A Movie from the farm.

On Saturday, July 17, 2010 we got to create a wedding movie for Christina and Garrett.  Since it was in the small town of Burlington, WI we were staying there for a few days.  In some of the down time over the weekend we got to explore some of the historic downtown area and had a great time.  Surprise surprise we also found a nice little coffee shop. 

While Burlington may be a small town Garrett and Christina didn’t have some small affair.  Their day was big in every way from the ceremony at St. Mary’s Catholic Church (you can see the steeple from all over town) to the outdoor tent reception at Christina’s parent’s house.  It was the biggest tent reception we have ever worked at complete with a live band and even a clown to entertain the kids.  It was just a beautiful setting and the weather was great….except for being a little on the warm side.

 

We also got to meet a new photography team had never worked with before.    Butch and Kelsey were great fun to hang out with and work with to create memories for Chrissy and Garrett.  Check out their site. 

Since Chrissy and Garrett purchased our wedding movie package of course there is a movie trailer involved so here it is.  There will be a movie poster coming as well.  I have to get a photo from Butch and Kelsey when they are back at the studio.

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Breaking the Rules

What a fun project.  A few months back Lisa calls to inquire about covering a wedding reception since she and Cody would be getting married in the Dominican Republic over Spring Break.  In the process of discussing coverages Lisa mentioned she was hoping to have a video of some sort to show at the party in June.  I showed Lisa the Outside the Box concept video we made last year and her response was, “I would so do that.”  So we did.  Lisa went and got a dress for the movie and we were off to put it together.  Previously I posted a few pics taken the first day of shooting.  

The party was held at the Rolling Hills Country Club in Oconomowoc and there was a distinct Island vibe going on complete with Steel Drums.  There was no dancing planned but Lisa’s dad gave an emotional speech that turned into a Father/Daugther dance till Cody cut in and made is a special dance.  It was a nice emotional touch to the evening.  I was hired to be the photographer for the evening so Sherry and Kristin handled the video.  Here are a few fun pics from the night.

Here’s a pic we got on the golf course as the sun was setting.

A shot of the wedding cake.  Yes the Groom has a collector Porsche.

Their rings.  These are sitting on their version of the guest book.  Instead of a usual guest book Lisa and Cody had a white bench and some Sharpies.  Everyone signed the bench and it will have a fun spot in there home with all those memories on it.  I figured it was a good little spot to photograph the rings.

Meet Kristin, our intern for this summer.  She is doing a great job and learning fast.   We get to shoot Kristin’s wedding later in the summer.  That should be a real blast.

And now for the fun.  Click below to see Breaking the Rules.  This was one of those fun projects you look forward to creating.  We are hoping there will be more in our future.  Are you a bride….want to go do something fun in your dress.  Just give us a call.

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Exciting times with old friends.

Well Randy and Ashley were actually new friends but we felt like old friends for the weekend.  Randy and Ashley are friends with some former customers of ours, Scott and Wendy

Veldboom (and the new baby Lilly) so we also got to hang out with some previous customers that have become friends as well.   Randy and Ashley had seen a same day edit we did for Scott and Wendy so of course that was an integral part of the day and what an edit it was….more about that later. 

Randy and Ashley got married at Queen of Apostles Catholic Church in Pewaukee and their reception was at Western Lakes Country Club.  At the reception Muzik in Motion rocked the house all night long.  The dance floor was packed and these guests knew how to party!  What a fun day and night was had by all.  

We had a few firsts for the day as well.  For one it was our first Same Day Edit of the year so that is always and exciting time of getting back in that flow of rocking the house by re-living the day.  They are high pressure for sure but so much fun at the same time.  Another first for us was we had a new helper along for the day.  Kristin Pape is our new intern for the year and it was her first wedding day at work.  She had attended a videographer educational summit with us earlier in the week but this was the first wedding action for her and she was pumped.  She did a great job and was a big help to us…..and I think she learned a little too.  We are looking forward to some great things from Kristin down the road.  Yet another first for us was our first significant shooting, especially for a same day edit, with our newest camera, the Canon 7D.  I know that doesn’t mean much to non-techies but the 7D is an amazing new tool available for wedding film makers.  It is basically a pro level still camera that shoots amazing HD video.  The coolest part about it is the look of the video is like what photographers achieve in stills but we can now add motion to that look.  The footage is gorgeous.   The camera is great for cutaway and close up shots that really add a new dimension to our productions.  The images shown in this post are all frame grabs right off the footage from the new camera and many of the closeups in the edit are from it as well.  Ok enough technical stuff….hope I didn’t bore you. 

Randy and Ashley were so fun and yet so emotional as well.  Check the vows at the end of the same day edit.  Does it get any better than that. Check out a few of the fun things in the edit.  Everyone was so much fun yet the emotion was the real star of the day and the edit.

Randy and Ashley, thank you for making us part of your day.  Ok, so you’ve read this far.  You are wondering where’s the same day edit.  Well grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy.  Just click below.

