Wedding Videography Interviews

We were interviewed by Madison Henrie for our 2021 Sponsorship of the Seattle Wedding Show, check out the transcript below. *Please excuse any spelling or typographical errors!!

(00:01):

Hey, Reid. This is Madison from the Seattle Wedding Show. How's it going? It's going good. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. Hey, thank you for getting back to me so quickly.

(03:43):

Yeah. That's what we try to do. So yeah, no worries.

(03:46):

Yeah. Thank you. So this is my first year with the Wedding Show. And I feel like it's kind of a crazy year to get started on it, but yeah, I really like I'm still super excited about it though. How long have you guys been in the wedding show?

(04:05):

I think this will be our fifth year and I think our third year as sponsor, no, maybe six year cause we did. I think we did three years that maybe this is six years and then we've done three and then three a sponsor. So this'll be our third as a sponsor.

(04:27):

Awesome. Awesome. So I've pulled a lot of information from the website, like the pricing and packaging information which, you know, I'm not going to focus on, but I still want to include because you have some cool packages and everything. And I've also pulled some stuff from your bio like your Emmy nomination, which is really cool. I definitely want to mention that as well. But I wanted to start by talking a little bit about your wedding, just your style as a videographer. So what would you say is the key to making a video that captures like the unique aspects of every wedding that you shoot? Yeah, so we

(05:14):

Really focus on each couple and what what's, what's been interesting to me over the years and, and chatting with a lot of other videographers and photographers and everybody, you know, this field is a very art driven field and it's, it's people trying to run it more like a, like w you know, what they want to do, right. What they want to see versus like what the couple wants to see. And so that's always really kind of been, our focus is first and foremost, kind of a documentary approach. We really want our couples to be able to enjoy the day that they have. You know, I always tell couples that if they have, you know, with their photographer, that they're not going to have to do anything extra because of us, because, you know, videography still is kind of you know, it's, it's not an everyday kind of hire for every wedding still, unfortunately.

(06:10):

And so we never want our couples to feel like it's it's a put on or anything extra that they're going to have to do, but we really try to, you know, sit down with them and I have questionnaires and stuff that they go through to kind of let us know what's important for them in their video. And the story that I always give is, is a company like four years ago, the first time I, I built this whole new shot lists questionnaire thing that we were going to send to all of our couples. And I was all excited about you know, w what do you want to see? And what's important to you. And, you know, it goes through everything like detailed shots and family photos, and bridesmaid, you know, all the different, anything you could think of, like you wasn't photographer.

(06:52):

And I sent it out and I got it back and they have like, portraits, like one, a couple stuff, like one, but then they had like candids at cocktail hour. I get 10 out of 10. And I thought, Oh man, maybe like they misunderstood, or maybe this doesn't make sense. And they said, well, no, like, we don't care about photos of us at all. Like we want, we have, all of our friends are coming in from all over the country. We haven't seen them in years. They had been in law school or something away from everybody. And so they're like, we don't care about like us at all. We want to see like everybody else. Right. And I thought, wow, like, you know, if I had just approached that video, like I got to give a million different, pretty shots of them walking around and all this stuff that totally wouldn't have gotten what they wanted to get out of the video. And so we always try to kind of have that same approach no matter what so,

(07:47):

Right. So making sure that you're paying attention to their, their questionnaire and everything. Yeah. And yeah, and just making it, you know,

(07:57):

The feedback that we always get from our couples is that their videos felt like their day. And that's really important. I see so many videography companies nowadays, you know, every, I mean, not so much right now, but you know, in any given month, you see all these new people start out and it's all this cookie cutter, like whatever. And it all just feels like you could put anybody else's name on that video and it would be Sally and Joe's wedding or whatever. And it doesn't, it doesn't feel like their day. And we really liked, you know, that, that is the best feedback we can get. Is that the videos that felt like our day and, you know, felt like our friends that couldn't be there felt like they were there, or the people that were there felt like they were there again watching that video.

(08:42):

Okay. So would you say, like, that's like the most important thing you try to capture is like the uniqueness of each individual learning? Yeah, I think so. Think, you know,

(08:57):

And we I've talked about this a lot with other people too. You know, having a, having a formula for the day. And I think a lot of people think that you hear like a formula and you think that that's Oh, that's bad or that that's not a good thing. And I don't, you know, we're, we'll hit 300 weddings here soon. Here, hopefully in a couple of weeks, if, if the world doesn't end and you know, I think doing this every weekend and getting to meet people and getting to see all these different circumstances, there's not a lot left of like, Oh no, what are we going to do? It's more like, we're really able to hyper-focus then just because, you know, when you go up to bat a hundred times, it's less about getting up to bat and it's more about focusing in, on everything else. And so I think that we're really able to hyperfocus on our couples, their, you know, their quirks, their family, those moments, because we kind of have our formula that we do in terms of like, kind of how we put our videos together. And then we kind of sprinkle in all their unique stuff I'm in the process.

(10:02):

Okay. Gotcha. So how would you say that you go above and beyond for your clients? And could you tell me like a story or a specific time where you went above and beyond, and it felt really great. I mean,

(10:19):

Honestly this year it's been, you know, a ton of stuff and I, you know, I've heard horror stories, you know, on both sides from couples and vendors and trying to kind of negotiate every, you know, navigate, not negotiate, kind of navigate everything. And I think that just, you know, our, our quality of service and communication and just trying to be on top of everything, I think has knock on wood really helped us kind of get through all of this with everybody. And whether that's, you know, downsizing or canceling weddings or rescheduling weddings. And do you know, are we having to charge fees for prime dates next year? How are we kind of navigating all of that? I think you know, I just, I try to be as communicative and open as I can be. And as a business owner and, and, you know, approachable and you know, we have a I gotta send a zoom meeting here in a little bit for for our console on Monday for, we have a wedding at the end of December, and they're really on the fence about either doing it this year or postponing to next year.

(11:29):

And I had mentioned, you know, that we do our live streaming and I hope we can get into that here in this interview. But the fact that, that we could potentially do that for them might actually incentivize them to do their wedding this year, because they know then that they can reach the people that they can't make it. And how great is that you don't have to postpone your your wedding by a year because of, you know, something that we're able offer to kind of like make the best of the day that we can. And then if they, okay, now you can, they can move on with the rest of their life. Right. I mean, they can start family planning or job plan unit, whatever they want to do, because we're able to offer that service, I think is really cool. And that's because of our communication and trying to figure out the best way to do stuff for them.

(12:14):

Yeah. so yeah, live streaming. That's something that you guys are, you guys are offering. Yeah.

(12:20):

Yeah. And it was really important to me. I mean, this was back in March honestly, when it kind of all this, that, that first couple of weeks when, you know, middle of March and everything happened I just, I spent hours trying to kind of figure out all this stuff and figure out the equipment and figure out the logistics and figure out all this stuff, because now everybody's trying to do it right. Or everyone's trying to figure it out, or how can we do this? And I see people post and I've even had other videographers, you know, message me and say, Hey you know, how, how do you do this? Or what advice do you have? And, you know, it's, it's with everything in life, you know, once you start trying to charge it right. Charge for it and offer it, you need to make sure that it's something that you can deliver.

(13:09):

And, and it's something that you feel comfortable doing. And, yeah, so I've spent a tremendous amount of time and money and energy you know, tons, tons of money trying to figure it out so that we can offer that to our clients. Either obviously like on wifi and all of that, but, but even not. And on cellular that we were just at Lake Crescent and port Angela's on Tuesday at the side of a Lake in the middle of nowhere, and we were still able to live, stream their wedding for them. And that the just that the people that watch those live streams, I think it's under valued how much it means to them, for the couples to go through that extra effort and money for that. And I think that, you know, obviously live streaming this, not for every couple, you know, we have one on Saturday, we have plenty of weddings still where we're just filming them and delivering the stuff. But I think it really means a lot. Like if you write, if you have like a grandma that can't come, or if you have family on the other side of the country, you know, whatever I think going through that effort means really means a lot to those people. And so I'm just kinda happy that we can offer that and obviously helps us kind of stay ahead of kind of that market trend. But yeah, it's a ton of work and that's a ton of effort.

(14:36):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's not something you think you'll continue kind of after COVID dies down a little bit, but you'll continue to offer that.

(14:45):

I, yeah. I mean, I do. I think, I think it's going to be an issue for a long time. I think that, you know, even going just for, for a long time, you know, with travel and even like when we got married, my grandfather was in the nursing home, down in the middle of nowhere in Oregon and couldn't, you know, obviously couldn't travel to our wedding and we, this was years ago and we just, I just set up like a really basic camera. And, but, you know, we had it on Facebook for him and like, just be, like I said, being able to do that and, and, and the people on the other end. So appreciate that. But I think even through corporate, I think for years, I think the idea of flying 3000 people in to Seattle for a conference or whatever, or 500 people or whatever, I think that that is, is not going to be a thing for a long time.

(15:35):

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you there. I think it's going to be kind of be a little wonky for a little bit locker,

(15:43):

But think of the cost savings, right? Like if you're a couple and you're, you know, let's say you're having people come in and you're, you're helping discount like a hotel room or something. Right. And you're, you're paying, you know, how you like prorate that stuff. You know, if you have a hundred people or 50 people or whatever that you don't have to, you know, think of and then, Oh, well it's only, you know, a thousand more dollars to add on the live stream or whatever, $1,200 like that. That's really not a lot when you think of like, okay, well now that's a hundred people. I don't have to feed and lodge and, you know, do all these other things. It really isn't that big of a, of a reach. And honestly like the couples that want it, the pricing and everything really hasn't been a concern because I think that they get how much they're saving and not that you do it to save money, but just how much they're not having to spend that. They're able to invest in that.

(16:36):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So are you where am I here? Is that something you would say is like a new thing for best made videos that you're most excited about? Are there other things that you guys are working on that you're excited about?

