JEFF | WOOD | VISUALS

Bridezilla Bootcamp is a joint venture with Reel Vision and FX films. We had such a laugh making this promo.

PLease go to wedfilmacademy.com/bridezilla_bootcamp for more details and for a booking form.

In the USA there has been some recent news that has shaken the wedding movie industry world wide. Joe Simon and two other big names have been sued by record companies over the illegal use of copyrighted music. Find more details about Joe’s case here on the Dare Dreamer Magazine blog.

It seems to be only very high hit count movies that are being targeted – up to the 100k mark so the vast magority have gotten away with it up to now.  Apart from a few trail blazers such as Stillmotion the entire wedding film industry has been using copyrighted music since day dot for DVDs and for online trailers.  The law is different here in the UK in a lot of ways.  Mainly in that we can license any music to be used on DVDs through PPL.  But there is no way of licensing music for online use.  I have tried and tried, even getting in touch with individual record companies but have not had any joy.  I started to get nervous about the whole situation half way through my third season (July 2011) as my company has become established and is now taken seriously by the international wedding film community.  So I started to use only licenced music for any commercial video that is to go online.  So I have a good handful of resent work that can stay in the public eye.  The rest of my work will, sadly, be slowly taken down from my main wedding blog and made only available to the individual clients.   This will happen in the next few weeks as it is a laborious task and a rather upsetting one.

That said, I think these developments will ultimately improve the industry as a whole.  I personally have felt that my work has improved dramatically since I started using licensed music.  A whole process of story telling using the language of film has been adopted into my way of working.  Audio is now ‘king’ and I have found the use of natural sound mixed with a main narrative monologue is making every piece more personal and more honest as a movie.  There are some pretty amazing licencable songs out there if you search around and if you use them to enhance your story rather than dictate it you will always end up with a movie that more reflects the experiences and feeling of the day.

I just had to put this together as a kind of keepsake to remember our wedding shoot in Udaipur. It was a nightmare 30 hour journey to get there because our connection in Mumbai was over booked! This meant we had to fly instead to Jaipur and travel by car for another 7 hours.
The shoot itself was also very tiring with two of the main days starting a 10am and ending at 6am the next morning! There were 4 days shooting in total.
Thank you very much to Reel Vision for including me on this very special job.

Imagine my excitement when I received this little movie by email:-

I think I speak for most Brits when I say Americans are just so much more fun with this kind of thing. This already looks like a fun wedding to be a part of and I’m very pleased to say that Katie and Brian have gone ahead with the booking and I fly out to Portland next August.

How cool is this guy?! By far the biggest impression a singer has left on me while shooting a wedding! The atmosphere Eric conjured during his set was absolutely magical, shivers down the spine stuff! This wasn’t even the best song, it was just the one we filmed.

See the wedding trailer that features this recording here.

Salma and Richard are getting married on 6th May 2011. We wanted to do a pre wedding film but didn’t really want to do a typical engagement film or save the date film. Salma and Richard came up with the idea of doing a kind of time capsule film to put away for 30 years, logging there thoughts and plans right now. I have lots of footage for them to keep but just wanted to get this short version out there.

Well, I’ve been getting a few gentle hints from my wife about finally editing this piece that was shot by my good friend Rich form Reel Vision. Now it is finally done! Very short and sweet mainly because of the music I chose. But partly because it is taking up valuable editing time and the 2011 wedding season is nearly here!!!!

