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A Videographer’s Thoughts: Are Wedding Videos Necessary?

Matt The Cinematographer1I’d like to open this post by duly accepting the inevitable. With a precursor like “A Videographer’s Thoughts” the question “Are Wedding Videos Necessary?” is clearly an inherently biased one. But whilst I can’t claim to be unbiased in this case it’s only actually very recently that I feel I can say, hand on heart, that yes I believe a wedding video should be right up there with the dress and the photography on your list of planning priorities.

Four or five years ago my answer might have been very different, indeed even two years ago I would probably have justified it merely as a ‘nice bonus if you could afford it.’ Back then most wedding videos were still the highly formulaic medium that simply recorded the traditional key moments of the day in long, continuous fashion and at the end of it you would come away with a 2 hour artistically uninspiring film which even the couple themselves might struggle to watch more than once. There were of course one or two industry leaders producing stunning work throughout this period but on the whole, as the digital age struck, wedding videography somehow got left behind.

With the arrival of digital technology stills cameras moved forward leaps and bounds – maintaining the beauty of the images they had already been capable of capturing on film whilst easing the logistical problems of film development and affordability. Digital technology allowed wedding photography to flourish and develop rapidly without sacrificing the beauty of the shots the camera, or rather the lens, was capable of producing. Meanwhile video cameras became smaller and lighter, even graduating to High Definition, but the type of imagery the camera could produce (at least at a reasonably affordable level) became dull and lifeless, lacking the spark of some of the old Super 16 cameras and the beauty and depth of a digital SLR stills camera.

Not so long ago that all changed. Following the success of Canon’s 5D mkii (a camera designed for stills but capable of creating equally dynamic and highly cinematic video as well) manufacturers finally clocked on to the fact that video isn’t just about being HD capable, just like photography it’s about producing something truly beautiful, capturing imagery that evokes real emotions and that is exciting to look upon. Finally video was presented with affordable tools to create the kind of imagery previously only possible on Hollywood budgets, and since then there’s been something of a wedding videography revolution.

The great modern wedding videos are a piece of art in their own right. They mirror the creativity of photography and add the dynamics of movement and audio. Freed from the shackles of flat, disengaging footage and armed with the capability of capturing the world the way they have always seen it videographers have been inspired to produce something new, something different, something truly creative.

The affordability of these new, high quality cameras has also meant that wedding videos are no longer solely in the hands of commercial video companies that do weddings on the side. Now, just as with photography, wedding specialists have emerged and have pushed the medium ever further to produce something that would have been almost unthinkable not so long ago, developing their own distinct styles of videography in the process. Whilst this is still an emerging field, perhaps more so than photography and you therefore need to perhaps search a little harder to find truly great work, it’s this newfound quality that I would argue should put your wedding video at the forefront of your plans.

When your wedding is over and the last guest has departed you’re left with two things – most importantly a happy marriage and secondly the memories of that special day. Hopefully you will have had a photographer capture the day for you and the memories those photographs inspire are truly precious. But photographs alone can rarely tell the full story. They lack the sounds of the day, the drama that movement can bring to the forefront, the story unfolding before you that you may even have missed on the day. Photographs and films evoke different emotions, they stir different senses and they each best encapsulate different parts of the day. Photography & videography share a common theme in separate dimensions and together they can keep your memories safe forever more.

So are wedding videos necessary? No. But what they are is an extraordinary, engaging and beautiful keepsake of the most important day of your lives and your one and only take at keeping those memories alive forever.

 And all the critics agree, your wedding is set to be an absolute blockbuster.

These wonderful wedding videos that illustrate the writing are by:

1. White Dress Films
2. Lenik Films
3. York Place Films

 

 

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