(16:53):

Yeah. The other thing I wanted to talk about is we, so we've always done for three years now, we've done a wedding vendor networking podcast called get to know your wedding pro and that's on the website. If you go to the best made videos.com/podcasts. And back in, in I guess it was April ish. I launched a new wedding planning podcast called best made weddings. And we host that every week and that's much more tailored to couples and, you know, and vendors, but couples that are trying to plan their weddings and kind of every week doing round tables with vendors about things that are kind of on people's minds. And so like two weeks ago, we kind of did this wedding planning wellbeing. And I had a counselor on talking about some, some tips that couples can do at home to work on communication skills and trying to figure out, you know, building lists for, you know, what they want to do at their weddings.

(17:53):

And then we just did one on baked goods and like kind of dessert ideas and options. Now that receptions are kind of opening again and what people can take home with them. And then on, on Monday we just recorded yesterday, but we were doing like a elevating the whole idea of a zoom wedding and kind of doing the online live streaming. So every week, but that's kind of something that I'm really excited about. And we've gotten a lot of good feedback we're at like week 17 or something of it now, but having that as a resource for couples to be able to listen and, and hopefully get some tips and try to figure out the best way to do stuff for their weddings that way.

(18:32):

Yeah. That's really awesome. So you started about 17 weeks ago, so it was inspired kind of by COVID and everything is shutting down and no one really knowing where to go for information.

(18:43):

Yeah. And it was, and it was it's a lot of covert talk right now. I mean, I hope it won't always be that way obviously, you know, but but I think I love doing my vendor networking, one getting to basically every week we just do long form interviews with you know, DJs and florist and whatever, and they're able to use that and people can kind of get to know you know, cause people don't, you know, just more ways for people to get to know each other, but I wanted to figure out a way to kind of do a timely weekly. Okay. Like what's happening this week. Okay. Let's talk about it. Or what's what's in the news or what ha you know, we, we just closed down, you know, we have like a big emergency podcasts. Okay. Weddings are closed down, Inslee came out, you know, what does that mean? What, what are we going to do? And so it's been really cool to kind of be able to, it is just kind of producing that week to week with whatever's going on.

(19:44):

That's awesome. That's really, really cool. So that it's up to date and yeah, because a lot of people probably aren't, I mean, if you're planning the wedding, you're up to date on it, but it's hard to find information out there for sure. So that's, that's really awesome that you guys are providing that.

(20:00):

Thanks. Yes, sir. Just yeah, it's at best made videos.com/podcast or podcasts, and it goes kind of our directory and everything about it.

(20:11):

Awesome. Okay. Next main video. And it's on the website as well. I think I've got it up, right?

(20:21):

Yeah. There's a podcast tab at the top. And like I said, there, there's kind of two different two separate entities, but they're all kind of hosted there.

(20:31):

Awesome. Well what could you say, what do you think you would say is your favorite part about your job?

(20:41):

I really enjoy putting the videos together. I think it's really fun too. That's always, I've, I I've enjoyed more about a wedding videography than anything else is being able to kind of capture everything in the day. Right. You know, you get everything you're there. It's kind of a one shot thing I used to work in news. So that's always been, I've always approached it more as, you know, you kind of have your one shot to do everything and then being able to go home and just, you know, over the course of a day or two days kind of put together that narrative and that story. I think it's really cool. And be able to share that back and just kind of have an amalgamation of like 300 clips and all this different stuff and be able to put it into like a coherent 10 minute story.

(21:25):

I think it's kinda cool. And obviously getting the feedback of that. And we do a lot of video testimonials with our couples and, you know, hearing their reactions and, and where they saw the videos and where they, you know, we had a couple that like, they were on the cruise ship on their web, on their honeymoon or something, and they got the video and they left their phone open for like 10 hours. So we could like buffer the wifi cause they, you know, like in the middle of the ocean. So then they get like watch their video or whatever. So they're kind of hearing those stories is cool about, you know, where people were. Cause we don't get that. Right. We don't always get that side of it. So, but just kind of that whole process.

(22:05):

Yeah. Awesome. Well, is there anything else you want me to specifically try to include in the piece? Anything else you want, like wedding show attendees to know about best show, best made videos?

(22:18):

Just the live streaming is a big thing and just I guess just emphasizing the just the being able to do it everywhere and the, and just how much time we've put into that, I guess. Cause like I said, everybody now is like, Oh we can, Oh, okay. We can figure it out and all of that and just really trying to emphasize like we just, the time that we put into that I think is really important. And then, and then the, the new podcasts would be great too.

(22:49):

Right. Okay. Absolutely. I can definitely do that. So the next step here is for me to just get this written up and get it back to you for approval or any sort of edits. But I believe those are all of my questions for ya. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.

We were fortunate enough to be asked to be on Mason Joel’s “Getting Candid” podcast, check out the transcript!

(00:00:00):

Coming to you. Live from the studio. Also known as my apartment bedroom today. I have a very special guest. We just had our own little podcast over on his podcast. It's called get to know your wedding pro. It is the illustrious Reid Johnson.

(00:00:53):

And say, hello. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the reaching out that we could do kind of a two for one deal today on a Friday morning should be.

(00:01:01):

Yeah. Well, if it's not good, I'll just delete it and I don't want to rest to hear it. Yeah, absolutely. So for those of you who maybe don't know who Reid is, Reid is a videographer. He owns the company Best Made Videos®. And I brought him on today cause I'll kind of wanted to talk about sort of the, the, the harmony that is working photo and video at the same time at say a wedding or an elopement. So before we get too deep into it, read why don't you go ahead and kind of give me your, your quick little synopsis, your, your dirty story of you know, starting with video and how that's kind of come to today?

(00:01:36):

Yeah, absolutely. So we, I went to Gonzaga university over in Spokane and we were doing, I was doing journalism. And the first day of one of the first classes was about laying out the front page of a newspaper and not like content or images or anything, like actually physically like printing like the margins to print a newspaper. And I thought that that was like the dumbest class that you could ever take because, you know, like, yeah, I would get doing content or whatever. And so I said, okay, well get this, you know, forget this we're going to go. We had a radio class and I did radio and also was taught by this 80 year old Jesuit priest and just had no idea what he was doing. And we would come in every day and we were recorded the exact same PSA, and then we would edit it and we would go home and we would become in the next day.

(00:02:28):

And so finally he was sick one day. And so we had Dan Garrity, who's now retired from Gonzaga, came in and said, Hey, you really seem like, you know what, you're doing one that you go into my TV production class. It fills up every year, but I'll make sure that you get in. And I said, sweet. And that was kind of it. And so I was doing news videography. Well, not yet, but in college we would do a weekly news program and a lot of my buddies wanted to be reporters and, you know, so they would need someone to film for them. And I had no interest in being on camera, except for just doing like the two, one, you know, you had to be on camera like twice in four years or whatever the past. And so I did demo reels for my buddy, Ian and my buddy, Sebastian Sebastian actually works at King five now in Seattle, which is cool.

(00:03:20):

And it got time to graduate and I needed the job. And I had been applying to production houses and trying to figure out what to do. And everyone said, well, why don't you just be a news videographer? Like you you've shot all this stuff. And I said, well, I don't really want to do that, but, but I needed a job. And so, so I sent out like 12 demo tapes and got a call. It was, the voicemail came in B. I was in my last class ever at Gonzaga. I walked out of the class. I had a voicemail from John paleos, who was the news director in Baker. So California for the NBC station. And I went down there and I worked down there for two years and then came back up here and worked in news for a long time before I quit. So I don't know how much more you want to get into that, but yeah.

(00:04:07):

Well just where was that point where you were like, you know what, I'm just gonna, I'm just going to do this myself and find something that I like to do.

(00:04:14):

Yeah. So Bakersfield was tough. Moved back up to Seattle and found out that a lot of the people, when you're in smaller news markets at you're around a lot of people of your same age, it's cool. Cause you can kind of go out and do stuff and date people and hang out. And then moving back to Seattle, I got a job at Q 13 Fox news and I was 25 and the next oldest videographer was like 32 on staff. And so I felt kind of disconnected. You know, a lot of people were married and a lot of people had kids, a lot of people had stuff. And then in terms of the work, you know, news gets a bad rap. Sometimes you're always covering, you know, terrible things. And, you know, like I covered the Mayday riots and got sprayed with pepper spray and you know, you're covering, you know, this person did this horrific thing to that person and you know, it was just a lot of negativity.

(00:05:09):

And so my now wife, Dorothy and I were out on Valentine's day back in 20, I guess would be 2014. And I, we were out at this winery and we were talking with the wine owner and he said, you know, like I come in, I do my own stuff. I run, you know, if I want to come in early, if I want to come in late, if I want to do whatever. And I thought, man, I would really like if I could do that. And I think it's a common thing I've talked with a lot of, you know, like you have a lot of people on the podcast about you know, I think people that run their own businesses sometimes are people that can't find find a job that fits them. Right. And so then they, they want to fit, you know, they build their own thing.

(00:05:53):

And I had spent years trying to apply, like I applied the bungee, there'd be a video editor. And I had applied to Microsoft and I had applied that, you know, all these different and all these things I thought, well, maybe that would work or that would be cool. And so finally it was that conversation with that wine owner. And I went home and I talked to my buddy, Paul, who was also a videographer at Keith 13. And I said, I think I'm going to go for it. And so I bought, I don't know, like $15,000 worth of camera stuff. I took out. I took out a little I, you know, we had a little money set aside and I spent like nine months kind of getting the client list together and I got some weddings booked and then it was like three days before Christmas. I quit my job and that was back in 2014 and haven't looked back so

(00:06:42):

Nice, man. Nice. You made it happen for yourself 15,000 man. I wish I could spend $15,000 and stuff right now, but I can't man, that's awesome. That's cool to hear that. Cause that's actually something that I thought about doing myself when I was, when I was in college. I was like, when I switched my major, I told you about it in the podcast that we just did. I switched from computer science to media and communications, which does have sort of some realm in radio and all that other stuff. And I was like, man, I could do do like video for, for a news news team or something that would be sick. But I couldn't find anything that would allow me to do that. So I was like, well, nevermind, I guess I'm not doing that anymore. That's really cool to see that you, you, you started there and you were like, you know what, like this isn't for me. Cause I think a lot of people stop themselves from, from trying to go after what they want, because they're scared that it's just the unknown of it all really, you know?

