Last March I had the opportunity to produce a video for Mike and Camilla’s wedding in downtown Los Angeles. While I’m usually a photographer when it comes to weddings (and anything else!) I decided to take the multimedia and video skills I have (I was a film student and multimedia journalist after all) and put them to use.
Camilla is a successful wedding planner, so of course the wedding was extravagant, beautifully decorated and extremely well organized! The wedding day started with the bride, groom friends and family all preparing for the ceremony at the luxurious Millennium Biltmore downtown. Then everyone hopped in their limos and headed over to the First Congregational Church, an enormous old gothic revival cathedral built in 1932. Following a beautiful ceremony they all gathered for pictures outside before hopping in their limos once again to finish the night at the very stylish Pacific Electric Lofts. The penthouse loft, with its three story high ceilings and great views of downtown was a great place for the reception. Before the reception kicked off though, they held an additional wedding ceremony in the Korean tradition, which was both beautiful and educational, as I’d never been witness to that tradition. The night then wound down with dinner, some heartfelt toasts, an impressive round of a capella singing, and a whole lot of dancing.
The video they wanted was a simple highlight reel featuring the best moments of the night and set to the song of their choice. The original version we tried out was much longer, coming in at 9 minutes. At first the idea was to produce a piece that was set to music, but that would also fade out so you could hear the vows and later the toasts. But we agreed that the length was just too long and the fading in and out was more distracting than beneficial. So, with a heavy hand I knocked it down to just the length of the song and produced a much tighter highlight reel that really highlights the mood of the day nicely and is short enough to keep your attention. I’m happy with the piece and judging by the three word review from Camilla – “We love it!” – so are they!
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