Wedding videography
Encyclopedia
Wedding videography is a video production
that documents a wedding
on video. The final product of the videographer
's documentation is commonly called a wedding video it is also being referred to as a wedding movie or a wedding film.
can trace its roots back to before the advent of the modern video camera
through 8mm and 16mm films. Over the decades while film was the only way to capture moving pictures a few enterprising individuals would take the family 8mm camera and film the weddings of friends and family. These film cameras had a major limitation in the form of 4 minute load times. After exposing 4 minutes of film the operator would have to load a new film cartridge. The high cost of processing and the fact the majority of them could not record sound to the film, further limited the industry. But there were a few individuals who had turned the documentation of weddings into a business.
1980 saw the introduction of the first consumer camcorder
s by Sony, with other manufacturers soon following suit. With the introduction of these first camcorders wedding video documentation evolved from something for the rich or celebrity into something for the masses. Early adopters were primarily hobbyists who, at first started recording the weddings of friends and family, then went on to do jobs for pay.
The early days of professional wedding videography were primitive, with the equipment generally reproducing low image quality. Cameras required bright lights, had fuzzy pictures, poor color saturation and single-channel, poor quality audio. The cameras were bulky with a separate unit that connected to the video recorder via a cable, severely limiting the videographer's movement. In post-production many wedding videos were not edited. Generation loss
was also a limiting factor because of the nature of analog video tape.
From its earliest days and through the 1980s Wedding Videography developed a negative reputation of being an interference on the festivities, it was meant to document. The bright lights required to produce a quality image were damaging to the atmosphere many brides and grooms wanted to create. As the market expanded, it was flooded by many individuals who had little experience and technical knowledge, which left the consumer with fallen expectations. Consumer technology available to the wedding videographer could not equal broadcast quality of the time.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state of the industry began to shift for the better. Videographers began to get organized behind regional and national organizations, the largest and still active organization being Wedding and Event Videographers Association International (WEVA). Manufacturers created a market between the professional video camera
and video camera
consumer levels which became known as prosumer
which met the needs of this niche market.
Towards the mid 1990s, the manufacturers introduced the next evolution of cameras with digital cameras which removed the last of the technological barriers that had impeded wedding videography since its inception. The cameras were small, mobile, worked even better than the already good analog cameras on the market in low light situations and allowed the videographer to be discreet and not an intrusion on the events. These prosumer digital cameras were even adopted by many commercial producers because of their size and the quality of their images.
Post-production
creativity took a major leap forward with the introduction of advanced tools like the Newtek Video Toaster
in the early 1990s. This led to the introduction of other relatively inexpensive non-linear editing system
s (NLE) which offered the editor many more creative options. But the delivery method still relied on an analog viewing system, VHS
video tape. This changed in the late 1990s with introduction of the recordable DVD. Weddings and events were now recorded digitally, edited digitally and delivered digitally, greatly improving the image quality
.
By the late 1990s Wedding Videography had expanded beyond documentation of weddings. The majority of wedding videographers preferred to add the additional term of "event" to their description of service. New offerings such as Love Stories, Photo Montages (a retrospective collection of photographs set to music), music videos, family biographies appeared. Anniversaries, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs graduations and many other one-time events were also being documented in large numbers on video. The general skill level of the industries members improved and post-production capabilities reflected the standards of commercial productions. As the industry grew the consumer began to have options, both in the length and the level of creativity, for how their event was portrayed.
, 8mm, super 8mm, 16mm and even 35mm film stock is enjoying a revival within the Wedding Videography industry with some studios offering a combination of the video formats with the film formats and others offering film stock only production. Another major shift in how wedding and event video is produced and delivered is occurring with the introduction of High-definition video
Technology and Blu-ray discs. Production equipment once limited to the commercial studios began to appear in the wedding video industry; Steadicam units, sliders, jibs and other camera movement systems. Post-production editing tools improved with the introduction of more capable computers and software.