I just had to share this! How Rimi and Manav managed to keep this a secret is beyond me. You’ll believe Jackson is alive when you see this perfectly executed Michael Jackson performance by Raminder and Manav for the final evening of their 6 day wedding celebrations. This is the first draft rough edit:-

From the Jewish blessing ceremony that took place on the high terrace with the sun setting over Ischia as a backdrop to Ave Maria being sung like I’ve never heard it before in the wonderfully rustic Cattedrale Delli Assunta this was a special occasion for me.
When Romina first got in touch about filming her ‘home leg’ reception I enquired as to where her ‘away leg’ was going to be. She told me Castello Aragonese in Ischia so I googled it and this is what I saw:-

Well, as you can imagine I got straight back to Romina with an attractive quote to cover both ‘legs’. Frankly, don’t tell anyone but I would have paid her

The short form edit of the Italian part was to be shown on a big screen in London for the majority of guests who could not make it to Ischia. This was great for me as I could take my time with the post production and get all the pleasure of a live viewing. I have been trying to develop my story telling skills with cohesive editing rather than fancy effects and really went to town with this one. The following is my thought process for the entire edit, a lot of it is probably over worked but as the couple may watch it hundreds of times it is good to have details that you don’t notice during the first few viewings.

Beginning
The first couple of shots are b role that I shot in the morning, setting the scene in a non obvious way. I considered a time lapse of the sun rising behind the Castello but shied away from it fearing it was over cinematic. Besides, Brussels Airlines losing my bag meant I didn’t have the correct gear for a time lapse.

Dans words introduce Romina and the b role shows her with a focus pull to Dan which cuts to him speaking before the rest of the b role brings us inside the room for the preparations. It is actually Romina’s door but the viewer is brought indoors and I’ve used artistic license.

The watch shot is actual played backwards so that he is putting it on. Makes, more sense since he is getting ready. Then a shot of him chuckling is in mirror image so that it cuts back to him speaking with the same framing. This helps gel the screen direction.

Dans words (in Italian which is nice) tell us of ‘making small repayments’ to Romina so I have the b role lead us into her preparations and coincide his words with her opening the shoes he gave her. The b role of the girls bring us down to floor level then cuts to the shoe box being taken from under the bed.

Then the shots of Romina trying the shoe on are in mirror image so that it can cut back to her with the same framing. Again screen direction.

Then there is a loose link. The glasses on the table as she laughs at his line cut to a shot of the Champagne glasses to bring us into the bottle sequence.

This sequence is j cut with the beginnings of the Jewish Ceremony of the evening which introduces a new time line. I have some snappy cuts in the b role with the girls curly hair in the handheld whip pan shot cutting to Romina’s curly hair as she does a spin. I love this cut as well as the ‘cheers’ silhouette shot and think that this part of the movie with the newly introduced time line and the cutting pace picking up brings us into the body of the story and the main story line can now begin.

Middle

As Dan’s words head up the story the b role brings us back into his room during his preps.  The crux of the story is his decision to go after the girl he loved who happened to be his best friend’s little sister.  A sensitive story line but a beautiful one.  I considered using artistic license and swopping the shot of Dan’s brother with a shot of  one of Romina’s brothers.  This would have shown an irony- the guy he was so worried about is actually now helping him to prepare for the wedding.  This would have been nice but unfair to Dan’s brother who was his best man after all.  The sentiment is still there.

This sequence ends with dan and his groomsmen walking to the Cattedrale through one of the dark tunnels on the path from Aragonese.  Dan’s story is at the peak of his despair as he battles with his conscience.

End

The music changes moods as Romina’s side of the story begins.  The dark tunnel shot cuts to a dark shot inside the Cattedrale where Dan waits for his bride.

then three climaxes take place.  We have three story lines to close.  The first is the wedding ceremony, then the Jewish blessing.  B role brings us back to the Castello (via an ice cream parlour) to help tie all story lines together neatly.  Then the main story line of Dan’s big decision which finishes so beautifully.

There were a few other linked shots but I’ll stop boring you now.  I hope what I have said makes sense and doesn’t sound too arty farty.

Here is the film:-

My mate Mike over at Reel Vision got married last week.  Of course we had to do something a bit special.  So rather than trying to come up with the ultimate wedding video, we just did this:-

Oh well, shame…

Well if you can’t have a laugh with your mates, who can you have a laugh with, right?  It was a fantastic laugh though, even though I was the only sober person there!  (another wedding in the morning).

If any of my clients ever want something like this then I’m afraid I will have to report you straight to the looney bin as you are plainly bonkers.  Just like Mike.