I’m a Wedding Photographer and I don’t shoot video so why should I even care about your Queenstown Wedding Video?

In today’s blog post I am going to tell you some simple things you can do to make sure that your Queenstown Wedding Video doesn’t suck.  (I’m probably going to get a lot of grief from my fellow wedding photographers for this blog post, but I’m okay with that…)

First of all, let me explain why I’m writing this blog post in the first place.  After all, I’m a Wedding Photographer and I don’t shoot video so why should I even care about your Queenstown Wedding Video?

I’ve got a few friends who are Wedding Videographers and as we all work in the same industry and on top of this often work together we naturally talk about our work and compare our experiences shooting weddings.

Well, it turns out that many Wedding Videographers get minimal time with their couples on the wedding day to get the shots they need to create an awesome wedding film.

Luckily my friends are super talented and generally amazing and still get awesome shots and blow their couples’ minds (I’m not sure how they do this, I think it may be magic).  But having minimal time with the wedding couple on the wedding day makes it super hard for wedding videographers to capture all the moments they need to create an awesome wedding film.  So if your Wedding Videographer is only 100% amazing (instead of 125% super-human amazing) and they have very little time to get the shots they need, it makes it incredibly difficult for them to create a wedding film that represents what they are truly capable of.

I guess part of the reason Wedding Videographers often get very little time to shoot with their couples on the wedding day is down to us, the wedding photographers.  And partly it is down the couple and the priority or lack-of-priorith they place on Wedding Videography as opposed to Wedding Photography.  This whole Wedding Photographer versus Wedding Videographer Balance Of Power thing reminds me of my early days as a photographer’s assistant, working on big budget TV commercials.  There would be a film crew to shoot the TV commercial and a photographer to shoot the stills element of the advertising campaign.  I remember one particular job, it was a car shoot and we were shooting at the Pukaki Reservoir with stunning views of Mount Cook.  It was the end of the day and the light was amazing but we only had one hero car which the TV crew was filming.  My photographer was a German photographer based in Iceland and he was desperate to get some shots of the car before we lost the light.  So he asked me to call the TV crews Assistant Director on my walkie talkie to ask if we could have the car.  Now in film world, if they are shooting and you talk on the main channel on the radio you better be somebody bloody important or it better be life threatening!  I was shut down pretty quickly and pretty hard by the AD and we didn’t get the car and we didn’t get the shots – not that day.

This was pretty typical of how photographers working on TV commercials get treated, at least back in the day.  Even though they are being paid by the same client to get shots of the same product as the TV crew, they often (back then at least) got treated like an unwanted guest.

And it seems to me that this is often how Wedding Videographers get treated by Wedding Photographers on the wedding day.  Now weddings are often super busy for both photographers and videographers, we are both going as fast as we can to get all the shots we know we need if we are going to not just make our couples happy, but blow their minds.  But it seems to me that if I am shooting a wedding side by side with a Wedding Videographer we will both get better shots and therefore our clients will be happier if we work together with a shared vision.  How can we achieve this?

• Book a Wedding Photographer and Wedding Videographer who have worked together before and enjoy working together.
• Try and get both your Wedding Videographer and Wedding Photographer to the wedding rehearsal, especially if you haven’t met them yet.  The Wedding Rehearsal is a great opportunity to get some really helpful input from your Photographer and Videographer about what might work best visually for certain aspects of your Wedding Ceremony.  (It can be something as simple but fundamental as suggesting that if the page boy brings the rings to the bride and groom he doesn’t stand directly in front of the rings during the part of the ceremony where the rings go on the fingers.).
• Get both your Wedding Photographer and Wedding Videographer involved in any conversations about timeline and particularly location photos.  Keep the Videographer in the loop about the family and group photos.  Although the family and group photos are usually of no interest to Videographers it’s still helpful for them to know, for example, that the bride and groom will be tied up for 45 minutes with group and family photos because they have 100 guests and 18 group/family photo combinations.
• Book a Wedding Photographer and a Wedding Videographer who aren’t dicks (pardon my French) and who treat other people kindly and with respect.

I hope that you find this post helpful in choosing your Queenstown Wedding Videographer and Photographer and encouraging them to work together for more beautiful images and a less stressful wedding day.

P.S. The Wedding Videographer I love working with the most is Cristian from Eureka Films.  He is not only incredibly talented, he is also a super nice guy and great at making your wedding day feel as relaxed and stress-free as possible.  

P.S. If you found this Blog Post helpful, make sure you check out this Blog Post on How to find your Dream Queenstown Wedding Photographer.