Video Journalistic style :typically described as a documentary of the event. Segments are edited as they occur to preserve continuity. This style of editing will produce a polished documentation of the day as it unfolds. Also can be referred to as Documentary Style
Cinematic :the term is defined as making a movie or film. Within the wedding videography industry it has taken on the following meaning: It is captured and edited for the dramatic effect and mood. It is usually presented with a particular style and "wow" effect that may not be present in a "mere documentary" of the event.
Storytelling :a video that relies on sound bites recorded pre, during or in post, usually from the bride and groom. These sound bites are then added to the audio track for dramatic effect and to push the story of the day forward.
Short Form Wedding :a video of the day that has been edited to fit within a time frame that is no less than 15 minutes and no longer than 50 minutes. Some videographers consider anything under 60 minutes to be short form, but according to the entry form for the WEVA Creative Excellence Awards it can not exceed 50 minutes.
Traditional :a catch-all term for styles that do not fit with above. Traditional tends to look more like a family-shot video; it can be edited, but usually lightly. Everything is edited in a linear progression and usually in its entirety. These videos tend to be 2 to 3 hours, and even longer, in length.
Wedding videographers are not limited to using just one of these styles; different amounts of styles can be found in every video.
Engagement Video: A video documenting the groom asking the bride to marry. Quite often filmed without the bride's knowledge.
Invitation DVD: Some invitation printers will include a DVD in a slot in the printed invitation. The DVD shows the couple and/or the parents on camera inviting viewers to the wedding and reception.
Photo Montage: (also called video scrapbooks) includes but not limited to still pictures displayed on a video. Can also include sound bites and video footage, but is predominantly still photos.
Love Story: Traditionally an interview of the bride and groom about how they met, what they are like together and what their plans for the future are. Quite often the interview is inter-cut with romantic footage of the couple frolicking together or re-enactments of what they are talking about.
Concept Video: Typically a short film that incorporates to tell a story about the bride or groom or both. Quite often not related to the couple's real life.
Same Day Edit: (Also called a wedding day edit) A short video produced from the footage of the wedding shot earlier in the day, usually only incorporating footage from pre-ceremony, ceremony and post ceremony, that is then showed at the reception as a recap of the wedding.
Bridal Elegance: A video shot in the style of a fashion shoot that depicts the bride in her wedding gown. Can be done before, during or after the wedding.
Highlights: A chapter on the final DVD that shows highlights of the ceremony and reception. Usually running under 10 minutes, highlights videos may be uploaded to YouTube and other social networking websites. The shorter highlights chapter is popular to show friends, while family might watch the full-length wedding DVD.
Trash The Dress
: A fad that struck the video and photography markets from 2005 to 2008. The idea was to create art by soaking, staining, dirtying or outright destroying the wedding gown. The shoot often occurred after the wedding day.
Additional 8mm info and usage
Video production
Video production is videography, the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media. The term includes methods of production and post-production...
that documents a wedding
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
on video. The final product of the videographer
Videographer
Strictly speaking, a videographer is a person who works in the field of videography, video production — recording moving images and sound on video tape, disk, other electro-mechanical device. News broadcasting relies heavily on live television where videographers engage in electronic news...
's documentation is commonly called a wedding video it is also being referred to as a wedding movie or a wedding film.
History
Wedding videographyVideography
Videography refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media). The term includes methods of video production and post-production...
can trace its roots back to before the advent of the modern video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
through 8mm and 16mm films. Over the decades while film was the only way to capture moving pictures a few enterprising individuals would take the family 8mm camera and film the weddings of friends and family. These film cameras had a major limitation in the form of 4 minute load times. After exposing 4 minutes of film the operator would have to load a new film cartridge. The high cost of processing and the fact the majority of them could not record sound to the film, further limited the industry. But there were a few individuals who had turned the documentation of weddings into a business.
1980 saw the introduction of the first consumer camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s by Sony, with other manufacturers soon following suit. With the introduction of these first camcorders wedding video documentation evolved from something for the rich or celebrity into something for the masses. Early adopters were primarily hobbyists who, at first started recording the weddings of friends and family, then went on to do jobs for pay.