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A Cultural Experience

On Saturday May 8th we got a chance to shoot our first wedding in Chicago.  The couple Viju and Asha also gave us our first opportunity to film an Indian wedding.  It was quite an experience of cultural traditions.  The wedding was at the Queen of All Saints Basillica and the reception was held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare.  What a day.  It was really interesting learning about all the traditions from a blessing before the wedding to many presentations and cultural elements of the reception. 

It did get me thinking afterwards about how we in America celebrate our weddings.  America is such a diverse mix of cultures yet our weddings have few symbolic traditions that reinforce unity between families and the special thing marriage really is as it unites two people into one family.  I’ve been to Jewish weddings, Hispanic weddings and now and Indian wedding and those cultures seem to have tradtions that make the wedding day even more special than we Americans do.  It seems to me we have a ceremony and go party.  Is that all the tradition we can come up with?  Maybe we as Americans could take some lessons from other cultures and begin some symbolic gestures to reinforce the specialness of marriage……ok…enough of those thoughts. It was just something I was thinking about.

We did work hard Saturday but we had a fun and educational time as well.  There was a live feed from one of our cameras so all of the 600+ guests could more easily see all the traditions taking place.  It was quite a day.

Well we had something else interesting to roll out on Saturday for this wedding season as well.  Let me talk video industry technology here.  We have a new camera in our arsenal.  It’s a Canon 7D DSLR camera.  A DSLR is the still camera that has swappable lenses.  Every photographer has multiples.  Well we have one now too except ours is a little different than many.  It shoots amazing HD video.  It’s one of the first generation of hybrid camera that shoots video as well as it shoots photos.  The real lure to this camera for us is what the footage looks like compare to our other cameras.  Photographers are able to get those great shots with the blurred backgrounds and foregrounds.  Well to do that with our videocameras is lots of work and difficult to do.  The new 7D makes it much easier to create the look of a photo but with movement.  It is a very filmic look and adds a whole new dimension to what our final videos can look like.

I have added a few different kinds of lenses for the camera for different scenarios but I haven’t gone the route most photographers and even videographers are going.  I have learned recently about older retro lenses from years ago that work on the camera via an inexpensive adaptor.  The lenses are less expensive cause no one is using the old generation of film cameras.  What makes these lenses so cool is some of the optics from the old lenses have a distinctive and different look than todays ultra crisp digital lenses.  My favorite new lens is actually and old lens from Russia with a brand name of Helios.  It is a pretty amazing little lens.  The blurs in the background just have a different look.  I am adding a few more of these retro lenses to my collection as well hoping to give our footage a little more of a distinctive look that others using these same cameras.  Here are some frame grabs right from the video we shot on Saturday.  These are not photos but just stills pulled from the video.  You can see the difference between standard video and these shots.  Imagine these kinds of shots mixed in throughout your video.   We hope it gives your wedding movie more of the feeling of a real movie.  

I know I talked technology in this post but I wanted to show you some new looks that will be coming to our wedding movies this year.  As the year progresses we will be including more and more of the footage into our products.  We have a Same Day Edit in a few weeks that just may include lots of footage from the prep and for the first time ceremony footage.  More excitement to come.

Breaking all the rules.

Some of you remember seeing our outside the box demo we made a few months ago featuring a bride doing stuff she isn’t supposed to in her dress.  If you haven’t you can see it here.  Outside the box.  Well that was actually a model for the demo.  However, because of that demo we have now started shooting an actual outside the box video with a customer to be shown at the reception.

Our customer, Lisa, is already married.  Cody and Lisa’s wedding took place over spring break in Dominican Republic.  No they didn’t fly us there to shoot it but it woulda been fun.  When Lisa saw the Outside the Box clip I believe her response was, “I would so do that.”  As a result we are.  Cody will play a small role in the video at the very end but it will mostly be about Lisa breaking all the rules and have a surprise ending I can’t divulge right now.

Our first day of shooting was Saturday, April 16th.  It was a little windy and cold but we got some great footage anyway.  The fun part is we have a new camera for this season.  I won’t bore you with all the technical stuff about it except to say it is one of the new professional still cameras that also shoots amazing HD video.  Many videographers are selling their gear and going fully with these new cameras.  They give us the ability to shoot video clips that have the depth and look that still photographers have.  It has a more film like feel to it.  We are excited about the new looks we can get now in our work. 

Enough about the new camera.  Since it is a still camera that shoots video I thought I would take a few stills along the way on Saturday hoping to get the perfect picture for a movie poster to display at the reception in June.  Well when I started snapping a few pics and saw how Lisa “worked” the camera I decided to take more stills than I had planned.  I hope to incorporate many of the stills into the actual video as well to spice it up even more.  In our industry we call the combination of stills and video “fusion.”  This will be our first fusion project. 