(00:07:44):

Yeah. And it, you know, it got to the point. I remember when I put in my notice long story short, I had had this eccentric guide that I was shooting these car videos for. And he was trying to take us to Dubai to film it's it's this is a crazy, I mean, I won't go, but, but the point was, is a plane tickets were bought for us to go to Dubai to go do this video shoot. And this guy was just out of Tacoma. Like he was, he basically, he was like a car dealer and he had some car that someone rich over there wanted and he was going to ship it over there and whatever. And so I was going to have to, I was going to have to be off work for like three weeks anyway. And so no one is no one that the business knew what I was doing, knowing that if the new station, cause I didn't want, you know, getting in trouble or I was working on stuff, you know, in the background or like I would have my laptop and I would be editing stuff like in the back of the live truck it'd between, you know, shoots or whatever.

(00:08:44):

And so I finally had to tell 'em, Hey, I'm going to, I got to go to Dubai. Like I gotta take off like three weeks. And then that fell through right at the last minute. And I was kind of already like, well they already know happening, you know, I'm just gonna quit. Right? Like we've already put all this stuff in place. And the assistant news director came out and she said, well, what you got? So I hear you're I hear you're doing your own thing. You're like, what's going on? And I said, yeah. I said, you know, I've spent the last better part of a year here working for you guys. And then also trying to build my own business and think if they give you guys have been able to harness that energy and creativity, what I could have done in the last year too, you know what I mean for and still be happy. Right. But it was, it was wanting about something more. I mean, I was having to pay to submit my own work for like awards and stuff. I mean, you know, just feeling like you had no support anyways, so yeah. So that was kind of wanting really wanting to do something more. Yeah, it was the motivation.

(00:09:43):

That's sick, man. I'm moving on a little bit. Let's talk about sort of what's going on today right now. If you're listening in the future COVID is currently still a wonderful thing that we all have to deal with. Tell me a little bit about how that's impacted you. I'm sure it's no, maybe not super different from anyone else, but sort of the hit that it's taken on. You recently given everything still kind of going on and we thought it would subside at this point.

(00:10:11):

Yeah. So, you know, luckily when all this happened in March w we usually, I always joke with our couples, you either buck us a year out or we booked six months in, less out. So the ones that were bought, you know, like August for this August or whatever, obviously we're moving them. But we were right in the middle of that booking season. Like we had just done this yellow wedding show. We had just wasn't felt we had just done all this stuff. And so we're normally in, in a given season, we try to do 50 weddings a year. We were at about maybe 30, 35 books. And so luckily it wasn't, we didn't have to move the entire inventory. Yeah. You know, cause we were still kind of in that process of, you know, and the people we were talking to that we were going to book ended up rescheduling and now we're actually picking up a lot of them on the back end, but you know, it was hard.

(00:11:04):

And I think that a lot of people were really scared. I think a lot of vendors were really scared to reach out to the couples and talk about, you know, postponing or cancelling or refunding. And I, you know, we, we spearheaded from the get go and I emailed everybody and I said, this is what's happening. We need to keep you guys on, you know, on the books, right? Like your deposits have been paid, like we're going forward with this. And if that means doing it this year, a smaller, you know, live streaming the wedding. If we can do it next year and we'll move everything and figure that out. But I mean, we really did get through, except for one, there was one challenging cancel, reschedule that I'm actually still dealing with, but everything else was really cool. I mean, I think people realized that, you know, no one is really no one's fault and trying to do it the best they can. So yeah. I mean, there's nothing

(00:11:54):

You can do about what's going on. And I think there is this odd tendency to not, not deal with that and not want to communicate, but when you're a business owner, like you have to be on the ball. Like the, the, the few that I have this year, like as soon as this new regulation came out from NZ, I had to be like, Hey, here's the deal like 30 people max. And that doesn't mean 30 guests. That means me take person. Whomever else is there, like it's only 30 people. So I'm just letting you know that I'm not, I'm not comfortable putting my business, you know, at risk to come do this wedding for you. If you want to have a hundred people there, or if you want to try and play the gray area game and do a reception after, like, if you want to do a reception, that's cool.

(00:12:40):

I'm not going to be there. I'm going to leave. So, and that's not, I don't, I'm not going to sit here and judge anyone for doing what they want, but yeah, it's just, it's interesting. And you, and you see all the people posting about like, Oh my couple, his clinic is doing this or they're there. They're trying to play that game. And I'm like, you know, for me, it's just not worth it. Especially being so new. It's like, you know what you do what you're going to do, but I'm not, I'm not messing with, with the band right now. You know,

(00:13:07):

The man, Jay Inslee, that's a death of ed, Jay Inslee, my boy, just a funny side note. And it's it's so, cause you get all these people on here that are like hating on Jay Inslee and you know, it's this whole big master plan. And he's trying to, you know, he's a North Korean dictator as a hope so beautifully put it. And you know, I mean, whatever size you, you know, I'm not trying to say you gotta be whatever. But when Jay had won the primary in August before he was getting elected at Q3 or at for the governor, I was working at two 13. And so we were at the democratic headquarters down on Rainier. And so I interviewed Jay Inslee and, or I was, you know, the camera guy, whatever. I'll never forget one how stupid the producers were accused 13, that they pushed, they pushed his, like we were supposed to go live like at nine Oh two or whatever.

(00:14:00):

And they said, Oh, Hey, we have something else. Like, can you just tell him to stand by? I'm like, you know, this is the future governor of our state. Like we knew like, you know, Democrat, he's probably gonna win. It's like, I probably wouldn't you know, do that. But too, I was, I was wearing like this American Eagle. T-Shirt like, you know, the brand like American Eagle. And he's like sitting there asking me, he goes, and I can't even do his voice, but like the list, you know, it was okay. So what's the, what's like, what's the Eagle on your shirt? And he's like, is that I said, Oh, it's just like American Eagle. Like, it's just a thing. But he was just, but he was like fascinated by it. And so years later I'm like, you know, the guy that asked what the American Eagle I'm, the American Eagle shirt stood for is not running this long con about trying to like working with go and all this stuff. Like, he's just, he's a really genuine guy. And I think he's trying to do the best he can. So well, and I mean,

(00:14:52):

I've talked to a lot of people about a lot of different things about that whole thing. Not to try not to get too political here. I've been, I've been very transparent about how I feel, but it's like, you know, you're, you're shitting on this guy. But like you just said, no one knew that this was gonna happen. And no one knew that it was going to become this big. We were all like, Oh, it'll, it'll be fine. Like, it's just a little thing. And then all of this has happened and quarantine happened. And I,

(00:15:19):

I feel like at least in my, the people that I know and what I've seen online

(00:15:24):

And because the internet is an amazing place, a lot of people decided that now is the time to just completely crap on them, about every little thing that he's ever done wrong. And this was like, for them, they were like, this is see, he he's a tyrant. You're saying we can't go outside. I'm like, dude, like we're, we're doing the best of a lot of States. I would imagine comparatively. So like, I don't get the mindset is just, it doesn't make sense to me, but I guess maybe I'm just a sheep.

(00:15:51):

Yeah. We're all, we're all there. The only problem I had was the, the, the new regulations that came out at the beginning of August and when it was going to be August six and then they pushed it to the next question. And, you know, cause I said, you guys don't know how many hundreds of brides canceled their weddings this weekend. Like, you know, thinking that they wouldn't. So that's my only thing was the,

(00:16:13):

Yeah, that was, that was kind of not cool, but it's hard to like, it's hard to judge anyone because it's like, you know, I get it. I get that. A lot of people hate you right now. And a lot of people were, probably were, were emailing you about that change. So it's tough, man. He's just, so he's sort of the scapegoat right now though. And that's, that's part of being in the governor, you know, you are the scapegoat and there's no there's no getting around it. Absolutely. well, thanks for sharing that. Appreciate it. Let's let's, let's, let's get into sort of the meat now let's get into what, what we're here to talk about. Let's talk about a photo and a photographer and a videographer working together.

(00:16:54):

So

(00:16:56):

Before the day even happens, are you getting in touch together at all? Or are you communicating if it, if it's necessary or is it like we're going to talk the day of, and then we can talk about whatever we need.

(00:17:09):

Yeah. So all of our couples, we have a, pre-wedding a pre-wedding questionnaire that we send out six weeks out and in that is obviously, you know, timelines and things and all that. And it's also, you know, vendors and the photographer. And so I always reach out to the photographer. I have the time, which is not the norm, which is always interesting to me. Cause I have many of my friends are photographers and talking with them about, yeah, I didn't even know there was going to be a videographer and then they show up and they're in the back or they're in my way or they're whatever. And so, yeah, I mean we do, we reach out to everyone. I mean, luckily now a lot of our weddings come from, so it doesn't need to be as formal of a, of a, you know, an email.

(00:17:54):

I can send a text or whatever, but yeah, if I haven't worked with them before I always reach out and just let them know you know, who we are that we're going to be there. And just kind of, if they, you know, I usually what I do and I even know that the generally the timelines that they're sending over are from the photographer, but I always say like, Hey, like, this is what the couple sent me, just wanting to make sure that like we're on the same page because ultimately what, the way we work on it with photographers is I will defer to the photographer on 99.9% of everything because there needs to be a hierarchy and there needs to be an order of, you know, who is the captain and then who is like, whatever everything else is. And that's not, you know, and I'm in a lot of wedding, videographer groups and nationwide.

