Our friend Milan Shah from the IVA in Chicago has invented a pretty cool little application for those of us on facebook who want to post videos longer than 20 minutes, insert chapter markers, and avoid having facebook ban our upload if there happens to be a hint of music playing in the background that they think should not be there.
So check out his facebook ap by clicking here, and let us know what you think!
<If you haven’t watched it yet, check out my part I on elopements by clicking here>
With the popularity of wedding filmmakers owing a DSLR camera, many are dabbling in the world of photography. This is a great way to do fusion packages with photo and video or just explore more with photography without stepping on the feet of your referral base of professional photographers. I haven’t found this to be an issue because many of the photographers in my area find the elopements aren’t worth their time. I on the other hand love the cash flow during the middle of the week, or during the off season.
Here is a synopsis from the video:
Biggest Mistake #1: Don’t start this side gig under your main company name if you have no intention whatsoever of shooting big weddings as a still photographer. This has been the biggest source of confusion. Thankfully that’s the only big mistake I could think of.
Rule #1: Set an hourly rate for both photo and video services. You can customize options for them if they want more.
Rule #2: How to set your base rate – examine what they are spending on other local services. For example, if they are spending $75 for a bouquet and boutenniere, $130 for hair, nails, and makeup, $350 for a room/suite that includes a hot tub, champagne, strawberries, and breakfast, you can comfortably charge $350 for your services. Try not to be wildly expensive where you charge $600 for an hour of service, which is over half their budget. This will vary from region to region.
You can experience more of my “elopement business” at www.NHElopements.com
If you are interested in learning my workflow for elopements, stay tuned for Elopements Part 3!
There are a lot of people reading this blog who are probably in the same boat as me when it comes to Same Day Edits. Either you are scared (I’ll admit that!) or you live rurally and don’t have the people power to pull it off. I live in Northern, NH and it would be tough to get the two or three other filmmakers to help with a SDE, seeing that they may be booked with their own weddings. We don’t have a film school nearby or eager college grads looking to beef up their film reel.
So what can you do? I’m always super excited to see footage from the wedding, so the first thing I do the day after the event, 1) I get the media into the computer 2) Set the timer, limit myself to one hour of editing, 30 minutes to color grade, 30 minutes to render and export. Two hours (maybe three) and you are done. 3) Upload online.
Remember this is a one minute (no more) preview geared towards building anticipation of the upcoming film. Post it immediatley to FaceBook, your blog, tweet about it etc… be sure to post it to the bride and groom’s profile on FB if you have become friends with them (this kind of won’t work as well if you aren’t friends!) In minutes or hours you will see the comments come in.
Don’t forget to first get permission before the wedding, to post the preview to your clients FB page or your blog since they may leave right after for their honeymoon and you want to take advantage of all those wedding stalkers looking for visuals on the couples big day!
For 2010 I booked two weddings from my one minute previews from attendees of those weddings. I also booked three more weddings from FaceBook related incidents. So you see, you don’t have to rely completely upon SDE’s and highly polished highlights to get superior exposure and targeted referrals without having to spend the big bucks!
![IN[FOCUS]](http://www.infocusvideoevent.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IFTiny.jpg)
