Austin Wedding Videographer | Ten Questions to Ask Your Wedding Videographer
Wedding videography for your wedding day or elopement is one of the most important (and possibly largest) investments you’re going to make during the planning process. Your documentary team is going to be by your side for a large majority of the day, and are responsible for recognizing moments and capturing them without being invasive or distracting.
If you’ve been searching for a wedding videographer or elopement videographer and watching their work, you might already have some questions. Or you might just be excited by what you’ve seen and are ready to book! But before you do, take the time to ask a couple important questions.
How many hours of coverage do I need?
The longer your wedding videographer is there for, the better story they can tell.
Think of it this way. Video takes ten times as long to capture a moment as photography does. A photographer can snap a photo in roughly a second, whereas video takes at least 10 seconds for a single shot. So if you’re wondering why your videographer might be lingering a bit longer, it’s because they’re giving room to let things breathe and happen organically.
Some factors to consider when deciding how much coverage you need: What does your timeline look like? Are there multiple locations? Multiple days? How many people are going to be there? How chill and relaxed do you want the day to be? All of these factors play into the amount of hours necessary for your wedding videographer to document your wedding day.
For a typical wedding day, we recommend no fewer than eight hours of coverage. From years of experience, this is the bare minimum to let moments naturally play out as they would in real life, and for us to capture enough footage to tell the story of the day. Even for elopement videography, we prefer to be there for as long as possible. If we travel, all day coverage is what we aim for since the whole reason for us being there is to film you!
2. How do you work with photographers?
Obviously we hate them.
AND OBVIOUSLY WE’RE KIDDING.
The photo/video relationship on your wedding day is arguably the (second most) important relationship on your wedding day. If your photographer and videographer aren’t on the same wavelength, it can feel tense and impact the quality of your photo and film deliverables. They are with you nearly all day, so they should enjoy being in each others presence and have compatible shooting styles to get you the best content and day of experience.
If your photographer tends to do a lot of posing and directing, your videographer might struggle to capture candid and interactive moments. Alternatively, if your videographer is making you redo things and act moments out again, it may impact the photographers ability to get the shots they need in a timely manner.
We love to collaborate with and bounce ideas off of photographers as we capture your day. Photo and video are very different forms of media, and what works best for one medium might not work for the other. So communication and mutual consideration is key. You should take special care into choosing photo and video vendors that have worked together in the past and have built rapport and comfortability between one another. The best place to get recommendations for photographers is from videographers and vice versa. Trust their recommendations! To take all the guess work out, we offer a one stop shop for photo & video with our Photo & Video Package. Reach out if you’re interested in booking us for both of these services!
3. What is your turn around time?
There’s a certain amount of detail and care that goes into a uniquely crafted film, but there’s a timeliness as well. It’s a good balance of, “oh, we just lived that yesterday” and “oh, I forgot I ordered this package”. On average, a Highlight style wedding film can take anywhere from two to four months to edit. And Documentary style captures take the longest to piece together.
A good wedding videographer will take the time to watch every second of footage captured and ensure that all the best bits make it into the final film deliverable. They’ll spend time leveling audio, color correcting and grading each shot, meticulously piecing the footage together to flow and tell the story of the day. It’s usually a pretty feeling based process and unless their business model is pumping out formulaic films, you should expect to wait at least a couple months for your films.
It tends to fluctuate depending on the season, but our usual turnaround time for a wedding film is within three months. Specifically for Hereafter Films, it’s just the 2 of us, cutting footage, kicking ass and taking names. But on average, that three month wait is an industry standard. A big red flags would be a really long wait time, like half a year. (Yikes) If you’re concerned about waiting a couple months, consider a one minute Social Teaser (see below) to hold you over. OR think about it as one more part of your wedding celebration that you still get to look forward to!
4. How do you deliver your films?
Not the sexiest question, but in the long run, it’s pretty important. Video cannot be physically printed out like a photo, which is a little bit of a bummer. DVDs are old news, I don’t even know anyone with a DVD player or a computer with a CD reader anymore. Usually, videographers will deliver your film via a link to wherever they are hosting your video, like YouTube or Vimeo. As long as the internet exists, your video will be on there.
If you want your wedding video on a DVD or a USB, it never hurts to ask your wedding videographer what they can do and if they offer some kind of physical deliverable of your wedding film.
We upload our films to Vimeo because we like the presentation and the platform. It’s kind of like a YouTube geared more towards filmmakers and videographers. You can download your video and save it to a hard drive, thumb drive, floppy disk, etc. and we encourage you to save it as many places as possible. We always save all our films on hard drives in case something needs to be sent again in the future. We still have the raw clips from our first wedding in 2014, and it’s all backed up to the cloud as well! We have some pretty dope wooden USBs as well if that peaks your interest.
5. How do you choose music for your films?
(This is our favorite part.)
