What makes the Best Wedding Videographers the best? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a couple of times. When myself and Sue started Hitched Films, we had one basic rule. Strive to be better.
Now that’s easier said than done, and lots of businesses have started with this goal, but frankly, they’ve probably gotten distracted somewhere along the way. Wedding videography has lots of potential distractions; new gagdets & gear, marketing, awards, blogs, etc. So it can be easy to loose sight of main goal - to make great wedding videos for real couples.
So how are we any different? At time of writing we are 10 months into our journey with Hitched Films. We’ve learnt a lot, but we’ve more to learn. Every week, we watch A TON of wedding videos from around the world. There are as many styles of wedding videos out there as there are castles in Ireland, and that's great - variety is the spice of life, but we think we’ve begun to spot common denominators for what separates the great wedding videos from the average-to-good videos. So here’s our thoughts on what makes the best wedding video and what we aim for each time we shoot a wedding.
Technical Proficiency
The best wedding video’s have a level of technical proficiency that is obvious to the trained eye, but even the untrained eye can tell there is something 'slick' about the footage. They don’t necessarily need to use the newest camera, lens, or support equipment but it’s more how they use what they have and their knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. This means nailing exposure, focus and framing on the day. In post-production it means a solid understanding of editing techniques, colour grading and other tools.
Audio
They also use audio, a lot. If a wedding video doesn’t include audio, the videographer has literally left half the content of the wedding day behind. Audio is our job. It’s something your photographer just can’t give you. It allows the videographer to build a unique story of the couple, their family and friends. The best wedding videos also have super crisp and clean audio. It should not be obvious to the average viewer when audio is great, but when it’s poor it is very obvious. The best wedding videographers spend a whole lot of time thinking about their audio.
Moments
Not every video we create is going to have a “wow” moment, but if you look through some of the best wedding videos, it becomes clear that they often have a wow moment or hero shot. These shots are intended mostly to grab the viewer's attention, so you’ll see them a lot at the start of a video. They are also usually pretty fun or slightly difficult for the videographer to capture. When you see wow moments in wedding videos, you can generally assume the videographer is fully engaged in what they are doing, and not just dialing it in.
Original & Creative
Most wedding studios would like to think of themselves as creative. But being creative (as in coming up with something completely original) is actually super hard, and what a lot of videographers tend to do is borrow ideas from other videos they’ve seen. Nothing wrong with this mind, we’ve done it plenty. But actually pushing yourself to truly try new things means accepting that there will be some trial and error. We once tried a shot with a great wedding couple. It was outside just after the reception dinner and it was dark and spitting rain. It was very cold, and we spent a while out there, so the couple probably remembered it. But when we got back to the studio, the clips just didn’t work, so we didn’t include any of that footage in their wedding films. I’m guessing they’re still wondering where that footage is. But that’s part of trying something new. Accepting failure.
Selective
We take home anywhere up to 14 hours of footage for a given wedding day. We only use a fraction of that footage for the actual wedding videos. This isn’t unusual. Think of major films, which might shoot for years and return a film of 2 hours. But to do this, we need to have a strong sense of direction and an ability to say no to certain shots and even certain client requests. A topical subject right now is the use of drones in wedding videos. Clients sometimes seem to expect a drone just because it’s the in thing. So we’ve started seeing wedding videos from other videographers where half their video is drone footage. This just doesn’t work in a wedding video. Like every shot, drone footage should be used where appropriate, and often that means saying no a lot.
Client/Studio Fit
We’ve turned down clients who have wanted to book us. Reason for this is because we’ve felt that the fit between ourselves and our clients wasn’t right. This is a crazy hard thing to do. Turning down a wedding is a big deal for us, particularly in a competitive market where only 50% of couples end up hiring a wedding videographer. But we do it, because in the long run it will be worth it. Wedding videography is one of the most peculiar of all wedding suppliers. Most of our work is done after the wedding - about 70 percent. Because of this, it shouldn’t be overstated how the client and videographer must be on the same page from the start. The best fit clients for Hitched Films trust us to deliver them great wedding videos and because of this trust we work hard to deliver that. They are open to ideas (adventurous even), they understand the value of having a professional wedding video, and most importantly they sincerely are out to have a good time on their wedding day.
Emotive
Lastly, and most importantly, the best wedding videos are emotive. If you watch a wedding video and it doesn’t make you smile, laugh or cry, then that’s an opportunity lost. Everything we talked about above contributes to creating an emotive wedding video. Watch one of our wedding videos. We aim for every video to leave you with a fuzzy feeling. Sometimes we’ll watch a technically good wedding video, but at the end of the video I won’t have the feeling that I got to know the couple. That ultimately is where Hitched Films is different. Our videos create emotion. The way we see it, if we can get a stranger to smile, laugh or cry watching one of our videos, imagine what the actual clients and their friends and family are like.