The early days of professional wedding videography were primitive, with the equipment generally reproducing low image quality. Cameras required bright lights, had fuzzy pictures, poor color saturation and single-channel, poor quality audio. The cameras were bulky with a separate unit that connected to the video recorder via a cable, severely limiting the videographer's movement. In post-production many wedding videos were not edited. Generation loss
Generation loss
Generation loss refers to the loss of quality between subsequent copies or transcodes of data. Anything that reduces the quality of the representation when copying, and would cause further reduction in quality on making a copy of the copy, can be considered a form of generation loss...
was also a limiting factor because of the nature of analog video tape.
From its earliest days and through the 1980s Wedding Videography developed a negative reputation of being an interference on the festivities, it was meant to document. The bright lights required to produce a quality image were damaging to the atmosphere many brides and grooms wanted to create. As the market expanded, it was flooded by many individuals who had little experience and technical knowledge, which left the consumer with fallen expectations. Consumer technology available to the wedding videographer could not equal broadcast quality of the time.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state of the industry began to shift for the better. Videographers began to get organized behind regional and national organizations, the largest and still active organization being Wedding and Event Videographers Association International (WEVA). Manufacturers created a market between the professional video camera
Professional video camera
A professional video camera is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images...
and video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
consumer levels which became known as prosumer
Prosumer
Prosumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or less often, producer with the word consumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a "cross" between consumer grade and professional grade...
which met the needs of this niche market.
Towards the mid 1990s, the manufacturers introduced the next evolution of cameras with digital cameras which removed the last of the technological barriers that had impeded wedding videography since its inception. The cameras were small, mobile, worked even better than the already good analog cameras on the market in low light situations and allowed the videographer to be discreet and not an intrusion on the events. These prosumer digital cameras were even adopted by many commercial producers because of their size and the quality of their images.
Post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
creativity took a major leap forward with the introduction of advanced tools like the Newtek Video Toaster
Video Toaster
The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of standard-definition and high-definition video in NTSC, PAL, and resolution independent formats on Commodore Amiga computers and subsequently on computers running the Windows operating system...
in the early 1990s. This led to the introduction of other relatively inexpensive non-linear editing system
Non-linear editing system
In video, a non-linear editing system is a video editing or audio editing digital audio workstation system which can perform random access non-destructive editing on the source material...
s (NLE) which offered the editor many more creative options. But the delivery method still relied on an analog viewing system, VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
video tape. This changed in the late 1990s with introduction of the recordable DVD. Weddings and events were now recorded digitally, edited digitally and delivered digitally, greatly improving the image quality
Image Quality
Image quality is a characteristic of an image that measures the perceived image degradation . Imaging systems may introduce some amounts of distortion or artifacts in the signal, so the quality assessment is an important problem.-In photographic imaging:In digital or film-based photography, an...
.
By the late 1990s Wedding Videography had expanded beyond documentation of weddings. The majority of wedding videographers preferred to add the additional term of "event" to their description of service. New offerings such as Love Stories, Photo Montages (a retrospective collection of photographs set to music), music videos, family biographies appeared. Anniversaries, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs graduations and many other one-time events were also being documented in large numbers on video. The general skill level of the industries members improved and post-production capabilities reflected the standards of commercial productions. As the industry grew the consumer began to have options, both in the length and the level of creativity, for how their event was portrayed.
Present day
Ironically the progenitor of videoVideo
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, 8mm, super 8mm, 16mm and even 35mm film stock is enjoying a revival within the Wedding Videography industry with some studios offering a combination of the video formats with the film formats and others offering film stock only production. Another major shift in how wedding and event video is produced and delivered is occurring with the introduction of High-definition video
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
Technology and Blu-ray discs. Production equipment once limited to the commercial studios began to appear in the wedding video industry; Steadicam units, sliders, jibs and other camera movement systems. Post-production editing tools improved with the introduction of more capable computers and software.
Typical styles
Common styles range from "journalistic" to "cinematic".Video Journalistic style :typically described as a documentary of the event. Segments are edited as they occur to preserve continuity. This style of editing will produce a polished documentation of the day as it unfolds. Also can be referred to as Documentary Style
Cinematic :the term is defined as making a movie or film. Within the wedding videography industry it has taken on the following meaning: It is captured and edited for the dramatic effect and mood. It is usually presented with a particular style and "wow" effect that may not be present in a "mere documentary" of the event.
