What Makes a Beautiful Wedding Film? The Art of Storytelling
A beautiful wedding film is composed of many things: heartfelt emotion, beautiful composition, stellar shots and amazing music. But it’s the interweaving of these, the stitching together of moments throughout the day that elevates a wedding film.
I think anyone can pick up a camera and learn the basics of exposure and composition, but that’s not what makes a wedding film beautiful. If your wedding videographer simply gives you a bunch of pretty shots of your dress and your venue, that’s not a wedding film. That’s basically photography set to music, and your photographer can do that!
A good wedding film:
Uses unique audio from your day (your vows, your ceremony, your toasts, your first looks, your letters…) This is one of the priceless elements of video, being able to hear the emotions and reactions of those you love.
Is more that a sequence of your details and decorations. I love a good wedding invitation suite and seeing all of the trendy color palettes, but what I build my wedding videos around is WHO. YOU. ARE! Which leads me to the next point…
Captures and authentically represents who YOU are. The best feedback I’ve received is when a stranger watches one of my films and says, “I feel like I know this couple, even though I don’t!” That, my friend, is a very good mark of storytelling!
Is not necessarily chronological. Frankly, the order things happened in doesn’t usually matter. What matters is the themes, the emotions, and the intensity of your wedding day events. I like to couple things together within those three categories so that your video follows the natural swells of your day, not just your timeline.
Musically matches your style and your narrative. Music is one of the most important elements in your film (more on this later!) and if it’s not aiding in storytelling, it’s not doing the job!
Is one will want to watch over & over and share with your children. When we look at our parents, we see who they are now. Your film should represent you so well that your children feel like they knew who you were then, too!
At Victory Media, I work to create videos that truly feel like the couples at their core. Sam and Tanner’s video (above) is the perfect example. When I first talked with Sam, she had a super fun, modern vibe about her that I really wanted to capture in their video - and honestly, it was a little out of my comfort zone! I remember her saying that the one word she didn’t want to touch her wedding with a 10-foot pole was “rustic”, and I’d describe several of my wedding films as rustic!
What I realized, though, was that my style itself wasn’t rustic at all - my style is simply storytelling! So if Sam wanted a fun and modern wedding video, I knew I could make it happen. I researched a few techniques to give some more modern flares to their wedding film, like the pulse effect at the start of their dance, and I’m honestly THRILLED with how everything turned out! I feel like it captures both Sam and Tanner’s killer sense of humor, their sweet and solid loyalty to each other, their fun personalities, and the incredible love they have for their family and friends (and vice versa!)
For me, no wedding video looks alike because no couple looks alike. Yes, these videos might all contain a shot of your cake, but where is that shot placed? What surrounds it, and what music or narrative is behind it?
Definitely check out Sam and Tanner’s shot — it truly “takes the cake” ;) And even though Sam and Tanner’s style is different from what I’ve typically shot in the past, I consider it an accomplishment to be able to tell their story in a way that truly represents them!
My sense of storytelling is really what sets me apart from other area videographers - and don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of amazing ones! But the ability to look at 6, 10, or 12+ hours of footage and see the various links, connections, and themes that pull a story together is not a simple or easy task, but it’s one that I absolutely love!
What first drew me to wedding filmmaking was the idea of capturing love. The more weddings I do, the more I realize that at the core, our love is all the same. But being able to tell the same story of love (1 John 4:19) through a different lens every time because I know how to connect with a story, that’s what keeps me in the filmmaking business.
So if you’re looking for ways to make a unique and beautiful wedding video, rest easy with a videographer who knows how to capture your story.
Your wedding films will be unique and beautiful because YOU are.