(00:18:45):

And I see all these things and people feuding with people and getting, you know, elbow and people and getting in the way. And I think it goes back to that. And I'm not saying that I'm like the gospel on how you should do it, but that's, that's the way that we do it. Because even from that, even from the beginning thing about like, Hey, I'm like, this is what I have. Is that what you have? You know, am I, am I right here? You're setting, you know, you're defining that relationship in a way that for us is going to be as successful as it can be on the wedding day. You know, we do, like I said, 50, you know, we used to do, when we were cheaper, we would do, I got the summer, we got married, we did 62 weddings and then I got married and that was fun.

(00:19:30):

And, but, so I always tell people, like I work every wedding I'm at, there's a photographer, that's 50 different photographers with 50, 50 different styles and 50 different personalities and whatever. And generally, like you said, you don't work with them or they're not an every day thing. They're not at every wedding. And so it puts the emphasis. I can never say whatever the word is, but it puts, we need to be the ones that are flexible because it is not the norm. And that's not a good thing, but that is where it is that we are, we are a sometimes hire or a photographers and always hire. Yeah.

(00:20:08):

That's interesting actually, because you're saying you're doing 62 weddings in a year, but it is something that is very hit or miss. Sometimes you're going to have a video guy there and sometimes you don't know, or it's your, it's your baby. Like, you're the only person there. So do you think that's changing though? That's not really on topic, but I think that's an interesting thing to

(00:20:31):

I think, well, I think right now it is, I think if anything COVID has given importance to video, even if it's just like the ceremony reception, obviously we've put in a lot of money into doing the live streaming stuff. You know, we're set up for that now, you know, and a different relationship too, with the photographer. Like we had one on Monday and I did not reach out to the photographer because it was a church wedding. We were just, we were literally doing the ceremony, not moving, not doing anything. And I don't care if they're in the way or doing anything because we're just like, we're just documenting it. And so that was like the one time when I wouldn't reach out, I had the time and they also booked us so late, there were just, you know, we're going to be it, nothing's moving. Like it's not going to be in the way. But yeah. I mean, I, I think it's, it's getting more prevalent, but like I said there are photographers that don't work with video and they, they literally, it's not even a, I'm trying to be rude or whatever. Like they just don't know how to do it. And because they just never have, you know, they never have to do it. And so why would you know how to do something that you've never had to do before? So

(00:21:41):

True. It's sometime it's, it's a, it's a hit or miss situation. I am curious, I assume, given COVID, you're finding that live streaming is sort of like getting more popular. Is that like a pretty, I can't imagine all that goes into live streaming. You can tell me how simple or complex it is, but do you find that easier to, to do and you, I'm sure it's more popular too, but

(00:22:07):

Yeah, it's really hard. And that's why I always laugh because this photography is a very difficult thing, right. There, there are, there are many things that you have to do and you have to master and you have to da, I'm not saying it's, it's a very, very, very hard thing to do. Video is exponentially more difficult. I, a hundred percent agree with you, man. We have, we have, if nothing else, we have audio, nothing else. Like if nothing else aside, you know? And so like, yeah, it is hard. And, you know, and, and like our live streams, the big ones we do with like the multi-camera thing, it's an hour set up at a minimum to set it, but, and that's not, that's, that's walking in, you know, and doing it. And so people say, well, why do you, you know, why is it this much for a 20 minute ceremony?

(00:23:00):

And you go, well, cause it's about two hours onsite, just setting up and breaking down. I laugh, you know, our friend Mike to bull ski, we messaged a lot and I was watching the, the board that I use to stream. So the thing that we plugged, all the cameras into has this really weird. You can't do something on it that you really should be able to do. It just, it doesn't have the right. It doesn't do it. And so this company now has released like this new product. So you can basically, you can like stream your content to yourself so that you're able to like monitor it in the way that you weren't able to before. And it's, it's the dumbest thing. And the, that behind it is so stupid. And it's like $250 and all this stuff. And I'm like, I might talking to Mike and I'm like, yeah, you guys are walking around with like your single camera.

(00:23:55):

And my, you know, like you're one, you're one prime lens. And then I'm trying to figure out how to, how to convert my ethernet feed to an HTMI port so I can feed it back into myself so I can like, watch this stupid thing. Right. And it is, and I'm like, and then you just walk up and you're like, snap, like, okay. And you post it on Instagram and you get like 500 likes and you know, so it's, it's really hard and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of it's really hard and, and that's what photographers don't get to. And obviously we work around it, but like, you know, if you get in the shot, that's our whole shot. Right. And so sometimes, like I remember one of the first weddings I ever worked it was over at the hotel Sorento in Seattle. And I, wasn't obviously reaching out to the photographers and stuff then, and we're, you know, we're in the back and we're filming and everything. And so he comes up to me like, we, it was like a quick little just first look or whatever outside, when he comes up to me and he goes, Hey, you told me, you told me you weren't going to be in the way.

(00:25:06):

And I said, well, I

(00:25:08):

Are, we, I don't, am I in the way he goes in one in my one shot here, your elbow is slightly Mike. Okay. In your one shot of like 400, like, you know what I mean? Like it not, obviously you don't want to ruin like, you know, whatever. Well, no, or you don't want to ruin like shots, but if it's, you know, if it's one, if it's one frame of, you know, 500 that you're doing, have them walking down the path, like that'll be okay. Right. But if they're walking down the path for us and you get in the way, that's the whole shot, you know, we gotta do it again. And so that's sometimes people don't get that.

(00:25:46):

I, yeah, 110%. I am lucky, lucky enough, I suppose. I know video pretty well and I hate it because I can tell you now read, I know at least very minimally the amount of work that you have to do to make video work, because it is, it's so much more labor intensive and not even just setting up and you ha you have more equipment than we do. Like, just point blank. You know what, I don't want to talk too much about it from, from my perspective, cause you actually do it. So why don't you tell everyone listening, like explain to them and not live stream, like day of wedding wise, like all of the things that you're having to juggle, explain that to people. Cause I think a lot of people, like you're saying, don't realize how much you have to do and that's not even just including day off.

(00:26:37):

Yeah. Well, that's a good question. So we do ID try to keep it as minimal as possible. A lot of the other things, I think there is a perception that video is going to be big and bulky going to be in the way going to be whatever. Yeah. And so I will answer your question, but also in my time I have tried to simplify our setup just because I think, because there's all these videographers now, you know, all the drones and the Romans and the stabilizes, we don't use any of that stuff. Mostly I film it's me a monopod, you know, we don't, I really try, cause I want to focus on what's happening. I think a photographer, you know, photographers, you know, are able to look through their viewfinder, see the moments and really capture them. And I think video guys a lot, they have all their other crap they're trying to deal with.

(00:27:33):

And they're kind of, they're missing moments, right? They're focusing on, Oh, did I get like the best pan with my thing or the drone or whatever, and they're not doing that. But when it comes to the ceremony and end receptions, you know, we have mikes on, you know, the officiant, if it's a bride groom, we'll put it on the groom. If it's, you know, if it's a different situation, we'll, you know, we'll Mike accordingly you know, we're running feeds out of the DJ, coordinating with them, you know, setting up, you know, usually two or three cameras for that stuff. And I think the trickiest thing for us with the ceremony and photographers, don't always get, we have to have continuous coverage the whole time. So generally, you know, we'll have one camera off to the side and we'll be shooting center aisle as far back as we possibly can be.

(00:28:26):

And I always tell the photographer, like if you're going to go up, you know, if you want to get stuff, if you want to get the, you know, tight shots of the ring or whatever, that's fine. I don't doesn't, you can ruin my one shot for two minutes. I don't care. As long as I have another camera ready to go. And that's what they don't get sometimes like you can literally go anywhere you want. I don't care. I just have to have at least one camera point about it. So like go up. I mean, I don't care. I mean, I, I'm not a big like get up in the face or walk behind or, you know, get in front of a mom or whatever, but like, that's fine. You just have to let us know so I can make sure that, you know, Matt or my other dummy assistant, isn't like, you know, cause of course the second you walk up, they're going to be like, well, I should change my battery right now. You know? So, so that's my thing is I'm like, just, just talk about it. And that's why like we all, you know, it goes with the emails ahead of time. And then before everything all day, I always say like, Hey Kate, cutting, what do you want to do? Hey, first dance. Where do you want to be? And like, generally I know the correct answer, right? Like we should dance, but I don't

(00:29:42):

Give a shit. It doesn't matter to me. I, if you want to shoot it at the window with them and it's all blown out and it looks like I that's fine. I it's not. Cause ultimately, like I think that video does get a lot more forgiveness because I think that people look at video and they, there's only so much you can do with photo. You can Photoshop everything and edit everything and straighten everything and get rid of light switches and get rid of anything you want to do with video. If it looks kind of weird, cause it maybe isn't the right way. People don't care, right? Like if it's not the best angle or if there's weird crap in the background or if like the DJ is right there or whatever. So I just kind of watch them do what they want to do if you want to do it that way. That's, we'll just do it that way then, you know, and you know, the other thing too is, is the, this idea of I lost you. Oh, I'm gone. No, we'll pause. I can't hear you. Oh no.

(00:31:01):

Hang on. Oh, hang on. Okay, good. There we go. Make it a note there. Sorry, my car off. Oh, you're fine. I will recut that. What would we even, I don't even remember what we were talking about. I was going off on a tangent about I'll have they want to position things in film things? Oh right. You know the other thing too, I'm lucky enough. Like I said, I do, I I've done a little video. The, the idea of composition is completely different for you versus I think how I, I would be able to go about it because I can switch up and down no matter what, but you have a 16 by nine thing and that's like, that's it? Like, that's all you have. And you're just working off of that. No matter what. Yeah. That is tricky. You know, we'll do some stuff where yeah. If there's stuff off to the one side or the other, I'm like I have to shoot wide. Like here I have to shoot horizontal. I can't. That is the one thing that photographers don't get. Yeah. You can never have a portrait. It's always landscape every single one. So yeah, I GTV tried, but it didn't it. No, no one likes it. No one likes looking at it like that. No. And, and you know, the other thing that you even up too, which

(00:32:40):

Doing this podcast, I obviously have to know a little bit about it, but, but audio is so much work too. So tell me a little bit about that process too.

