This is the second part of a full-length wedding video produced by The Magic Studio. This segment is almost 20 minutes long and shows the full reception, including toasts, cake cutting and first dance. Please note that some of the toasts to the bride and groom have been cut from this version. I covered Andy and Dana's wedding without any assistance, using 2 cameras for their ceremony and 1 camera for their reception. For more info, visit The Magic Studio
Full-Length Wedding Video - Part 2, Reception from Matthew Mercier on Vimeo.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Full-Length Wedding Video - Part 1, Ceremony
This is the first part of a full-length wedding video produced by The Magic Studio. This segment is 22 minutes long and shows the full ceremony, including the vows, exchange of rings and pronouncement. I covered Andy and Dana's wedding without any assistance, using 2 cameras - one handheld and the other mounted on a tripod. Part 2, the reception, should be posted in the next week or so. For more info, visit The Magic Studio
Full-Length Wedding Video - Part 1, Ceremony from Matthew Mercier on Vimeo.
Full-Length Wedding Video - Part 1, Ceremony from Matthew Mercier on Vimeo.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
How I Got Mixed Up In This
Well, I didn't exactly get mixed up in doing wedding videography, but I did kind of fall into it. In 2004, my wife and I moved to Seattle so I could attend Seattle Film Institute. I took their 40-week intensive training program, working with Super 8 and 16mm film, learning the craft of screenwriting, and producing short, digital videos. Before I graduated, I started doing freelance work, which ranged from the odd volunteer job as a grip or P.A. on the no-budget, indie film set to shooting B-roll at events, like the Arab Fest and an anti-war rally where thousands of people marched from Capital Hill to downtown Seattle. After graduating from SFI in 2005, I kept freelancing and organized a small film festival showcasing super 8 and 16mm films from filmmakers in the U.S and Canada. There wasn't a huge turnout, but we screened close to 20 films at Rendezvous/Jewel Box Theater and got it sponsored by Pro 8 out of Burbank, CA. Not bad for a first-time effort.
It was around the same time that my wife and I found out we were pregnant, so I took a full-time job at a call center with the same company she worked for. After a year of taking phone calls and filling orders for customers, and after my wife gave birth to our son, we decided to move back to the southeast to be closer to family. I had a short screenplay that I'd written in class at SFI and decided that now was the time to try and produce it. Myself and my mostly-volunteer cast and crew shot the film in 6 days. Almost immediately after wrapping production, my wife and I moved. Her and our son got on a plane. I took a 4-day drive across the country, taking the scenic route through northern California and across the southwest. The car broke down at what was literally a ghost town in the desert of Arizona. A former tourist stop along Route 66, Two Guns (the ghost town) was nothing more than a memory. There was a boarded-up gas station and the ruins of a town that had died long ago. Fortunately, I was able to get the car towed to the nearest town, which was over 50 miles away, and got the car repaired. Aside from being stranded in the desert for what seemed an eternity and having some minor car trouble, the trip was a good experience. I was able to see the Grand Canyon the day before the car broke down and made it to Augusta, GA around 3 in the morning, after having spent the previous 2 days taking a 1-hour nap in the car and driving for more than 30 hours without stopping, except to get gas and food.
The first year we were back in the southeast, a good friend of mine and I decided it would be a good idea to start our own business. We didn't have a clear plan in the beginning. We just knew that we would invest in a couple of good cameras so we could start doing something with our shooting and editing skills. Our first gig was shooting my aunt's wedding as a favor for her and to start building our portfolio. We originally wanted to get into doing music videos and live performances, but what we found was that many of the local bands we were coming across, unsigned and struggling to make it, couldn't afford to pay for our services, and we couldn't afford to do volunteer work all the time. My first real business-related gig, at least what I consider my first real gig, was shooting a documentary for a couple getting married on New Year's. They were from San Francisco and were in Charleston for 4 or 5 days. I basically followed them around with a camera for 3 days, documenting nearly all of their family get-togethers, pub crawl, wedding ceremony and New Year party. This is more or less how I fell into doing weddings. They had an ad on Craigslist. I responded and gave them a link to my Youtube channel. They said my style fit what they were looking for. So, I built on that experience and went from there. The next gig, I found myself in a similar situation. A couple had put an ad on Craigslist, looking for someone to cover just their reception. They had a really small budget and could only pay around $100, plus a tip. I probably shouldn't have taken it, being that the reception site was in Atlanta, which was over a 2-hour drive, and what they were offering to pay would just barely cover the expenses. In an email, we had both agreed that I would shoot the reception for $100, with an additional charge of $100 for editing and DVD authoring. Later, after I'd already finished editing the video and had it delivered to them, we had some dispute over the exact amount and I didn't get paid what I thought we had agreed on. The experience was both good and bad, the good part of it being that I got more experience shooting weddings, and that it taught me more about the business side of wedding videography. It was directly after doing this gig that I got to drafting an agreement for all future weddings.
