Thats the credentials out the way..... I wanted to start a topic that could act as a powerful resource tool for anybody wishing to enter into Wedding Videography. A collective center of useful tips, past experiences and success stories by way of sharing inspiring films from other members. This could be useful then for someone perhaps wishing to start filming weddings, or perhaps someoe who has been given that difficult challenge of filming their friend's wedding and doesn't know where to start. Useful also to those that have been doing it for years and are looking for some inspiration and a fresh set of eyes that newcomer's bring to the table.

With this in mind, I wanted to share the trials and tribulations we have encountered over the last year or so, the bad decisions with equipment we made and the ones where we got it right. Of course I add the caveat of everything I write being my own opinion and may of course not work for you. Every area in the world has accepted styles of what a Wedding Film should be, and what maybe works here doesnt necessarily work elsewhere. My focus in the business is the Techinal side, therefore I will only share my experiences and opinions with the equipment. As for the running of the business and interfacing with customers, maybe someone else will go into that.

We started in the business because we saw a growing demand for Wedding Films in our area, and yet not enough people to meet that demand. In our local area exists some guys who had been doing it for many years, and were able to provide a very traditional approach to filming a wedding, but there were not a lot of companies that would cover the day with a more cinematic flare. This need combined with my wife's insatiable appetite for watching wedding videos created our business.

We filmed our first wedding with a Panasonic SD-700 and a Panasonic SD-900. Fantastic camcorders for our first time. (We have changed cameras quite a few time before we ended up with GH3s.) We filmed a lot, maybe a lot more than we needed but we made sure we got everything we needed. We arrived early and left much later than we had planned for, but overall we are still delighted with our first film we put out. We used a RODE Videomic for the sound and generally this worked well. Where it was not so good, was when we used it directionally over one of the guests tables during the speeches. Had one of the children at the table sat somewhere else we might have picked up more of the Grooms' speech but the lesson learned was that always get your mics as close to your subjects as possible. Buy a Zoom H1, a little stand, and place it in front of your people on the top table. Sync later on and now you are free to focus on the shot and not worry about the sound. Want to be even more professional, get a wireless mic set up like the sennheiser G3 wireless kit. Mic your groom and feed the sound direct to the camera. Now you can monitor the sound through the camera.

One of the other lessons we learned at our first few weddings was how important it is to be FAST. Using tripods all day for every shot is going to make you slow. If you are not slow, then you will be squint (not level). We quickly learned that a Monopod with the added stability of some little feet was going to be our solution. Have a look at this topic....

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/7003/monopods-with-legs#

This allowed us to be quick but not at the expense of stability. In my opinion there is no excuse for going handheld all day, unless you are going for that specifically "documentary" type style. We still use tripods, but only for the Live stuff. Ceremony, Speeches and the evening dance. However we have other cameras that we use on monopods during these times and the tripod stuff is mostly used as a fall back shot (a shot to cut away to when you don't have anything else). Don't try to save money on tripods, a £35 Hama job is going to be a struggle and just bite the bullet and go for the well-known names. We use Manfrotto, not to say that they are the best, but it happened more organically. We bought a manfrotto tripod and then when we got quick plates for all our cameras we then wanted to make sure all the other tripods had the same quick release mechanism. You need to be able to go from tripod, to monopod and then back to tripod fast. So if you do buy lots of different brands of tripods or monopods, you are going to have to buy lots of quick release adaptors. Such as this one.....

http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/eng/product/calumet_quick_release_video_head_adapter/ck9007

You will need Lights, whether you go for the fill the room with light tactic, or maybe the more subtle approach, a good light is going to give your footage the added clarity it needs. Handycams and low-light are a disaster without good light. Just search for video LED light and make sure it has at least 160 LEDs or above for a reasonable amount of light. Watch out for size though, if you want it mounted to your camera hotshoe, dont go too big. If you intend to put it on its own stand, then think about how you are going to connect it, power it and operate it.