(00:32:52):

I mean, we don't, you know, some guys are like up a lot of stuff during the day. We don't, I mean, we don't we're we're ceremony. Like I said, we'll have Mike's, you know, for the, for the, you know, people get married and the officiant and the DJ, but you know, it's just other stuff to monitor. It's just other stuff to take care of. It's other stuff like we gotta pack that stuff up afterward. We gotta set it up ahead of time. I mean, we've gotten pretty good at it now with being able to roll in and kind of do whatever. But like, if we're running late, we can't just walk into a ceremony. You know, I gotta be able to get up to the people, getting married at the time and put a mic on them or whatever, you know, we just can't.

(00:33:31):

Or like, I remember we had this thing and it was this older couple and they were going to be out on a boat down in Tacoma. Like they were taking this boat to her and then they wanted to immediately get off the boat and walk up and get married. And I said, this is going to be the dumbest thing in the world. You can't do that because we have to put a microphone on you before you go up there. Like you can't. Cause even if the DJ is you know, has like a mic on the efficient or handheld or whatever, we, we have to have that redundancy. And that's the other thing too, you know, photographers, you know, with multiple card slots and all the cameras and all that stuff, he goes the same with the audio. We're, you know, we gotta have a couple of different sources up there were. So, yeah. So I had to tell him like, well, you guys can walk out the boat. And then when you get behind the Bush, we're going to have to put a mic on you before you go up there. Like it just, you know, certain logistics sometimes that way. And then obviously for reception and getting that stuff too, but we don't make up a lot of like, some people make up the first look and all that stuff, but that just slows down. We're trying not to slow down the day.

(00:34:38):

Yeah. You seem like you're, you're at a point now where you're like, let's just make this as streamlined as possible because it's just so much work. If you try and put laugh mikes on, on them and then take them off and then all that other stuff.

(00:34:50):

Yeah. I mean, we just don't and, and we're, I don't know. I mean, I know, and even on our other podcasts, the one that you were on the get to know your wedding pro, we talked a lot about like the artists thing and all that. I don't, I don't care anymore. Like I don't, but not in a bad way. Like we just, we want to make everything go and, you know, w we're pretty meat and potatoes. We're pretty, you kind of know what you're getting and some people want it. And some people don't and some people want the $6,000, you know, whatever, flying the drone over the mountaintops and all that stuff. But you know, we have our client base and especially photographers like w w working with us because we don't slow that process. And I always remember Almonte photography there, Kim and Laura and their friends.

(00:35:44):

They live in West Seattle, too. They're like pretty expensive and they're pretty high end. And they used to have a thing in their contract where if, if you were hiring a videographer and they weren't like on their preferred, you know, one or two or three people, you had to like, sign this waiver. That was like, if we didn't get anything or whatever, like, it wasn't the photographer's fault. If the videographer slowed down anything, or you had to make sure that you had this much, because obviously they had worked with a lot of videographers. They had really slowed down the process. Right. And so anything we can do to just like, keep things going, and then like, people always ask like, well, do you want to do that? It's like, yeah. I mean, I guess we could do that. Or we could try this, or we could try that, but it's that fine line, you know? Yeah,

(00:36:31):

Absolutely. And those people that are charging, I mean, even upwards of like $10,000, it's like, it's insane to me bringing all that stuff in, like, you see people with the big Ronan M gimbal, and if you don't know what that is, it's just this huge square thing that holds the camera in a place. And they're walking around with that and they have the big, expensive brand new DGI. That's like, I don't know, $5,000 for everything. And like you're saying, like that just makes everything so much slower and on a wedding day, making sure like, things stay like as on top of the schedule as possible is super important. So, you know, there's a place for that. Yeah.

(00:37:15):

Style. Yeah. It's we were talking, I just had Amy and Bronwyn they're photographers on my podcast. And we, we got into this big discussion where, you know, ultimately, and the same goes for photo. How you feel getting your photos taken or getting your video taken. Right. If you, if you're taking family photos and you're stressed and you're hot and you're hungrier the photographer's barking at you or whatever, you're going to remember that when you look at those photos and the same goes for video, where if you have a videographer that is in the way or slow, or isn't engaged because they're offline, they're drone and doing all this other stuff and not giddy in like cause I, I remember I worked with a photographer last year that also does video and I won't, I won't throw under the bus, but he was doing photo that day, but he, he does both.

(00:38:09):

And he was like, well, how so? He was like, kind of picking my brain about like, well, how do you do this? Or how do you do that? And he goes, Oh, I never get cocktail hour. Cause I'm always you know, like trying to do drone stuff or trying to do whatever. And I'm like, that's like, what people hire us for is getting all that kind of stuff. Right. And it's, that's the thing, like if you're off running your gimbal somewhere, or if your fits in all your equipment, you're not making connections with the couple. Right. And so when it comes time for like referrals and reviews or like just bullshitting with the photographer, like that's all we do. Right. But if I'm off running around doing all this other crazy crap and then the big, Oh, who is the videographer at that wedding, like, I'll always ask my photographer friends. Oh, who is there? I don't know. It was just some guy, he was just running around. Like I don't, I don't know who he is and it's because they didn't sit there and like no bullshit during cocktail hour and get footage and, and tell people, you know, what mean.

(00:39:07):

Yeah. And, and yeah, there's, there's plenty of uncle Tom's who probably will come with a video camera too, that they're like, I don't want to pay even $3,000 for a videographer because I already spent that much money on a, on a photographer. And there's you alluded to it earlier. There's a lot more that goes into video that I think people don't don't don't appreciate and don't realize until they, unless they do it, to be honest because it's, it's a real pain in the ass. So let's kind of talk about let's act. Let's actually talk about how, how best to have a foot of photographer and a videographer work together. So let's start at like the beginning of the day, say you haven't gotten, well, you might've sent them an email, but day of like you show up, do you like, or you just said like, let's do an immediate communication in powwow or is it like, I'm just gonna introduce myself and be like, you let me know what you want to do. Just tell me about that process.

(00:40:04):

Yeah. so details are a really big importance to us because as I've said before, we defer to the photographer for most things during the day. And so having, having good details and good, like a good dress shot, that's my thing is address shots. It's just us being able to have a little bit of creativity. So I always say like, you know, and, and it's funny now, cause a lot of the photographers I work with, especially the guys hate doing the dress shot. So they're always like read whatever you want to do. Like all of them I'll have like a hook and like we'll hang it off of like a building or assemble, hang it up like 30 feet in the air, some crazy stuff. And so they're like, do whatever you want to do is fine. Like whatever. But yeah. I mean, I kinda just, you know, again, it's, like I said about you know, how do you want to film the first dance?

(00:41:01):

How do you want to do whatever? I know the correct answer to all of these things, but what I think is the correct answer, isn't necessarily what they think. And so I always like, Hey, like, so what do you wanna do? And they're like, well, I want to go, we had a, we had a wedding last summer and we don't usually have bad, really like bad days with photographers. And this was one where we just didn't, we just didn't really connect. And they were getting ready at the wedding was at the Monte Cristo ballroom, you know, recipes. And there's a, there's a hotel, it's a block away. It's like the high the Hilton or not the Hilton, like the day stay express or whatever. And she, they had the dress there and there was no one at the money Cristo. We were there so early, it's never that way.

(00:41:48):

There's always a million cars parked around and everything. And when we parked there, they have like a flag pole, like holder thing. That's not there. Anyway, you hang a dress. Then I went and we were getting ready and they have like us for like four hours getting ready. And maybe like the second she woke up, we were there. And so I said, Hey, I said, do you want, I said, Hey, I'm going to go take your dress down the street. I'll put it in the bag. You know, I'll take it down the street and is that cool? And they're like, Oh yeah, that's fine. Like whatever. And I talked with the photographer and I go, Hey I'm so I'm going to go like, are you good with all the dress shots? Oh yeah, I'm good. I'm fine. I'm like, okay, well I'm going to go take that down. Like I'm going to hang out in front of the thing. Like, do you want to, do you want to come with me? You know, so we can both get the shot, you know, whatever. No, no, I never, I never leave the venue. I never leave the getting ready room with the dress. I never do that. I never do that. And I was like, okay,

(00:42:49):

Sorry. That's just,

(00:42:51):

I was like, well, but I'm going to go do that. So I don't do you want to come with me or not? Like, I was just question man, that, and she's like, no, I'm just going to stay here. And I said, okay. So you know, my assistant and I, you know, we put the dress in the bag, walked down the street. I was parked there. I had my dress hook hooked. Did that, you know, the whole thing took two minutes. You know, we walked back, you know, I'm back. It's like 10 minutes show the bride, the photo on the phone. Oh my God. That's so beautiful. That's so amazing. I'm like, yeah, like your photographer could have done that too. I don't, but again, I'm just, I just provide options, but no, like I said, I, the whole day is different. It's whatever they want. It doesn't matter. But that again, that's just how we operate.

(00:43:37):

You just find that that's, it's just going to be the easiest thing for everyone in that case, because it's like you said, it's some people don't work with video all the time, so it's just like, don't fuck with that process. Just let them do their thing. And I can just, I can do whatever I need to

(00:43:53):

Yeah, you have to, you have to. And like I said, there has to be a chef that's in charge. There has to be, there cannot be too. I mean, I can, like I said, I can have thoughts. I can have ideas. But, but I mean, we've even gotten to the point now where like, like we have some photographers, some of my favorite photographers that I love to work with, use flash all the time. And flash sucks on DSLR cameras because you get you know, all the different things for people that don't know basically like it, because of the way the camera video, you get these weird lines that go through when the flash goes, as opposed to just like a, you know, like a blink or whatever. And, you know, I used to like really care and Hey, you know, do you think you can, like, can you give me two seconds without it? You know, can we get the dress on? Like once you get your shot, can I get whatever? Or like, I would really edit around it. I would try to like edit, you know, this was before the flash and then that, and I'm like, who gives a shit? Like they don't care like the bride era. I mean, and like, so we had one last summer, last winter at Trinity tree farm, which is like a super dark venue.

