When I first started this video production gig in Olympia, I always knew there was a certain type of wedding video I’d like to offer. A documentary style.
I also knew it would be a hard sell until I had at least one under my belt to show as a sample. Give people an idea of what it was they were going to be getting. I’ve got one completed, and would be all about pushing this particular package on my website kineticvisionmedia.com, except this whole economic situation has turned things around a little. Not as many people are going all out and spending excessive amounts of money all the time. Ah well, I think I will start promoting it anyway. I will posit that my documentary wedding video package is not a frivolous waste of money, it is a fantastic investment. A choice to have documentation of a wedding day in a style and manner that is as unique as the people getting married. Nothing in these videos will be forced or artificial. As with the rest of the wedding videos I do, I try and capture the natural essence of the way the couple acts together.
I could talk about this all day – but part of the reason I’m in video production is because I believe it is more effective to show than to tell. So here is a sample of my wedding video package “The Documentary.”
That 20 minutes of documentary establishes the video you get, immediately followed by the ceremony, reception, and other highlights and good stuff. Visit my website kineticvisionmedia.com for pricing and more information. Thanks!
A couple of updates here in the second week of January are needed.
Like that snow? Ridiculous. Glad it’s gone, really. When I plunged a yardstick in to the flattest area of my backyard it read 17 inches. Seriously. I’m so delighted that the rain is back, I’m thinking about putting on my dancing shoes and doing a tap number in the middle of my street.
Just a little footage captured during my boredom while snowed in on the 7th day. While it was surely driving me a little stir-crazy, I got a little cabin fever to be sure, it was also a great opportunity for productivity in the editing department.
Nick and Lois had wanted to know if I could get them their wedding video by Christmas. Well, it would be a little on the narrow side, I told them I couldn’t make any promises, but would do what I could.
Sunday December 21st, 1st day of winter, 5th or 6th consecutive snow day in our region; I agree to meet Nick and Lois to hand deliver their DVD’s, as I don’t know if the USPS could effectively deliver the package in 3 days, with the holiday, and the conditions.
My car being stuck, my friend John drives me to the Kinko’s where I print the DVD sleeves. Everything is looking good, we stop and buy tubes for sledding while we’re out and about. I need to get home, insert the sleeves into the DVD cases, with the DVD’s and make the package complete. Then to a local coffee joint for delivery.
Unfortunately, as we return to my house, John gets his car stuck on a pile of snow in what would be the only area he could really park. The plow has been piling it up for the last 4 or 5 days. John ends up staying on the couch that night, getting a ride to work in the morning. The next day after work, we dug him out and he got home.
Nick and Lois ended up meeting me at the bottom of my hill, where I ran through the snow piled up almost 2 feet high, while it was snowing, and hand delivered the DVD’s of their wedding to them, so that they could have them in time to give their parents for Christmas!
Merry Christmas Nick and Lois!
Their video turned out great, and though I like the Pre-Ceremony Montage a lot, I’m going to share the Post-Ceremony Montage here –
So here is what Nick and Lois had to say about their wedding video -
Ken,
WE LOVE IT!! It was just what I wanted… seriously!! I am picky and you pleased me very much.
It was last minute but it was soo needed to create our lifetime memory of that special day
Thank you,
Nick and Lois
Once again, I feel I should iterate that the emphasis in quotes from clients is always original, never added! I love it when a plan comes together! Seriously, not much makes me feel better than knowing a client is happy with the work I’ve provided.
Nick and Lois’s wedding also marks a kind of monumental occasion for me business-wise, in that for the 3 years I’ve been doing video production work professionally I’ve never booked a wedding after September. Theirs was November 15th. Another good thing is that ’09 is already starting to fill up. Good stuff!
Here is the Highlight Reel from Nick and Lois’s wedding.
It’s kinda how I feel. Still churning out the end of summer editing backlog. Sure doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for this blog, so I figured I would go ahead and get one done while waiting for some footage to render. Mostly I’m just going to post clips of some of the stuff I’ve finished in the past month or so.
Mark and Jennifer’s wedding was great. The setting at a friends house on Henderson inlet was a beautiful location, and the sun gave everything a golden kind of hue that day. It kind of colored everything in a way that looks great, really almost film-like…
Hey Ken!
We just watched the DVD and everything came out sooo good! Thank you so much, you were really able to get a feeling of the day without actually being there.
Mark and Jennifer -
Next is Omayra and James. A little back story -
Quite a while back, little over a year or so, I was starting to get really serious about this videography as a business thing. After producing, directing, writing and editing a TV show for the 8 years I did it, I was determined to make this my living. No one was stopping me but myself.
My calendar wasn’t exactly full. Video Production was still a supplemental portion of my life. I needed to make industry contacts. I needed to network.
Firing off e-mails and phone calls to wedding planners and venues and flower shops and bridal boutiques yielded less than stellar results. Needless to say, there was frustration.
One day I drove past “Omayra’s Bridal Boutiqe” on Capitol, just south of Linwood in Tumwater. I decided to stop in and introduce myself. Things went well, and on September 3rd of this year, I filmed her and James’ wedding.
Here’s the clip -
Omayra loved the video so much that we will be giving DVD’s of the wedding out as promotional material for her and myself at Omayra’s Bridal Boutique!