Backups, backups, backups. Always think, what if this doesnt work? Have another camera running, use one more sound recorder. Take plenty of batteries, cards and more cameras if you can afford to. Dont go small with cards, if you can afford it, save yourself a lot of hassle by buying big (64gb) and trusting a good name like Sandisk. Brandless types make me very nervous.

Putting equipment aside, there is only one bit of advice I can offer that is more interpersonal related. No matter what happens on the day, try your best to stay calm and in control. Nobody wants to see the video guy getting stressed while he screams at the guests to just hold still for one more second. Things will break, shots will go wrong, photographers will get in the way, but through it all you need to be relaxed and able to deal with whatever is presented to you. (I'm still practicsing this bit :S)

Well, im going to leave it at that just now and see what other contributions we get. I joined this forum about a year ago and it has been my one stop shop for help, advice, information and inspiration. I hope that maybe I can pass this on in some way to someone else who was in my same position.

Maybe it had to do with my way of shooting. I used a horizontal leveled tripod at eye level and just did a horizontal pan. Maybe it's better to put the tripod lower because I framed her on the lower end of the image and therefor pointed the camera slightly upwards. Anyway 12mm on GH4 4K represents only like 28mm and I wonder if a 28mm on a full frame camera is also that sensitive to small angle changes. I know the lumix 12-35 rely strongly on lens correction and maybe it's not that great. I saw in a review that the slr magic 12mm 1.6 has far less optical distortion. Does that mean the SLR magic is a better lens for people in the frame?

Can someone confirm this or give me some tips to get better shots in the future? Especially wedding videographers could face this same problem.

LOCATION: Kulturgut Wrechen DATE: 10.8.2013 EQUIPMENT: Canon 5D Mark III | Canon 35 2.0 IS | Canon 50 1.4 | Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II | Canon 100 2.8 Makro | Canon 85 1.8 | Tamron 24-70 2.8 | Tokina 11-16 2.8 | Panasonic GH2 | Olympus 12 2.0 | Voigtländer Nokton 25 0.95 mft, | Manfrotto Stativ | Manfrotto Einbein | Eightline Slilder | China LED Kopflicht | Edelkrone Followfocus | Edelkrone Pocketrig | Genius Eclipse Varia ND EDITING + GRADING: Final Cut Pro 10.1 MUSIC: Youth Lagoon - Afternoon (itunes.apple.com/de/artist/youth-lagoon/id457870121)

Any Feedback welcome!

Lenses: Sigma 18-35mm 1.8, Sony 18-105mm f4, Tokina 11-16mm 2.8

Picture style: Neutral 0,0,0 + DRO Level 5

50p conformed to 25p

Edited and graded in Premiere CC with Lumetri Plugin

Music by The Music Bed

Password: widefilm

The camera performs pretty well.

I like the AEL lock feature which I used during the whole day with the camera set to aperture priority and auto ISO.

Peaking and especially focus punch-in works great!

But - I hate the record button placement and I miss the fully articulated screen on my Pannys.

When Linda approached me with filming her wedding this autumn I was struck by the fact that there were to be no guests! They recently had gone through some difficult times and felt that a party was inappropriate. So instead of a church full of people there were only six of us: the couple, a priest, a girl by the piano, the photographer and me. Never the less I must say Linda was more than capable to fill that church with joy!

Solo shooter: 2 GH2s with @Driftwood Cluster 6 Drewnet 25/50p, Mostly shot on SLRMagic 12mm and Voigtlander 25mm. Panny 20mm, Canon FD 35-105 and Sony RX100 for the ceremony. Benro AF2 sticks, Manfrotto 561BHDV-1 (best tool I ever got!) and a modified Steadicam Smoothee.

Edit in Sony Vegas. CC with mostly curves and a little Magic Bullet Cosmo for a few close ups.

Music courtesy of www.themusicbed.com