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Before you hire a Los Angeles or Orange County wedding videographer to cover your wedding day it is important to understand what that really entails. A videographer obviously is a person who works with the video medium which captures moving images and sound. But unlike big movie productions, the videographer usually works in smaller productions such as weddings, training videos, events, and promotional videos. In such productions, the videographer is not only responsible for recording footage at the event, but he or she is also responsible for the lighting, sound, and even editing the footage while a cinematographer or director of photography leaves the editing to the editor of the film. Keeping this in mind, a videographer is therefore expected to wear many hats and must be masters of each in order to produce a quality video. |
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The first quality a
Los Angeles or Orange County wedding videographer must have is the ability to capture great footage. This is where they must have the skills to that of a cinematographer. But what makes a good cinematographer? There are many schools of thought and opinions on this. For example, in Joseph Mascelli’s book
The Five C’s of Cinematography he mentions that the most important things are camera angles, continuity, cutting, close ups, and composition. But to keep it simple, we believe in a more ideological view in which it is not necessarily what the footage look like but how does it make you feel. What emotions does the
video invoke? What reactions do they bring about from its viewers? You may hear technical terms like chromatic saturation, compositions following the rule of thirds or the diagonal rule. But these terms are just ways of communicating between directors and cinematographers or are just technical jargon so that compositions can be explained and in hopes to being able to recreate the same effect.
Just as there are certain technical aspects that cinematographers use there are certain techniques that wedding videographers can apply when taking footage of an event. When you look at footage from a Los Angeles or Orange County wedding videographer, look to see if their shots are static or have any movement. For example, are there any panning of the camera from one side to the other or does the camera ever point high and then pans down? Next, if the camera does have panning are the shots from the wedding videographer slow and fluid or abrupt and fast? The reason why this needs to be asked is because if the camera pans too quickly then you end up with footage leaving the viewer dizzy. But if the wedding videographer’s panning is slow and fluid, it normally creates several things. One, the movement is less noticeable and easier for the eye to follow without making the viewer feel dizzy. And two, if the wedding videographer pans the camera slower it can help build more anticipation to what the camera is about to reveal. Such anticipation can help create a more dramatic effect.
How does the wedding videographer zoom in or zoom out on subjects and objects? Does he zoom in quickly by just pressing that zoom button as hard as he can? Or does he gradually zoom into the subject? A slow zoom is a great technique that many directors and
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cinematographers use especially when trying to capture the reaction of their subject. The next time you watch a movie or a television show and a character suddenly has an epiphany or realization, notice that the camera is slowly zooming in on their face. As for zooming out slowly, it can be useful when revealing the background of where the subject or subjects are at. But if the
wedding videographer is zooming out too quickly it may take away the focus from the subject too quickly or it may be too quick that you can’t even recognize what the background even is.
The next thing to look for is if the
wedding videographer’s footage shaky or is it steady. It’s true that the shaky camera technique is becoming more and more popular in major motion pictures and television dramas. But the reason why this technique is now being used more is to create tension. Many thrillers such as
The Bourne Ultimatum and
The Constant Gardener almost go the entire film with the camera shaking. However, this would not be appropriate for a
wedding video. Well, unless we expect somebody in the crowd to all of a sudden jump out into a chase sequence. If the
wedding videographer’s footage is mostly shaky it’s probably because they did not have a tripod to place their camera on. Some
wedding videographers seem to against using a tripod. We have yet to fully understand why such
wedding videographers feel this way? Maybe it’s because they don’t realize that there are great fluid heads that can be attached to the tripod that can help create great smooth camera panning.
But another reason why it’s important for the
wedding videgrapher to be able to use a video camera on a tripod goes back to zooming in and out of a subject. Think back to the last time you saw footage from a person’s regular camcorder that wasn’t on a professional tripod. When the picture zoomed in you’ll notice that the footage was shaky at first and then stabilized a bit after the first couple of seconds of zooming in. Why is this? It’s because when the person pressed down on the zoom button it also pushed the camera down. Then as a natural reaction the person quickly tries to readjust the shot by move the camera back up. But as he is moving the camera back up, he overcompensates a bit because the subject in the shot is closer than before since he’s zooming in. Eventually, the footage stabilizes but this should only be acceptable in amateur video. A
professional wedding videographer should rarely ever have footage like that. Think back and try to remember how many movies or television shows where you saw footage like this?
While looking at the footage of the wedding videgrapher, try to notice when the camera is moving along with the bride and groom. Does it look like
the wedding videographer is walking or wobbling alongside the newlyweds with his camera? Or, does it appear as if the camera is gliding alongside the bride and groom? This is known as a steadicam shot or effect. One of the most famous of these types of shots is the scene from the movie
Goodfellas in which Ray Liotta’s character Henry Hill is taking his date Karen to an exclusive restaurant. Because he is a gangster he walks past the line of where all of the guests are waiting to get in and goes through a back entrance which the people of the restaurant let them in. As he and Karen are walking past the kitchen, there is a steadicam following them from behind the entire way until they are seated at their table. If you notice the footage seems to glide smoothly even as the two characters walk down some steps.
With the term cinematic being thrown around by
so many wedding videographers, it’s important that they actually back up this claim by shooting their videos in 24 progressive. You see in video it normally shoots in something that is called 60 interlace or 60i. This means that every 60th of a second it alternates by first showing a picture of just the even lines and then in the next 60th of a second it shows the odd lines of the picture. This is how you can normally tell if footage was shot with a video camera instead of film camera. Film is different in that it shoots at a slower frame rate which is 24 frames per second. And unlike video, film shows the entire picture in one frame instead of alternating between showing the even and odd rows of the picture. But with today’s technology some video cameras can emulate film with its 24 progressive mode. The term progressive means that it does not show the picture with the alternating of the even and odd rows. But like film it shows the entire frame at a time. This allows the footage to look smoother and softer and also gives an interesting blur when there is movement in the footage.
Finally, with today’s modern television everything is moving to widescreen or 16: 9 format. Many will claim they can shoot in this format but sometimes
these wedding videographers are not being completely honest. You see, many of these cameras that
some wedding videographers use do not have a true 16:9 aspect ratio. Their cameras may have something called a squeeze mode which comes close. However, when the
wedding videographer finally renders that final cut of the video, the subjects in the footage may appear a little wider than they really are. Some
wedding videographers do not even have this mode in their camera. Instead, they just switch their video camera to letter box mode. But all this does is remove lines from the footage. If any wedding videographer tries to see letter boxing as widescreen format than they are either very dishonest or very naïve. Normally, in order to shoot footage in true 16:9 widescreen it requires an anamorphic lens which most video prosumer cameras are not equipped with out of the box. Therefore, this is usually an
accessory that a wedding videographer would invest in.
As you can see, as wedding videographers we take capturing great footage very seriously. In fact, we sometimes think of ourselves
not as wedding videographers but as filmmakers who happen to focus on documenting weddings. And as filmmakers, we seek to tell the story of what probably is the most important day of the lives of two special people. Let us help capture those moments!
