Five Top Tips to Shooting Great Wedding Videos
Whether you are just getting started in the wedding videography field or are thinking about starting up a service, these five top tips will help you to produce professional wedding videos without the added guesswork.
To become a successful wedding videographer, you must learn the professional ways to plan, shoot and edit a video that will delight your clients. Lets take a look at some of practical aspects of shooting a beautiful wedding film.
Tip one: Choose the Right Equipment
With digital technology moving at such a fast pace, video equipment can quickly become obsolete within a short time-frame. Luckily, you don’t need the very latest cutting-edge gear to shoot great quality wedding videos; some basic equipment will do just fine. The basic equipment should need to shoot wedding videos includes an HD camcorder, a fluid head tripod, and a remote microphone system or audio recorders.
Tip two: Always Back up your Audio
Capturing audio for wedding videos can be a little tricky. It is all well and good to have a wonderful wedding video to watch after the event, but many bride and grooms will want to capture the moment they say their vows and pledge ‘I do’. Although there is a big trend at the moment for stunning wedding films set to a backdrop of beautiful music, not all couples will want to only hear a musical score. As a professional videographer you must be prepared to be adaptable to what your clients want to see and hear.
Your remote microphones may pick up some voices better than others, depending on where they are situated and what the background noise levels may be like. Any last minute glitches could prevent you from getting any audio at all. Professional videographers are backing up their audio with audio recorders. These compact devices are small enough to be hidden in the bridal bouquet or in the groom’s pocket, so should your remote microphones fail, you will have some back up audio recordings to use.
Tip three: Do you know your LUX from your Lumens?
The lumen is a unit of measurement of the total amount of light that is produced by a light source, such as a lamp or bulb. Lux is a unit of measurement of light level intensity or illumination. Most video cameras will have a LUX measurement sensitivity, so this will be an important factor when choosing your camera equipment. Cameras with a lower LUX rating are far better for producing good quality video in a low light setting such as dark church building or reception halls.
Tip four: Visit the venue(s)
It is always wise to check out the wedding and reception venue well in advance of the event before you decide on which camera equipment to use. This is especially important if you are just starting out in videography and if possible you should take some test shots using different equipment to compare later. Take notes while you are looking around the venue. You will want to note down any obstructions that may hinder your shots such as pillars that could block your view. Check out the acoustics too. Some church venues can be large and produce echo’s where a more plush venue such as a registry office may have carpets and soft furnishings that will absorb sound.
Tip five: Don’t forget to capture some B-roll footage
“B-roll” footage is the name given to all those important backdrops shots such as the exteriors of the building, the gardens, the gravel driveway, interesting viewpoints – stained glass windows, statues etc. as well as shots of the decorations, flower arrangements and other little touches or flourishes you notice on the day. These really add a touch of anticipation, excitement and nostalgia to the finished look and feel of the wedding film. For more info click here.