We didn't do a lot of work in the following months. I took a full-time temp job during tax season, doing tech support at a company that provided financial services, while editing the destination wedding and the short film I'd shot in Seattle. Chris, my friend and shooting/editing partner, was still working at Channel 6 at the time. I quickly put together a website, using the highlights reel from the destination wedding video as our "portfolio," and as we found more work, kept putting together more sample videos and looking for new ways to get more business. We managed to book a few weddings here and there. My wife, son and I moved to Columbia and switched roles. She found a job as an assistant property manager at an apartment community and I stayed home with our son. I got a little more serious about the business and wrote up a business plan and started working on re-designing our website. Things slowed down considerably after the last wedding Chris and I shot together in August. Things picked back up in January of 2008. I managed to branch out and started covering shows for a hip-hop band in Columbia. They plugged our business once or twice and I enjoyed working with them, but they started running short on funds and I couldn't work for beer. We booked more weddings for the Spring/Summer season than we had the previous year and somehow, I landed a gig shooting a Hindu wedding in Augusta. I think we averaged a wedding a month in 2008, with the occasional show or event, like the Jack Daniel's event we shot for The Hive, a marketing company out of Canada. We're looking forward to 2009, and being presented with new opportunities and facing new challenges.
For more info, visit The Magic Studio.
It was around the same time that my wife and I found out we were pregnant, so I took a full-time job at a call center with the same company she worked for. After a year of taking phone calls and filling orders for customers, and after my wife gave birth to our son, we decided to move back to the southeast to be closer to family. I had a short screenplay that I'd written in class at SFI and decided that now was the time to try and produce it. Myself and my mostly-volunteer cast and crew shot the film in 6 days. Almost immediately after wrapping production, my wife and I moved. Her and our son got on a plane. I took a 4-day drive across the country, taking the scenic route through northern California and across the southwest. The car broke down at what was literally a ghost town in the desert of Arizona. A former tourist stop along Route 66, Two Guns (the ghost town) was nothing more than a memory. There was a boarded-up gas station and the ruins of a town that had died long ago. Fortunately, I was able to get the car towed to the nearest town, which was over 50 miles away, and got the car repaired. Aside from being stranded in the desert for what seemed an eternity and having some minor car trouble, the trip was a good experience. I was able to see the Grand Canyon the day before the car broke down and made it to Augusta, GA around 3 in the morning, after having spent the previous 2 days taking a 1-hour nap in the car and driving for more than 30 hours without stopping, except to get gas and food.
The first year we were back in the southeast, a good friend of mine and I decided it would be a good idea to start our own business. We didn't have a clear plan in the beginning. We just knew that we would invest in a couple of good cameras so we could start doing something with our shooting and editing skills. Our first gig was shooting my aunt's wedding as a favor for her and to start building our portfolio. We originally wanted to get into doing music videos and live performances, but what we found was that many of the local bands we were coming across, unsigned and struggling to make it, couldn't afford to pay for our services, and we couldn't afford to do volunteer work all the time. My first real business-related gig, at least what I consider my first real gig, was shooting a documentary for a couple getting married on New Year's. They were from San Francisco and were in Charleston for 4 or 5 days. I basically followed them around with a camera for 3 days, documenting nearly all of their family get-togethers, pub crawl, wedding ceremony and New Year party. This is more or less how I fell into doing weddings. They had an ad on Craigslist. I responded and gave them a link to my Youtube channel. They said my style fit what they were looking for. So, I built on that experience and went from there. The next gig, I found myself in a similar situation. A couple had put an ad on Craigslist, looking for someone to cover just their reception. They had a really small budget and could only pay around $100, plus a tip. I probably shouldn't have taken it, being that the reception site was in Atlanta, which was over a 2-hour drive, and what they were offering to pay would just barely cover the expenses. In an email, we had both agreed that I would shoot the reception for $100, with an additional charge of $100 for editing and DVD authoring. Later, after I'd already finished editing the video and had it delivered to them, we had some dispute over the exact amount and I didn't get paid what I thought we had agreed on. The experience was both good and bad, the good part of it being that I got more experience shooting weddings, and that it taught me more about the business side of wedding videography. It was directly after doing this gig that I got to drafting an agreement for all future weddings.
We didn't do a lot of work in the following months. I took a full-time temp job during tax season, doing tech support at a company that provided financial services, while editing the destination wedding and the short film I'd shot in Seattle. Chris, my friend and shooting/editing partner, was still working at Channel 6 at the time. I quickly put together a website, using the highlights reel from the destination wedding video as our "portfolio," and as we found more work, kept putting together more sample videos and looking for new ways to get more business. We managed to book a few weddings here and there. My wife, son and I moved to Columbia and switched roles. She found a job as an assistant property manager at an apartment community and I stayed home with our son. I got a little more serious about the business and wrote up a business plan and started working on re-designing our website. Things slowed down considerably after the last wedding Chris and I shot together in August. Things picked back up in January of 2008. I managed to branch out and started covering shows for a hip-hop band in Columbia. They plugged our business once or twice and I enjoyed working with them, but they started running short on funds and I couldn't work for beer. We booked more weddings for the Spring/Summer season than we had the previous year and somehow, I landed a gig shooting a Hindu wedding in Augusta. I think we averaged a wedding a month in 2008, with the occasional show or event, like the Jack Daniel's event we shot for The Hive, a marketing company out of Canada. We're looking forward to 2009, and being presented with new opportunities and facing new challenges.
For more info, visit The Magic Studio.
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