Anyway, this post is about breaking the rules right?  Well if we are doing an extreme video we have to break some rules in the process and that includes a videographer taking stills.  Our shooting started at a horse farm in Oconomowoc where Lisa has a horse named Oreo.  We got footage as she was getting the horse ready and then we were off to the pasture to get some footage of her riding around in her dress….Lisa was cold by then.   After Lisa put the horse away we started looking for fun places around the farm to get her dress a little dirty.

After the farm we were off to the school where Lisa teaches.  The concept there was for her to do all the things in her dress they tell the kids not to do like running in the halls, sliding down banisters, and various other things I better not mention that we did or Lisa may  get in trouble before the reception if her administrators found out.  Lets just say we can honestly say the term “Trash the Dress” works for part of our video. 

That was all the shooting for the day.  We still have a few more locations planned and also in the plans are some aerial footage of Lisa riding through the pasture on her horse shot from our RC plane equipped with an HD video camera.  Here are some photos from the day.  I thought they were pretty good considering photography is not my forte’.

 

 

Guess this really could be a trash the dress….right?

 

More to come as we shoot more footage for the video.  Stay tuned and if you want to stay up to date on this project and others use the Subscribe tab at the top of the screen and you can get notified everytime there is an update.

Bustin a move in Milwaukee.

First let me say it has been a slow winter for blogging.  I will try and get a few  more clips up for everyone to check out going forward.  We have a few other things going on outside of weddings that would be good for the blog so I will get those up here moving forward.

Before you get any ideas about the title of this post NO I wasn’t bustin a move in Milwaukee.  If you know me well and saw me ever attempt to dance you would bust a gut laughing too hard.  The wedding party from a recent edit was “bustin a move”.  What fun they were having.

Seems the groom’s family has a tradition of doing some crazy dance stuff to the song Wooly Bully.  They were having so much fun the poor DJ had to play the song 3 times back to back to back.  Of course it gave me some great footage to play with in their dance video.  The rest of the night they were having a blast dancing too.  Making a dance video with this kind of crowd is just fun.  Customers often tell us the dance video is their favorite part of the video because they laugh at it everytime they watch it. 

Of course you want to see the video so here it is.  WARNING:  PG-13 Content inside….view at your own discretion.

 

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Come visit with us again.

Well the wedding show at the Quality Inn and Suites in December was so successful they have decided to have another one this March.  I am hoping this becomes a regular occurence a few times a year.  Anyway here is information about the upcoming show March 28th, 2010.  If you can come by for a visit we would love to see you there.  Of course while there you can also check out all the other vendors and plan  your wedding all in on place.  We will once again be playing our outside the box Bridal Spotlight as our feature demo.  Come by and check it out.  Hope to see you there.

 

Quality Inn & Suites, Madison
2969 Cahill Main
Madison, WI 53711

Note: Change of date

Please note.  To all our customers that planned to come visit us at the wedding showcase on Wednesday, December 9th.  The date has been changed to Wednesday, December 16th due to some inclement weather going to hit on 12/9.  Don’t forget to change your calendars.  For location information see the blog post just below this one.

See you there.

Drop by for a visit.

We recently got a call from the Quality Inn and Suites in Madison about a bridal show they were putting together.  We were invited to participate so I couldn’t pass up the chance.  The show will be Wednesday night, December 16th, from 4:30-7pm. 

We will be debuting our recent Bridal Spotlight video at the show.  You may have seen in here in our blog a few weeks back.  It looks nice on your computer but you should see it in High Definition.  We will have it on display in our booth ready to introduce the Madison market to a new way of thinking of wedding/bridal videos.

If you have some time stop by and visit.  If you are a bride still planning your wedding the vendor line up for the show is very good so put the date on your calendar now.

 
Quality Inn & Suites, Madison
2969 Cahill Main
Madison, WI 53711

The Pfister is Pfun

On Halloween this year we got the chance to work with Jason and Kate.  We had previously filmed Kate’s sister, Maggie’s wedding so we knew the whole experience would be fun and fun it was.  To make it even more enjoyable for us we got to work with Caitlyn from Expressive Photography.  We always enjoy working with Expressive and just have a blast the whole day working as a team.  Thank you Caitlyn for supplying the above image of Jason and Kate.

The wedding took place at Gesu Parish on the campus of Marquette University.  After the ceremony we were off to the Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee to work on their Same Day Edit.  The Pfister Hotel is a very historic hotel and according to a TV news report on Friday, “anyone who is important in Milwaukee’s history has passed through the Pfister”.  To make it even more appropriate for a Halloween wedding many believe the Pfister is “haunted”.  NBA teams stay there when visiting and some players even sleep with baseball bats for protection.  The Pfister, what a Pfun place for a Halloween reception. 

After dinner was served the Same Day Edit played on the giant screen.  It was preceded by a nice slideshow created by the Jason’s mom.   What a Pfun day at the Pfister with Jason and Kate (and their whole family).  We felt like we were family for the day.

Ok…I know you want to see the Same Day Edit so here it is.

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