Next is a couple that met at the University of Washington in an engineering program. Yongjun, Dingding and I met to discuss their wedding videography, and everything moved forward. Yongjun and Dingding are both from China, and their wedding was fantastic. I’m always excited about any opportunity to experience cultures other than my own. Yongjun had requested I film from the front of the church, facing the audience. This is not my usual shooting location, so I was a tad worried about lighting, but overall everything came out great. It was a lot of fun, and another beautiful wedding in Seattle!
Well I think that’s about it for this time. I have quite a few more wedding videos in the edit backlog, a couple of Quinceanera’s to complete, a benefit golf tournament, the Sweet Adelines concert, oh wow. What a workload I’ve shouldered! Yeah, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but I gotta keep crankin. Churning. Like a factory. A high quality factory of course, as you can see for yourself above!
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted a blog here, since August 19th. Almost a month. Things have been busy!
I’d like to share a few clips of one of the more recent wedding videos I’ve done. Tim and Candice were married July 19th in Edmonds WA. The video is wonderful, I really like it anyways. It surely ranks among my best work, and marks the first implementation of my recently purchased Sennheiser Evolution G2 wireless mics. These things are amazing. I’ll do a post dedicated to them when I get time.
Here is the pre-ceremony montage…
Candice and Tim chose a couple of Jack Johnson songs from their collection to use for two of the montages. I love Jack Johnson’s tunes, it’s hard to find happier more upbeat music. The songs really fit the vibe of Candice and Tim’s wedding. Everyone was so happy!
After the ceremony, this song isn’t Jack, but is equally as awesome in my humble opinion!
There were a lot of shots incorporated into the Highlight Reel that were geared toward the “Documentary” package I plan to start promoting next season. I’ll likely do a blog about that to, time permitting of course!
Here is Candice and Tim’s “Highlight Reel.”
Hearing from clients that they are happy with the work I have done is always a great feeling. Candice had this to say about her video -
“Yes, we received the DVD(s) and I absolutely love it! I am so extremely glad and thankful people were able to talk me into a professional videographer! It is definitely an investment that I will never regret and cherish forever! It scares me to think I was fine to go without a video! I watched them when they first got here with Tim and his parents. Everyone loved the montages and the highlight at the end! The music went perfectly like you said it would and I especially think the part where I was done putting on some lipstick was really neat as the music went “pop” as I smacked my lips! (I think you know what I am talking about).”
Sweet! To quote a famous Hannibal – “I love it when a plan comes together!”
Once again I’d like to offer my congratulations to Tim and Candice! They are great together and I wish them many happy years on whatever roads they travel.
Thanks for reading!
In the early part of this year things were getting a little tight. There weren’t a lot of weddings going on, and my marketing was not what it should have been. What marketing I had been doing, contacting wedding planners, distributing sample DVD’s and cards, didn’t seem to be paying the kind of dividends I’d hoped for.
Ends have to meet though, so I took a second job (apart from my regular job as a maintenance engineer at a local hotel) delivering pizza for a local pizza house. Driving home from a delivery an evening in late May, I ended up behind a car with a magnetic advertisement on the back of it. “Happily Ever After by Allison” Oh, a wedding planner. How interesting… I quickly copied the number down and called her up the next day.
After talking with Allison I send her a sample DVD. She is very impressed. Says she has a wedding July 6th, wants to know if I’m interested. Says the groom plays in the NFL. Used to play for the Seahawks. Now plays for the Cardinals.
“Am I interested?” I don’t want to seem like I’m making sport of Allison here or anything, but “Am I interested?” What a silly question. A little over a month later on July 5th I traveled to a ranch in Redmond and filmed the wedding of Joseph and Brandelyn Tafoya. A trusted friend and accomplished videographer in his own right, Lyquoc came with me to run second camera and shoot some guest video messages for the bride and groom.
I kind of wanted to use these videos as an example of the features of the Silver and Gold Wedding Video Packages I offer. The Silver comes with a Pre-Ceremony Establishing Montage and a Post-Ceremony Montage. Here is the Pre Ceremony Establishing Montage from the video which leads directly to the ceremony -
Flowing from this directly in to the bridesmaids and groomsmen entering, and the bride walking down the aisle lends a dynamic to the video that is very entertaining while capturing the uniqueness of the occasion. I do offer a scaled down “Economy” package that doesn’t come with these extended montages, and those who chose the Silver package often opt for the Highlight Reel as opposed to the Establishing Montages. The more I do these, the more I like doing them, the more I’d like to try and work them in to even the economy package. Problem being, the rate for the Economy is so inexpensive that if I do these montages, (along with the custom DVD menu’s and art design included with every package) I log my hours and barely end up clearing minimum wage. That path leads straight to burnout.
Every wedding is different. So is every wedding video. This one starts at the very tail of the ceremony and heads to the reception. With a few stops on the way.
This wedding really was beautiful. Lyquoc and I captured so much great footage I felt pressured to include all of it in these montages but knew there was no way. I was able to save a lot of things just for the Highlight Reel, which is here -
So there it is. The Tafoya wedding complete. It was great filming Joseph and Brandelyn’s wedding, and it was clear there was a lot of love in the air. We spotted a couple of guys that were fairly obviously pro football players, though didn’t recognize most of them. I went ahead and asked for a picture with the one I did recognize.
