Another wedding highlights video by me and Francis. Eric and Indira were a fun couple to work with. They were extremely down to earth and they had one of the best receptions I've seen with a Spanish themed night.

An interesting fact is that this was the first wedding where we had the opportunity to shoot alongside Ed Pingol, a photographer I've looked up to since even before I started doing event coverage.

Hope you enjoy the video!

For the past few months I've had the nagging feeling of knowing that right after my big day of graduating would be another big day in doing my very first Same Day Edit for a wedding. A Same Day Edit (SDE) is while you film the wedding, you have a wedding highlights video played towards the end of the reception which is nicely edited. You have extremely limited time and you need to pull it off perfectly.

Sounds tough right? It is. Here are some things I did to ensure that our day was planned perfectly:

Ask for advice from the experts

Before this month, I spent a lot of time working with Vinny of Imperial Video. Vinny was kind enough to let me shadow him for a couple of weddings in the summer. You can see some of his excellent work here. I also cold-emailed different videographers I admired. I got one response and his suggestions actually helped us avoid a lot of potential issues.

Have a solid team

I had a solid team in my partner in crime Francis Basco and my friend Cressane Credo who I met working with Vinny last summer. Francis did a lot of preparation in getting ready to edit this SDE. Cressane is a great lighting guy and Glidecam operator.

I acted as cinematogrpaher and director as I had to ensure that we were on the right track getting the right shots and managing the day well enough to actually get a decent video up. Knowing that we'd need some extra help I made sure to have an assistant throughout the day as well.

Have a contingency plan (assume everything that can go wrong will go wrong).

Several things went wrong throughout the day.

Francis forgot our camera charger. One of our wireless mics wasn't turned on when attached to the priest. Luckily I bought both a VGA to thunderbolt and DVI to thunderbolt adapter since I forgot to bring my cords.

My brand new external harddrive that I planned on using was next to useless since I needed Internet connection to install the driver (which wasn't available). Our first two exports kept skipping at the beginning and freezing in the middle.

We left our tripod at the church. We didn't account for a work area that would be close enough to the reception for easy access to equipment. Even through all these obstacles we were able to work effectively by having enough contingency plans to work around these obstacles.

We literally had a presentable video just seconds before our showtime. I wish I could describe the feeling when the video ends and you turn around and a reception full of people are giving you a standing ovation and you glace over to see all the bridesmaids and bride tearing up!

Here's the finished product:

Until the next one, cheers!

Wedding Highlights Video

Video by Ryan Brown and Francis Basco.

Behind the Scenes

The day would prove tough since the bride and groom's preparations were being held in two different locations but we managed to coordinate things. Having four videographers for the day was a definite help. For future weddings I'll be sure to have contact information of not only the bride and groom but also of others who will be with them throughout the entire morning (best man, parents, etc.)

Cressane and I took the duties of capturing the guys get ready in Pacifica and Francis and Vinny took the duties of getting the ladies get ready in San Francisco. The ceremony went well with a 4 camera set up - a "V" formation with two 70-200mm lenses getting the faces of the bride and groom, one wide lens in the center, and a "roaming" camera on a Glidecam getting great b-roll footage. Our wireless mics were giving off some terrible interference in the beginning but calmed down right before the vows were said (phew!)

BTS Photos by JJ Casas

I helped Vinny from Imperial Video Productions with a handful of his weddings last year and he's easily become the biggest influencers and mentors for me with my own video production. Last year was a great start to get our feet wet in the industry but 2011 is definitely the year to start making a name for ourselves.

Imperial had 3 domains that had great SEO value but poor redirection and design on some of them. Only one domain had useful information for prospective clients to find any of his information and/or videos. I consolidated all three of his domains into one central domain with 301 redirects and gave his website a cosmetic lift. His traffic for this one central website increased twofold having the new redirects in place. According to his Vimeo stats, he got a 5,000+ view increase on his wedding videos alone ever since we fixed his website issues.

Vinny is one of the most talented wedding videographers in the game right now (he used to be a professional skater) and I look forward to helping him this upcoming wedding season!

Here are some videos to give you a sense of what he does:

These toys just came in today.. They'll serve as a more reliable source to record the bride and groom during ceremonies mostly. They don't have the same audio quality like the more expensive wireless lav systems but they should do the trick. I'll write a more detailed post on the use of these tiny recorders after I've actually used them on the field but so far from fiddling with them they seem to provide a lot of bang for the buck.

Experience is everything

Recently I've been an understudy for Vinny from Imperial Video, one of the crews that I look up to for my own wedding video productions and the crew that I consider to be the hottest wedding videographers in the Bay Area. I've already been able to work with Patrick from Stillmotion for a shoot and now I'm working under another one of my favorite videographers.

Vinny knows that I want to be a better videographer and to get a little more comfortable shooting weddings and so far he's been giving me great tips and direction. Weddings are a high stress event to work because things are very time sensitive and it's obviously not a good thing if you miss any special moment on the clients' most important day.

Time sensitivity 

It's not that weddings are time sensitive because there's a set schedule with different parts of the day going on -- Imperial specializes in Same Day Edits, or SDE's, which are edits of all the footage captured from the preparation of the bride and groom from the hotel rooms through the ceremony and sometimes into the reception.

This gets chopped up in a highlights trailer-like video and shown towards the end of the reception. People are often left in awe when they see some of the videos because they have no idea how we're able to pull off such videos in such a short amount of time (we usually have around 4-5 hours of downtime before showtime). It's one of the best feelings when the SDE is done playing and the reception gives you the props that you deserve. 

3 Weddings in 4 Weeks

Here are some behind the scenes videos of the weddings I've worked with Imperial on. Keep in mind that working weddings is no easy task.. an average work day consists of around 13-14 hours of shooting, traveling, running, staying on your feet, carrying equipment, etc.. But, that doesn't deter me from reaching my goal of becoming a premiere wedding videographer in the Bay Area. Developing a keen eye for capturing moments in a creative and unique way takes time and experience.

Some of the perks of working at weddings

Despite the hard work at weddings, my video partner Francis and I can agree that weddings bring numerous perks:

• Great food every weekend - This perk is very important to me! Ten course meals aren't out of the ordinary!
• Networking - At weddings you get to meet a lot of people - from the guests to the actual bride and groom to the other photographers who may be working that day.
• Free alcohol - Not that we drink during our job...
• Ideas - Great ideas for our very own weddings!
• Sense of fulfillment - It's always fulfilling when you know you've contributed to another person's happiness!

So, here are three weddings that I've worked on (from oldest to newest):

Jen + Socheat

This is probably now my all-time favorite video from Imperial! Everything about this wedding was amazing.. 

(Those movements in the beginning aren't natural to any videographer.. Vinny is infamous for his rollerblade shots!)

Melissa + Frankie

This wedding probably taught me the most in terms of workflow and teamwork.. The reception was located in a beautiful golf resort.

Jennie + Darwin

I just shot this wedding last Saturday and it was a blast.. I got to use the crane during the ceremony and you can really see my shots in the Same Day Edit (that's me in the last clip following the doves)

As of now I have 2 more weddings within the next 3 weeks. I'm not slowing down and literally have no days off, but good things always come to those who work for it!

If any of you guys know anyone that's in need of a wedding or birthday videographer, drop me a line at my company MotionScope Studies. If you're an aspiring videographer and would like to chat, feel free to hit me up anytime as well!

Here are some images from the wedding I assisted one of the studios I very much look up to and was hugely lucky to work with:

Sometimes the only way to learn is to be thrown into the fire. I picked up some techniques and workflow on the fly that I'll definitely be applying in the near future!