(00:45:12):

Huh? I love that place. Yeah. And, and so the photographers were great. They were super awesome. And they use flash on every single shot inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, every, every shot the whole day, every shot, every shot the whole day, like every shot, every single shot. And you know, so I'm sitting there and I'm dislike. Cause we don't use every video that we have right. On our website. Like we don't use cause VI I used to be a part of this like videographer networking group and this guy like, well, do you put like every video on your site? And I'm like, absolutely not. Like, absolutely not. You don't put no, but, and so we're sitting there and I go, okay, well I'm knocking use this wedding, which is fine. It's fine. I'm just not going to use it. It's not worth me saying anything to them because it's totally gonna, like, it's gonna ruin this relationship.

(00:46:08):

I had never worked with them before. It's going to make everything uncomfortable. Right. Like it's just, they're going to be thrown off. Like it's going to be whatever. And so, you know, we don't say anything and, but anyway, so I edited the video and it's awesome. Like, you know, there's some weird flashes and shit like who cares? And we get we get, I don't know why so many we're on their preferred vendor list at Trinity tree farm. Thank you, Brittany. And so we get Brittany, we get so much traffic from them. We get like every week, like so much traffic from them. And I was like, I don't give a shit. I'm going to put this on the site. Like, it doesn't matter. Like nobody cares. And so like, that was a perfect example of, of like, I totally could have gone the other way.

(00:46:55):

Right. And now they probably still don't know that that annoyed me. Right. Like annoyed the shit out of me the entire day. But they don't know that. Right. They don't know that at all. And like spoiler alert, like Dan Manny, like our friend Dave nanny we did a wedding. We had talked about doing like the exit up the aisle and he totally did the different that he was going to say. Right. But that's fine. Like I don't care like right at the end still doesn't know that. Right. It doesn't matter to me because like, as opposed to having 15 seconds of them walk up the aisle, I have like four seconds of that. Now, if I wouldn't have had any seconds of them, then that probably wasn't bothered me. But at that point I just put the photographer in there and then the people watching the video go, Oh look, the photographers. They're like, they don't care.

(00:47:46):

You're documenting the day. It doesn't matter the day. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to give Dan man shit about that. When it comes on the podcast, Reid is mad at you, by the way.

(00:47:56):

No, no, but you know, I was like, and it was so funny. Cause I was training my new guy, Matt, that works for me. And he was like, Hey, like didn't you guys? Cause like we had had like a discussion and I'm like, it doesn't matter like dance and my friend for three years, he's going to be my friend after this. I don't care. Like I'm like, who cares? I go, whatever, if you came home the most and I'm not going to tell this whatever, but the most egregious example I've ever had at anything is a photographer I work with every year and I did have to message them and say like, Hey, you know, that really did. I wasn't at this wedding. It was my other team. And I was like, Hey, you know I didn't appreciate that. And you know, they were really in the way and a really inopportune moment and yeah, but I said, you know, we're both in the market and we're going to be around a lot. And spoiler alert, like we are at every wedding tour together. And I'm like, yeah, I could have really messed up that relationship by not handling that correctly. So sorry. That was really long answer. No,

(00:49:05):

That's good. That's good to hear because there are people that, you know, sometimes they don't care and sometimes it's like, maybe they don't even know that they did it. I don't know what that is,

(00:49:15):

But they don't even know. And that's like, all these videographers get on all these forums and they complain about all these photographers. I'm like, people just make mistakes and they don't like whoever I demanded, you know, no one knows like, no one's tried to, you know? And now obviously there's like jerks, but I think you can tell the difference of the difference if it's someone being a jerk. But if it's just someone making the mistake, it's fine.

(00:49:41):

I can tell you're very, just like, you know what? It's just let, let the water roll off your back, man. It's just do this one.

(00:49:47):

The only thing I will say that is the most infuriating thing that any photographer can do. And this is, this is, and this is, I will be showing the couple, the back of your camera after every shot that you do. That's good. And I get cause some photographers like it, cause they think one went to show him a couple good shots and that's going to jazz them up. Okay, that's fine. But then you're done. You're done because what happens is they're posing, I'm off to the side, you're taking the photo and then you walk up. And so now that entire 32nd transaction, we can't use, we're probably rolling on that video. So that means I have an hour's worth of crap I'm hanging on to, because you know, I totally get doing it a couple of times. Like, Hey, look at the good stuff we're getting, Oh my God, that's amazing.

(00:50:43):

We had my other guy shot. And he showed them after every photo, every bridal party photo, every like all the one-on-ones like, you know, with the best man and all that, every single one, he would go up and show him. I go, these photos could have taken 12 minutes. If you hadn't been showing them all the photos after every frame, you know, and that we can't use any of that crap. Right. So that's my only thing. Like I get, do it the one time, a couple of times get them jazzed. But the whole, every time they know you're have good photos, like they know they hired tire. Do they know that you're a good photographer? So once you do it the one time to like get them jazzed, then, then that's kind of,

(00:51:24):

They spent two, three, $4,000 on you for a reason they know.

(00:51:28):

Yeah. And even in that

(00:51:30):

Situation, is it like, Hey, and I wouldn't have even thought about that, but it's like, Hey, I'm going to show them the photos like one time. And then just, just to let you know, cause now I know that you, that ruins your shot. Like, Hey, I'm gonna take a couple, I'll let you know when I'm going to do it. And then I'm done. Is that something that's like, you can communicate that to you and then cool. No problem.

(00:51:51):

Oh, it's great. And like I said, I mean, I told I that's the thing is I get, I get why you do it. I ask, cause I put myself in your head and I get that gut. Like, you know, if you have a couple that's nervous or are they maybe they're whatever, look at how beautiful you look. Oh my God. That's so amazing. You're so great. Awesome. Then, then like, we're good on that, but it's, it's the, all the time thing it's yeah, that gets a little tired.

(00:52:14):

You're like it's they know, they know you're good. It's cool. We got it. Is there things that are there any other things that you, you might know? Cause it's, like I said before, it seemed like you're, you're pretty chill about everything, but do you know offhand, like there are things that photographers can do that might be like, Hey man, like unnecessary or doing something that maybe they don't even realize they're doing. Obviously you talked about getting in front of your shot. If you, if you're set up in a certain spot is it a lack of communication? You tell me some things that you've maybe heard from, from experience, from other people and things that you've experienced where it's like, I wish that you would have told me you were going to do that or I wish you wouldn't do that.

(00:52:57):

Yeah. So like you said with communication and we always talk about the ceremony. I always tell the photographer, like, like I said before, you know, if you're going to go up, just let me know. So I make sure we have another angle. Right? Like just let me know. Cause I'll, I'll even tell him like, Hey, like once we get the other camera set up, if you want like a big wide of the space, like I will take my camera and run 50 feet the other way. Right. So you can get a wide shot, just let me know. But like the run up for first kiss, like wherever we gotta have a line, like wherever that line is at the ceremony, at least when it comes to the first kiss, like I got to know where that line is. So if you're going to be up five feet away from him, then so am I right?

(00:53:39):

And if you're going to be 50 feet back with a 300 millimeter, whatever, like then all be out of your way and I'll be like, you can't. Cause it's like a, you know, it's like the floor is lava. Like it's an invisible line. Like I got into like, that's where we're going to stop because I'll get that where they're like, Hey, like we're good here. And I'm like, okay, perfect. And then the first kiss comes and then they spread me forward. So that's my thing. And then, like I said, the other thing, when we talk about like first dance and stuff like that, I always ask like, what way do you want to do it? Even if I know the right way to do it, what way do you want to do it? Cause that's the way that's, that's the right way to do it.

(00:54:15):

And and then if they go like the other way, like the whole time, I'm like, I get, if you want to like circle a little bit, you know, like that's fine. Like circle the first dance and get whatever. But like, you know, if we're all shooting, like if, you know, if we're all shooting to like the crowd and the people are dancing, you know, with the crowd, no, you can go around and get a couple shots, but otherwise then we're in each other's shots the whole time. So cause again, it's it's whatever you want all do. So then we just need to do the thing that you said. And not like I said, not that you're locked in that you can't like do, but, but just the whole, the whole time you don't need to be on the other side.

(00:54:55):

Yeah. I don't want to put my cart before the horse, but I feel like we would work well together because I also am the type of person where I'm just like, dude, let's just make this as easy as possible. So like, if there's something that you want to do, like you let me know. I'm, I'm cool with it. Like if you were like, Hey, I'm going to take the dress down the street. I'm like, fuck yeah, let me come. Like, that sounds dope. Like, and I think a lot, I think there are some people who may be I think their shit doesn't stink and they're like read, I need you to just stay out of my way the whole day. Okay. I don't know if you've experienced that before. I'm sure you have, you've done a lot of weddings. Maybe some people who are snooty, you don't have to call them out.

(00:55:35):

But like there is that mentality of like, I am the greatest, like just sit back and watch masterpiece happen. Okay. This is the next Mona Lisa of photography, you know? But it sounds like really at the end of the day, like just communicate, like just communicate together and be open to like, Hey, this is kind of what I want to do for you. You're like, cool. All right, fuck it. Let's do it that way. Like no problem. But understanding that it's not just about you, especially if there's a video person there, would you agree with that statement?

(00:56:09):

Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. That's the hardest thing. And, and it's also

(00:56:16):

The

(00:56:18):

Hosing through words and not touching people am like right now. It's great because you know, COVID is going on. Did my mic go out again? No, you're good. You're good. Oh, sorry. And obviously right now with COVID and everything going on, you know, there is not a lot of touching, but that's the thing too is, is if like, again, it's the same as showing the CA the pictures from the back of the camera. If, if we're both side by side. Cause w my whole, my whole life is slightly off to the right. Like, because I'm just, you know, we're just standing next to the videographer. Like everything, the ceremony decided after the ride, the portrait, it's just all slightly off to the right. And so, you know, it's great. Cause then we can just do stuff the whole time. Like our weather, my other guy has a wedding on salary day and the photographer emailed me and we're emailing.