Music dictates so much of how you feel about something, and the right song choice is crucial to making a personalized wedding film. It’s also where many videographers get lazy. We’ve all seen the films I’m talking about, where it opens on a drone shot, while a cinematic instrumental eases in and a voiceover from the officiant talks about the meaning of marriage. It’s not interesting, it’s imitation. You deserve something more.
We like to choose music based on your Spotify playlists. You know, the one you’ve been curating over the last 5 years of your relationship of all the songs that make you feel warm and fuzzy as you day dream about your partner. The songs you blast on a long stretch of highway, what you listen to in the morning together, the soundtrack of your love. That’s what we seek out. We hear the songs you play throughout your wedding day, what you get ready to, what you walk down the aisle to, your first dance. It all comes into play as we pick out the music for you film.
We also license the music for our films (because it’s illegal if we don’t) and there is only a handful of mainstream artists we can pay to use. We see this as a positive though! A new song you’ve never heard before means no preconceived notions, no old feelings, and no past associations. A new song is your song, a beautiful reminder of the first day of the rest of your life. Something to add to the playlist. <3
6. What is your shooting style?
There are several different styles of wedding video, such as Documentary, Creative, Cinematic, Linear or Non-Linear, the list goes on. A good wedding videographer should be able to describe their style of shooting and editing and why they choose to create in that format.
We like to call our aesthetic “High End Home Video” or “Emotional Edgy”. We’re like your Uncle Joe, walking around with the JVC camera from 30 years ago, except it’s the 21st century, and we have mirrorless cameras now.
We like to let things play out as they would if we weren’t there, capturing authentic and heartfelt moments that just can’t be faked. We like to get artsy fartsy. We also like to stand still. We believe that a blend of different types of shots and a stellar soundtrack is the best way to craft a film that is uniquely for and about you and your partner. We like to say that we’re 90% fly on the wall, 10% director. We might put you in some bomb ass lighting, or compose a shot or two for the sake of artistry, but by and large, we just wanna hang out with you all day and capture the real real.
7. Do you set up lights?
With almost all tech and gear related questions, we would urge you to just trust the professional, it’s not something you need to worry about. But when it comes to the ambiance and experience of the day, a pole with a giant lamp beaming down on your dance floor might just be something you want to have a say in.
This may sound sacrilegious to some, but we don’t set up any lights at weddings. Many other videographers do, because the shot might be slightly more cinematic or their gear is not capable of shooting in low light situations. Setting up lights is not inherently bad, but it can change the mood of the reception if your guests have to avoid tripping over a light stand or sand bag or simply don’t feel comfortable dancing because there is a spotlight on them.
This is your wedding, a day you, your family and friends should be engaged in and enjoying. So if the idea of production style lights in your reception space feels invasive or distracting to you, hire someone who doesn’t need them to get a quality shot.
8. How many shooters do I need?
Have you ever watched a movie and noticed that there are multiple angles of the same situation or dialogue? The most efficient and effective way to tell the story is to have multiple shots of the same situation, to build out the story and emotion, but also so a scene or moment doesn’t have to be repeated over and over again. We never want our couples to act or “redo” anything on their wedding day. That’s just fake and lame. When there are two angles from the same moment, it make you feel as if you’re able to see the situation from every view, and experience what everyone in the room is feeling.
There is really nothing wrong with having one videographer, and we do know some super talented solo shooters. For the films we create, we require the both of us.
9. Who shoots the video and who edits the video?
Some videography companies have the model of contracting out shooters to film on your wedding day and then having a completely different person edit your video. While this may not impact the quality of the film, it will more than likely impact the feeling of the film and result in a formulaic, generic video.
We shoot and edit all of our videos from beginning to end. We respond to your emails, we communicate with your planner, we film your day and we don’t outsource the editing. From start to finish, you get us, baby. And that gets you a hand-crafted, detailed and cared for film deliverable. Imagine someone trying to retell your story without being there in the first place. Seems kind of wrong, right?
10. What makes video different from photography?
Ah yes, the age old question. Isn’t just having photos of the day enough?
“No”, I exclaim angrily as I write this post.
Photo and video differ in so many ways. For starters, video has the advantage of movement. You are able to relieve the day through watching yourself and other people laugh, cry and everything in between. Video also has audio on its side. To be able to hear your vows again and again for the rest of your life is something that can help you rediscover your marriage year after year.
And finally, video plays on longevity, it’s ripe with nostalgia that you can experience and share. Anniversaries, meeting new friends, and having kids are all opportunities to relive one of the most important days of your life with the help of your wedding film. Click here to read more about the value of wedding videography.
Well there you have it. The answers to the questions you never knew you had. If you’re searching for a wedding videographer or elopement videographer who is going to honor your story and create a personable, detailed film of your best day ever, then reach out to us and we’ll keep this conversation going.
<3 Ryan & Sharayah