Wedding planning advice: Secrets to getting the best from your wedding film

A lot has changed in the wedding videography world. The times of two hour long films with cheesy music are over (hopefully!) and now you can get a beautiful, moving videos that will be a pleasure to watch. Hiring the right video company is really important but you can also help them to get the best results on the day.
Confetti & Silk is a video company that creates an award – winning, cinematic, discreetly shot wedding films. The managing director of Confetti & Silk, Stuart Kinghorn, shares with us some tips on how to make sure you have the best wedding video.

Tips for choosing your video company

Watch previous example films from a range of videographers, see what’s out there. Most couples simply don’t know if they’ve not been married before or work in the video/ film industry. Try to find someone with a style which you could see yourself as the couple fitting into. This will in turn mean you should trust them to get on with it on the day and their decision making during the edit. It’s no secret if a client treats you better and with respect you will work harder for them, no matter what industry in the world.
The basics should be choose a professional. Do they have a website? Do they respond to emails without you having to follow up? Are they available on the phone? Will you have to pay a deposit and sign a contract? If any of these things are absent, be careful.
Can you find their business across multiple platforms such as social media? These will tell you what the videographers are really like to work with aside from the carefully constructed blurb on their website. Google and Facebook reviews are powerful points of reference. We once worked with, well they didn’t show up so we didn’t work with them, a photographer who had a 1 star review on social media, for not showing up! The bride had missed this but through a little more due diligence it shouldn’t have come as a surprise on the day.

How to smash it on the wedding day

Have a chat with your videographer before the final decisions are made, allow them to make suggestions as to what would give them the perfect environment to work from, sure logistics can compromise this but do listen and try to factor in what they talk about from their experiences.

Top Tips for Prep:

Keep it tidy, if you’re in a hotel put suitcases in wardrobes, if you’re at home do tidy up. Try to create some space, the more space there is the more options the videographer has and they don’t need to be up in your face with the camera to get a shot that doesn’t have empty breakfast plates in the background.
Get ready in the room or area of the room with the most natural light. You want to look your best in your film and the way to make your skin look the best is in natural light.

Top Tips for Ceremony:

Ensure your photographer and videographer have spoken beforehand and made an agreeable plan. There is only one chance to get these shots as they happen and they need to be on the same team, not fighting to get their own shot at the expense of the others.
Promote an unplugged ceremony, guests encroaching aisles with their ipad for a shot can step in front of and ruin a video camera angle at a key moment.
Do wear a small lavalier recorder the videographer should give you or the officiant. It’s essential if you want to hear your vows back well. It’s not an eyesore, no-one will notice you are wearing it if it’s tucked away properly.

Top Tips for Speeches

The number one best tip, without doubt, is that all speeches are made from the same spot. If possible let the videographer choose the spot, if not, let them know so they can light it appropriately and find the most subtle and creative angles. Sometimes speakers change over very quickly- it’s not always possible for a videographer to change their shooting position so quickly and find the steady shot when the speakers are spread throughout a room.
Ensure all speakers comply and wear a lavalier mic. Don’t let someone think they are above wearing one because they claim they speak loud. Even if they do you still need that audio clean and clear rather than reverbed around what’s probably a larger than average room with a high ceiling. Any good videographer will subtly make sure a speaker realises the importance of the clip on mics to the film but sometimes as a last resort a request from the couple to do so can seal the deal with them agreeing.
A new trend seems to be to break the speeches up between courses. This isn’t conducive to having them captured the best on film. The setup and positioning takes a degree of time, ensuring recorders are synced and on, at good audio levels. Shooting without getting in guests views, all of this is difficult to start and stop between courses. You’ll have waiting staff taking plates off of tables and a videographer setting up at the same time, not ideal.

Top Tips for the delivery medium

Great cinematic films stand up from 50+ years ago. With modern wedding cinematography being what it is you can have that from your wedding film so you need to make sure you can get the film on a format that will also do that. DVD and Blu-Ray discs will not be the best way to receive your film.

Have your film delivered digitally or on a USB for optimum resolution and safety- keep backups of the file. Watch yourself in Ultra HD 4k on what is probably the best looking day of your lives. If you take a DVD you are being given a film that is output at 720 HD and even a Blu Ray is only 1080 HD.
DVD/ Blu- Ray are subject to all the challenges physical hardware faces over the years- loss, scratches, accidental damage limited copies.
If you go for a digital file you can make multiple copies for everyone- even burn it to a disc yourself to keep grandma happy if she insists and you should never have to worry about losing it if you back it up on both your own machines and on a cloud based server such as iCloud or Amazon.