Tips for Booking a Wedding Videographer
“This will be a day long remembered.” —Darth Vader
Okay, that quote was taken completely out of context but even so, it’s your wedding day! Wouldn’t you want to ensure that your special day is remembered and cherished for years to come?
Although weddings and photographers often go hand-in-hand, many often look at wedding videos as a luxury item. To me, however, I want to be able to remember the emotions, actions, laughter, how crazy uncle Carl drank too much but still managed to pull off a near-perfect Harlem Shake, etc. These types of vibes can only be captured on video. Add this to the fact that I’m completely and totally biased about wedding videography and you’ll see why I feel weddings and videos go perfect together.
Even so, hiring a videographer can oftentimes be a daunting experience. Some offer their services for hundreds while others charge several thousands of dollars. Some may have dozens of reviews on reputable sites but their quality is fairly low while others simply exist on social media and their website with much higher quality content. How are you to tell the quality of one wedding videographer over another?
Although quality can oftentimes be a biased term, there are a few items which should not be taken lightly when looking for a wedding videographer.
Experience
This is by far the most important factor when selecting a wedding videographer. However, experience shouldn’t be confused with the number of years in the industry. There may be one videographer who films 3-5 weddings a year and has been doing so for the past 10 years. On the other hand, there may be another who films 3-5 weddings per month and has been doing so for only two years. Who would you pick?
We as videographers are students by nature. No one comes into this industry knowing everything. It’s a business of constant change and no two weddings are the same. Ever. When selecting a videographer, look closely at their portfolio. See when they post their videos and how often they do so. In the end, us videographers learn by doing. If it were me, I would pick a videographer who stays busy. We learn from every wedding we film. Thinking on your feet, knowing where (and where NOT) to be and how to adapt on the fly are the hallmarks of an experienced wedding videographer.
When shopping for wedding videographers, don’t be afraid to ask them how many weddings they film per month. In the end, you only get one shot to film your wedding and you want their experience to work for you.
Equipment
This is something I’ll touch on briefly. A videographer isn’t defined by their equipment. An experienced videographer can make a masterpiece video with a $500 camera while an inexperienced videographer would struggle to make a cell phone-quality video (complete with shaky footage and all) with a $40k camera. This all goes back to experience!
What I’m more so referring to in regards to equipment is having the right stuff for the job. Having recently filmed an eight hour wedding where the photographer didn’t bring enough batteries (I ended up loaning them one of mine so they could finish), it occurred to me then just how important it is to be prepared. You’re paying someone thousands of dollars to document your wedding day. Make sure they are properly equipped for the job! If you’re planning a 10 hour wedding, ask your potential video and/or photo crew how many 10 hour weddings they’ve shot. Cameras, gimbals, drones and flash all run off of batteries. Having an adequate number of spares is vital. How horrible would it be to pay someone only for them to run out of battery life before the day is done?
I won’t dive into the whole 4K vs. 1080p video debate. Again, an experienced videographer can make a 1080 video look just as good (if not better) than a 4K video.
Insurance
It’s something that most brides don’t think of but the truth is, many venues require all vendors (including videographers) to have liability insurance. When shopping around, ask your potential videographer if they have insurance (often referred to as ACORD). You’re also more than welcome to ask for a copy of their insurance form (ACORD 25 document) for your records as well. This protects you and the venue in the event of an unfortunate incident.
Responsiveness
Timeliness and responsiveness should be the hallmark of not just wedding videographers, but all wedding vendors. Although we often can’t respond while we’re filming a client’s wedding, we should nevertheless be able to respond to clients within 24 hours max.
When inquiring with wedding videographers, take note of their timeliness and how responsive they are. The last thing you want to worry about is being able to reach your videographer in the final days before your wedding. Again though, we’re gig-based workers so we’re not always able to respond right away. But even so, there’s no reason why it should take more than one day to get a response from your videographer.
Highlight Reel
For starters, you should never even consider hiring a wedding videographer if they don’t have a reel. The reel is a collection of our highlights as videographers. It shows the very best of what we’re capable of doing while also giving you a preview of what you can expect from our services. Essentially, it’s a motion picture business card.
Here is an example of what a wedding videographers reel should look like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d6BaaIDBEg
Videographers who do NOT have reels often don’t for one of two reasons.
They haven’t filmed enough weddings to justify creating a reel (goes back to experience!)
Even if they have dozens of weddings under their belts, they may not have enough ‘highlight worthy’ moments to use in creating a reel.
When looking at someone’s reel, take note of the number of brides in the video. If you see the same one or two couples appearing throughout the entire video, that typically means they haven’t filmed very many wedding videos and if they have, they haven’t taken the time to update their reel.
Also, be wary of videographers who use pictures in their reel. We’re videographers! Seeing someone use photos in their reel usually means they either don’t have enough video to fill in the space for their reel, or they may have ‘borrowed’ some pictures from a photographer. Neither of those showcase the talents of a wedding videographer and should be avoided.
Music Licensing
This is extremely important.
The music in your wedding video is often what helps propel the story forward. To me, music selection is one of the most important parts of the process. You want to find music that correlates to your wedding and to your story in general. However, there are a few things to consider.
Although it’s very much possible to use copyrighted music in wedding videos (I recently used an Aretha Franklin song in a video), this is ONLY possible through proper licensing. If you have a song or two in mind that you’d like to use in your video, be sure to check with your videographer to see if they can acquire a license to use it. Although there will be an extra fee involved, this will ensure you have the proper rights to use copyrighted material. If your videographer tells you to not worry about licensing and that nobody will notice, walk the other way. I mean it. Fire them on the spot and find someone else.
If you pay a videographer to create a video for you and they provide you with a product which contains unlicensed copyrighted material, you and the videographer have broken copyright laws. The videographer is essentially making money off of someones copyrighted material which is against the law. At the same time, you’ve paid someone to create something which includes unlicensed material that is protected by copyright law.
If you want to avoid the whole copyright deal and the costs (and potential lawsuits) that go with it, there are plenty of sites that videographers can acquire memberships to which provide copyright-free music. One such site is Artist.io. As a member, I often send my clients to the site so they can go through and pick out music they like. Very rarely do I pick the music for my clients as this is such a personal item. There are several other sites such as Musicbed and Soundstripe. Your videographer should send you links to these (or similar) sites to select your music. If they don’t and they instead tell you to just pick something off the radio, run away.
In conclusion…
While I certainly hope this has helped clarify the process of selecting a qualified videographer for your wedding day, this may have created more questions than answers. If so, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@foundryweddingfilms.com. We’d be more than happy to talk you through the process, answer any questions or even help you out if you feel another videographer is doing something fishy!
God bless.