(00:57:08):

And she goes, Hey, I'm like, I'm going to have a really, really tight time getting like the romantic shots. Like there are couples portraits. And she goes, you know, our, is, is Matt going to do that with me? Or is he going to do his own? And I go, no, like, he'll just be off to the side, like off to the right. You do whatever you need to do. Like, we'll give it. And, you know, and, and that's for another thing. And I think advice to, for like videographers is I think, and even like for the guys who second shoot for me are guys and girls is they're gonna shoot for me. When, like, let's say there's a, a portrait session going on, right. For like an hour, let's say we're doing photos for an hour. They have to think. They think that they have to get like all the seconds of every single shot.

(00:57:54):

Right. Cause like, and it's like, you don't like if we do an hours for the portraits, we need 45 seconds, like tops of that for the video. So like, who gives a shit if they're in, you know, we had that, where I had this wedding and the photographer she's a little, you know, a little involved and you know, like it was in the way and in the way and in the way, and I'm just like, I was so frustrated and I'm like, I can't and I'm sitting there and I'm like, well, no, like we got, that was good. And we got, that was good. And like, that's fine. Like, I could almost like, I don't even need to shoot anything else. Right. Like, not that I would walk away, but I'm like, I'm going to tell you if you need any of this stuff at this point where like photography, you need to have a lot of different looks of a lot of different stuff.

(00:58:41):

Right? Like the couple wants to see like a bunch of different portraits from a bunch of different locations. If we have like, they're not, especially like our videos, if they're going to see, they want to see them walk around for 30 seconds and that's it, they don't want to watch them in their videos. They want to see a little bit of that. They want to have a little bit of pre stuff. So that's the other thing is just feeling like you have to get everything that photographers getting. Yeah. It just, you don't, your, your, your importance is maybe different. Yeah. It's totally there. So what would you say is the most important moment that like, Hey, like if you're going to like, do anything, like I need to know during this time, like if you're going to discuss a script or whatever, the first kiss. Absolutely. That's the only thing that can't recreate. Everything else can be recreated, even like toast and stuff. I don't care if people are walking around, like everything else first does it matter? I think that's the only one. I think, you know, bride walking down or, you know, bride or groom or whoever walking down and then first kiss is, is, is it, I mean, that's, that's all, we're there for everything else is, is movable, you know?

(00:59:45):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you get in front of me during the first kiss we're going to fight. Is that something that you'll communicate to, if you haven't worked with someone just, I mean, there is like a, a God, I hope you would know that, but

(00:59:57):

Also you just help you just help you. Just, like I said, at the end of the day, it's their video, right? Like it's not my video. Like the one that I had where I emailed them, you know, where I messaged the photographer. Cause they got in the way and whatever, if that was my video, I will be really pissed, but it's not my video, so I don't care. And they didn't care. So it doesn't matter. Right. Yeah. And that was her. And that was like, that was their response to me when I messaged them, I said, Hey, I said, you know, this was your kind of in the way, you know, is this something I've, I've worked with you before, I've never seen you do this before. Are you independent? And their response was like, well, did the couple have a problem? And I'm like, well, if they don't, then I guess it doesn't really matter. I mean, ultimately like I can be upset, but if they don't care, then that ultimately it does. And that's shitty to hear right. As a videographer, that's upset about someone being in the way. But like, if they don't care, then they don't, you know, it doesn't matter.

(01:00:53):

Yeah. But I mean, still though, to your credit, like you want to have like a good working relationship with people because we aren't going to

(01:01:00):

Yes, yeah. Together. So that's why I generally just don't say anything. Yeah, that's fair. But yeah. Yeah.

(01:01:07):

That's fair. I'd get that sense from him. And you're like, you know what, whatever, like, it's just not even worth

(01:01:12):

Going down that rabbit hole, but

(01:01:15):

Stop. Sorry. My cat's being an ass.

(01:01:18):

At the end of the day, at the end of the day that the eight hours will be done. And if we ended up having a really bad relationship, then that will be done and we will never have to talk to you again. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it was funny. We just had, I had a really, probably one of the worst experiences with a photographer, like four years ago, terrible, terrible, terrible. The whole day, really bad. And I have not worked with them since, and I just got three inquiries in the last, like two weeks. And they're all with that photographer. And I'm like, hi, you know, I mean, you probably know, you probably don't even remember it. Right. But I remember it, you know, and again, I don't say anything. We don't say anything at all, but I remember that. So it's is funny. The world is small. If you're a photographer, the world is small.

(01:02:10):

Really. It feels like it's big, but in reality, there are like

(01:02:13):

Rotating people that you're going to be working with where there's not that many videographers, you will work with us again. True. Very true. So

(01:02:20):

Like why I pissed my pistols people off that doesn't make any sense to me. If there's anything else, any other advice that you maybe be,

(01:02:27):

Yeah, this is sort of the last question. If there's any advice that you have for, for a photographer, who's like, Oh, I'm going to work with a video guy. Like, I don't know what to do. Like I've never done this before or someone who might be worried about it. Like what advice do you have for those people? I, you know, I, I think talk, I think talking and, and just, there are a lot of different videographers, right. And there's a lot of different, I mean, again, I'm speaking of it from personal experience, right. Or the way that we do it. But like I remember we had a wedding where it was like at the end of the season, it was like end of August. And I was really, you know, we didn't even have a season this year, but you know, it's like August, I'm like really tired.

(01:03:10):

And the photographers, it was just me. I was doing it last minute. And they, it was just me filming and I was doing it for the cheap cause their videographer like canceled or whatever. And there was like three big, long tables. So two Isles for the grand entrance and what each one of the photographers was, you know, in front of the bride and groom three feet away backing up the entire time. Right. So like, I couldn't even see, I literally couldn't even see him, let alone get a shot of them coming down, you know? Cause you would think, Oh, you'd want them coming up. And the one almost backed into me or almost random to my camera cause she wasn't paying attention. And I'm like, you have to, you have to that's I guess the advice is like, you have to at least be aware of that.

(01:03:57):

And like I said, I don't mind, like if you get in the shot or if you do whatever, but at least just be aware that there is another I'm being there right there just trying to work. And I, that was the biggest thing. It's like, she had no idea. Right. And I'm like, if that wasn't me, that could have been grandma or whoever that you backed into. Right. Like it couldn't have been anybody. Right. And so you need to be aware at least, you know, if you're going to, you're going to forget, you want to, you get excited about a photo. You want to show whatever. Like it doesn't matter. I guess it's fine. But just be aware that there is someone else there that's trying to do a job right. Is, is important. But like you said she got really mad at me cause I, you know, I got really, really, it was probably the most heated I've ever gotten. It was the most heated I've ever gotten with a photographer and for the record, the bride and groom still on me to this day. And so I was right. I'm just saying,

(01:04:54):

I'm just going to,

(01:04:55):

I say that we're still friends and I was ultimately correct in, in this argument. And she goes you know, like you're just, you're the most involved videographer like we have ever had. We've never worked with anyone, whatever. And I'm like, because I bullshit with them, like while we're doing photos, cause some people do. And that's, I was getting back to my original point was that there's somebody on refers are going to be in the bath. Like Cory Bogle is, has been doing video for 15 years. Did my wife's sister's wedding like probably the most famous right. Cl videographer, right? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, but like he doesn't, he just kind of goes off and does this thing, like, he doesn't talk to anybody like he doesn't ghost. Yeah. Right. Like he's the whole like Ninja on the wall and, and some of the guys and girls that work for me are that way.

(01:05:44):

And then some of them are, but I mean, we are a little bit more Chitty chatty and it's, it's trying to build, and that's why I tell photographers too. Like you guys have had the engagement session or the couples session or the booking, all that, like a lot of our couples book email, like I don't meet them, our reviews speak for themselves. Like I don't meet a lot of our couples, so they have, except on like, we'll do like, like shit on like Instagram or whatever. But so like I have to be like the same, it's the same relationship that you've built with them over six months or whatever. I have to build with them in like 10 minutes. And so I am going to be a little bit more like, Hey, what's going on? Like, you know, I'm not. Cause we have to, you know, th the same relationship that you want to have to get reviews and referrals and whatever. I have to build that the same way you are the same, but a different way, you know? Yeah. And you have way less time to do it. Yeah. But that's the day it's like, generally we are coming in cold. I mean, I've met, you know, we'll probably meet 20% of our couples, but most of them is email. So yeah.

(01:06:44):

Hey man, thank you so much for jumping on this with me. I'm going to give you the floor now. So anything that you want to promote, shout out how people can find you you know, let the people know what's up, man.

(01:06:56):

Yeah. I really appreciate it. I mean, I think this was a great opportunity. Like you said, you were just on the, get to know your wedding pro podcast, which is great. I always tell any wedding vendor, even if we go like, we'll go do all these tours and stuff or like open houses. I didn't even care about promoting like my services. I care about getting more people and voices to come on that. Which is great. Get to Know Your Wedding Pro® we just launched the Best Made Weddings podcast, which is a kind of a round table right now. It's a lot of COBIT talk, but it's you know, it's really talking about questions. People have, we, we, we just recorded one with photographers talking about micro weddings. We just did one with a fish. And it's talking about how to build your ceremony right now with, you know, where that's all we can do is ceremony is. And so I think that's important. We're just launching in my, my video. Isn't going to be on this, but we're launching our XFL podcast today. So if you're a sports fan and you're interested in learning more about the XFL in sports, you can go to XFL Mark at anything. And that's the XFL Mark cast. Cause we're just a couple of guys Mark. And now they're about the XFL, but yeah, Best Made Videos®, www.bestmadevideos.com and not everything else has to be videos. So

(01:08:10):

There you go. Go follow Reid. He's a dope guy. Thank you again. I said it before. I'll say it again. Thank you. Thank you for jumping on man. I really appreciate it. And now you're stuck with me just so you know, we're friends now we're two peas in a pod dude. So if you guys want to follow me, stay up to date on getting candid best way for you guys to do that is to follow me at Mason Joel photo on all the socials. That's where I'll post about schedules and what's coming up and all that fun stuff. And then you can find me on at Mason, Joel photography on Facebook with that we are out of here and I will see you all in the next one. Bam. There you go.

