:00

If you have a question leave it in the comments to this post and I'll answer them soon!

Brian Peterson

HD vs SD

2007-05-24T23:46:00.000-04:00

About my HD and SD question, which would you choose if you had the choice?

Beth 5-21-08
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If I had the choice I'd choose the new Red One camera that offers 4000 lines of resolution, actually.

I offer both and most of my clients are perfectly happy with SD video at a cheaper price. If I was making the decision, SD and HD would not be an issue. The issue would be who knows their job the best. Technology does not make the artist, skill does and video is an artistic medium.

Here is something to judge any sales pitch on from a videographer, if the majority of their sales pitch is about the technology they use, then they probably aren't a very good videographer. Expensive toys and and pitches about how much work it will take to edit your video are the signs of someone who really doesn't know what they are doing or lack something in skills. I have found, not always but much of the time, those who run out and buy the latest gadgets and brag about their technology usually are poor videographers. Anyone can buy the new technology, anyone with enough money. It's the artists though that make the beautiful pictures that cause your breath to catch in your throat.

Go with the videographer who's work, not technology, impresses you the most!

Good luck!

Brian Peterson

Leave your questions here!

2007-05-23T11:30:00.000-04:00

If you have a question leave it in the comments to this post and I'll answer them soon!

Thanks to Jordan and Beth we are off to a great start!

Brian Peterson

Concept Video

2007-05-23T11:16:00.000-04:00

I have seen this on many of the flyers I have looked at from video companies, what is a concept video?

Jordan
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I think I'll let WEVA International's Creative Excellence Awards entry description answer that:
Concept Video Production is defined as a single, stand-alone video featuring or profiling an honoree(s) living or deceased that is primarily intended to creatively entertain or inform the honoree(s). The production may include photos and video and. The Concept Video includes video invitations, theme videos, biographical videos etc. The production may be fantasy or reality based.

Concept videos can be a lot of fun. I have seen them where the entire bridal party did the end skit of Grease where Travolta and Newton-John ran around on the fairground. I have seen comedy skits based on the bride and groom meeting on the set of the Bachelorette's. They can also be used in Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. One I saw last year was a Bat Mitzvah comedy skit that lampooned My Sweet 16 from MTV. They are usually fun, entertaining, often funny videos that show off the personalities of who they are about.

I know BridalFilms.net is waiting on Furla Vision to send in their gold winning CEA entrant from last year to be streamed on this page. So check back there in a week to see an excellent example of a concept video!

Brian Peterson

High Definition Video vs Standard Definition

2007-05-23T10:57:00.001-04:00

What do we have in today's mailbag:
My fiance and I have narrowed down our choice of vieographers to 2. One of them offers high definition and the other uses what he calls sd cameras. The high definition video guy says we need what he offers and that competitor is charging too much for his sd videos.

Which should we choose?

Beth 5-21-08
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Good question Beth!

First of all SD stands for standard definition which for decades has been 720x480 lines of resolution. Your standard "square" television screen. Since HD came out standard resolution screens and video have taken on the SD moniker.

As to your main question. First of all if the HD videographer is attacking his competitions price and quality over selling based on his own merrits I'd go find another videographer to talk to. Bad mouthing the competition, to make a sale, is just bad judgment and shows a lack of character. I personally wouldn't hire him.

As to HD vs SD; which videographer's work do you like the most? HD is just a tool, there are many bad HD videos out there now and their are many bad SD videos, HD cameras are like a painter's brush, they are the tool, not the art. So I would base my decision on the end result, which videographer's work do you like the best, which one do you believe will give you the most enjoyable experience to work with? Price has nothing to do with it except if it fits inside your budget.

Some videographes will argue that you are "future" proofing your wedding film if you go with HD today. I would argue this point. The standard camera that videographers use today is 720 lines of resolution. This is not the full resolution that HD can truly deliver which is 1080. But there is a ground movement from several botique manufacturers out there to start pushing cameras and screens that are 4000 lines of resolution. The technology is in place and these small companies are determined to take our viewing experience further, in 10 years 1080 may be considered the has-been. Get what you like today, not what you think you need tomorrow, you will be most happy with what you like.

This is Exciting!

2007-05-16T23:50:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone and thank you for reading. I look forward to helping you with any questions you may have about wedding video production! I have been a professional videographer since 1994 and within the wedding industry since 1989 so I have seen it all so to speak and can answer any question you hit me with about wedding video production. So please feel free to post your questions in the comments section.

I'll also be from time to time posting little tidbits that I find interesting, videos I find on YouTube or general information I think you might enjoy.

Feel free to post your first questions!