Storytelling :a video that relies on sound bites recorded pre, during or in post, usually from the bride and groom. These sound bites are then added to the audio track for dramatic effect and to push the story of the day forward.
Short Form Wedding :a video of the day that has been edited to fit within a time frame that is no less than 15 minutes and no longer than 50 minutes. Some videographers consider anything under 60 minutes to be short form, but according to the entry form for the WEVA Creative Excellence Awards it can not exceed 50 minutes.
Traditional :a catch-all term for styles that do not fit with above. Traditional tends to look more like a family-shot video; it can be edited, but usually lightly. Everything is edited in a linear progression and usually in its entirety. These videos tend to be 2 to 3 hours, and even longer, in length.
Wedding videographers are not limited to using just one of these styles; different amounts of styles can be found in every video.
Types of Video
Wedding video has grown in recent years to encompass myriad video production offerings. Some are produced to be shown at the wedding or are delivered after the wedding.Engagement Video: A video documenting the groom asking the bride to marry. Quite often filmed without the bride's knowledge.
Invitation DVD: Some invitation printers will include a DVD in a slot in the printed invitation. The DVD shows the couple and/or the parents on camera inviting viewers to the wedding and reception.
Photo Montage: (also called video scrapbooks) includes but not limited to still pictures displayed on a video. Can also include sound bites and video footage, but is predominantly still photos.
Love Story: Traditionally an interview of the bride and groom about how they met, what they are like together and what their plans for the future are. Quite often the interview is inter-cut with romantic footage of the couple frolicking together or re-enactments of what they are talking about.
Concept Video: Typically a short film that incorporates to tell a story about the bride or groom or both. Quite often not related to the couple's real life.
Same Day Edit: (Also called a wedding day edit) A short video produced from the footage of the wedding shot earlier in the day, usually only incorporating footage from pre-ceremony, ceremony and post ceremony, that is then showed at the reception as a recap of the wedding.
Bridal Elegance: A video shot in the style of a fashion shoot that depicts the bride in her wedding gown. Can be done before, during or after the wedding.
Highlights: A chapter on the final DVD that shows highlights of the ceremony and reception. Usually running under 10 minutes, highlights videos may be uploaded to YouTube and other social networking websites. The shorter highlights chapter is popular to show friends, while family might watch the full-length wedding DVD.
Trash The Dress
Trash the dress
Trash the dress, also known as fearless bridal or rock the frock, is a style of wedding photography that contrasts elegant clothing with an environment in which it is out of place...
: A fad that struck the video and photography markets from 2005 to 2008. The idea was to create art by soaking, staining, dirtying or outright destroying the wedding gown. The shoot often occurred after the wedding day.
Professional Organizations
Professional Organization Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA) Professional organizations offer training, professional competition, and support to members, as well as directory services to help with marketing. WEVA also awards the annual Creative Excellence Awards in creativity, quality and technical skill in wedding video productions.See also
- Video productionVideo productionVideo production is videography, the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media. The term includes methods of production and post-production...
- Event videographyEvent VideographyEvent videography is a video production, the art of capturing social and special events onto video by a videographer. The term is used to describe the videography of any event, aside from weddings and wedding videography.-History:...
- Wedding photographyWedding photographyWedding photography is the photography of activities relating to weddings. It encompasses photographs of the couple before marriage as well as coverage of the wedding and reception...
- NewtekNewTekNewTek, Inc. is a San Antonio, Texas-based hardware and software company that produces live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers...
- DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
- High-definition videoHigh-definition videoHigh-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
- Super 8 mm filmSuper 8 mm filmSuper 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
- videoVideoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
- videographyVideographyVideography refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media). The term includes methods of video production and post-production...
- Institute of VideographyInstitute of VideographyThe Institute of Videography is a UK-registered, not-for-profit trade association for professional videographers. Its membership predominantly operates in the corporate video, wedding videography and special interest video markets - but extends into every area of media production...
External references
8mm film usage modern dayAdditional 8mm info and usage