We were recently lucky enough to get featured on Elegant Affairs’ vendor spotlight blog!!

EA Vendor Spotlight: Best Made Videos®

Tell us about your business!

We are a wedding videography and corporate video production company serving the greater Pacific Northwest. We have been in business for 6 years and have shot 269 weddings to date.

Why did you want to get into the wedding industry?

I graduated from Gonzaga University with a degree in broadcast journalism and spent 8 years working in the television news industry before transitioning to running my own company. The funny thing is that we originally weren't going to do weddings at all. I booked a last min craigslist wedding when the bride's cousin told her 2 days before the wedding that he couldn't make it to film the event. I immediately noticed that people enjoying having me there (very different from my experience working with the public when I was in news) and I was immediately hooked! We now have a good mix of about 60% weddings and 40% corporate gigs which keeps us busy throughout the year.

What makes your company stand out?

We pride ourselves on the service we provide our clients. Response rate and quality of work are the two things I pride myself in the most. You will always get a response from me within a few minutes (unless I'm sleeping...which isn't often! lol)

Tell us about your personal style when it comes to your craft?

We have a documentary style of approach when it comes to our wedding videos, this allows us to truly showcase the couples' day and what is important to them. We provide our couples a pre-wedding questionnaire prior to their wedding day, which gives us guidance as to what to focus the most on in terms of aspects of the day. Although we capture detailed moments throughout the entire wedding day, this questionnaire lets us know what is important, and also what isn't as important to the couple when it comes to their wedding video, so we can handcraft a perfect tailored wedding video to each and every one of our couples. The highest compliment we receive from our couples is that "their wedding video FELT like their wedding day."

Favorite part of working with couples?

Definitely corresponding online via social media prior to the wedding and also sharing sneak peeks of our wedding videos in progress to our couples via Instagram. This allows our couples to follow our workflow from start to finish, and it also builds anticipating for their finally receiving their wedding video!! I try to be as accessible to my clients as possible, and sometimes sending a quick DM over Instagram is a lot easier than sending a detailed message, so any little bit helps.

Favorite part of wedding day?

As someone who wrote his own vows at his wedding, listening to and capturing any sort of personal vow at a wedding ceremony will always be my favorite. It gives more insights into the couple and their backstory along with what makes them tick. Also this gives us a lot of great content to use to edit the highlight videos. Fun wedding toasts work well also for entertaining highlight videos. Also as a videographer specifically, being able to capture and hang out during the "getting ready" portion of the day is extremely important. Not only does that give us a lot of good footage to use in the edited highlight video, but it also helps set a tone for the day. Everyone is able to get to know one another, family members, groomsmen, bridesmaids and everyone else, and it helps set everyone at ease for the rest of the big day!!

Advice to couples in selecting a vendor in your category?

Read reviews and check online presence. Also look for someone you want to build a rapport with. Wedding vendors who are truly invested in their couples and the wedding industry as a whole, want to be available to you every step of the way. As a videographer, we spend most, if not all of the day together alongside your wedding photographer, so it's good to find someone you want to spend time with. If you can, find people who like working with one another. Some of the strongest relationships I have are with other fellow wedding vendors. You want an army supporting you on your big day and it's good to find people who have been in the trenches with each other before!

How to Contact Best Made Videos®:
425-785-0718
reid@bestmadevideos.com
www.bestmadeweddingvideos.com
@bestmadevideos on Facebook, IG, Twitter, Pinterest

I was recently interviewed for an upcoming book about how wedding videography fits into the wedding planning process. Although I cannot disclose the name of the book for privacy reasons, here is a transcription of my answers to some questions regarding wedding videography.

*Please forgive any spelling or typographical errors.

[00:00] I'm just trying to address like what might be the misconceptions that people have about what you do and just things that you wish people knew that might make the difference between them hiring a videographer or not.

[00:18] Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of, um, you know, our business is based on, you know, regret. Uh, I hear a lot of people regretting they got a videographer or regretting that they had their uncle tried to do it or had their friends rather do it or have somebody on craigslist trying to do it, you know, that's a lot of what, what we hear a, I have a bride from five years ago. Her sister is getting married next year and we had met and um, you know, I, I've shot their venue and helped them find a dj and everything. And then she said, well, you know, I'm to, I think our friend, we're going to let our friend do it. He's trying to build this portfolio. So we're gonna um, let, you know, have him do it. And I, you know, I don't even know if it was the issue of money or not, but, you know, I talked to her sister and I said, man, I'm, you know, I just, I wouldn't choose my wedding day as a day to, um, you know, experiment,

[01:26] you know, and it's tough because again, like, you know, again, like people need, you know, everyone needs to start somewhere and, you know, I don't want to say that like, you can't, you know, find, um, you know, get your way, you know, started doing wedding and having not done it, you know, obviously everybody has to start somewhere. But, um, you know, I had shot news for 10 years before I had even Charlotte, you know, decided to, to start trying to go private, um, you know, back four or five years ago. And so, you know, even though I hadn't specifically shot like a wedding, I felt comfortable enough, you know, I mean I covered breaking news stories and um, you know, good stories and bad stories are, you know, up and down the west coast, you're, I felt confident enough in my skills that, you know, I'm going to be able to kind of figure this out. And I mean looking back, you know, I probably should've done a little bit more research just in terms of like kind of, you know, what I'm, you know, wedding day entail. But like, I don't know, I mean I was one of those craigslist people. But like I said, I felt like I at least had a decade of experience under my belt shooting videos even if it wasn't specifically a wedding where

[02:46] learning about the equipment and editing. Yeah.

[02:49] You know, and you know, I even talk about that now when I meet with couples that, you know, we do around 50/55 weddings a year plus our other corporate stuff. So, you know, I mean I just have a kit built either like a plumber would or like an electrician would wear. Like I just have what I need, I know exactly what I need to be able to go in, you know, to pretty much any scenario, whether it be a corporate or a wedding or a bar Mitzvah or whatever. I mean I have enough stuff that I can, you know, I've accumulated over the last, you know, five years now have, you know, I had my new stuff and then obviously now, you know, private, but like I can walk into pretty much any situation and figure it out. Um, and I mean we have had to do that, you know, I've had just this summer I had a, uh, it was a friend that was the DJ and he, they had um, you know, they were set up in the back of the area like you would like a Dj would.

[03:56] And then obviously the ceremony is going to be in the front and they had a microphone with a four foot cable built into it. That just where it's going to plug in to the, to the audio, you know, where the audio would go and you know, this is, we're talking 50 feet at least to get up to the front of this room. And I looked, you know, I've watched them set up and I said, um, how are you guys going to get that microphone up to the front of the room? And he looked at me and it's, we're talking, this is 10 minutes to ceremony. And he looks at me and said, I don't know. I don't know and know. And again, this is a friend, you know, this wasn't a professional dj. I mean it was, it was a club Dj that had, he had hired, you know, purchase some, you know, rented some equipment or whatever.

[04:49] But, you know, luckily in my bag I have, you know, 10 different adapters. I have extra cables that I use and between the adapter that I had cable and then I scrounged through his bag and found a bunch of cables. You know, we were able to run it up there, but I mean it was like five or six cables plus an adapter plus, you know, where like if I hadn't been there and if I hadn't of had, you know, my equipment, it would have been, I don't know what they would've done. I mean, I really don't. So, you know, it's just stuff like that that people don't, um, you know, think about it. And I think a lot of people think about, you know, the price. Um, and they don't think about, you know, the skills and the knowledge that goes into value. I mean, like I said, you know, shooting video before I've been updating my site.

[05:41] I'm here now, you know, we kind of slowed down here in October and uh, I just updated my, um, some numbers on my website last week in fact. And we've done 218 weddings as a company, which in five years is I think. And so that, that equates to like me having some, 2000 hours or whatever. Like on site at a wedding, you know, besides all the pre. I mean, I'm just talking like day of onsite and I mean that's a lot of experience and knowledge and being able to do stuff like that. Like to figure out the DJ or the figure out. I, I had a couple this summer, they just left a review and they were saying that they had some issue with something like, I didn't even remember, you know, they're like a radio in the review. There were like a read, you know, we had this issue with another vendor and read, you know, really kind of helped out.

[06:39] I'm like, I don't even remember like what they're talking about, but obviously like, you know, because you're just kind of in auto mode going. So you know, it's, it's, it's not just a money thing, you know, it's not just a money thing. It's not just an equipment thing. It's not just like you said, you're learning how to use the equipment. I mean, I'm not, you know, we're not going out and renting a lens from glaciers on Friday trying to use it for the first time on Saturday. Your wedding or you know, borrowing a friend's camera. That might be a Sony and we use Nikon or whatever and then trying to figure out, you know, where the buttons are and what, you know, I mean there's just no time on a wedding day to, to mess around with that sort of stuff

[07:30] and without using professional they just can't possibly have all of that.

[07:36] No. And like, you know, and, and people, you know, you get lucky and I mean um, you know, like I said, everyone's got to start somewhere, but I, I do think that that, that knowledge base is getting low or where now photographers are trying to transition in or either people that are doing whatever trying to transition in and you know, there's a lot of stuff that you don't know. I mean I still learn stuff every day and I've been doing this since 2007 or shooting video and it's like there's a lot of stuff that goes into it that people just don't know. So you know, stuff.

[08:19] Yeah. Again, there's so much that people don't see as far as training. Actually, you know, it's like if the never ending, if you want to stay with the top quality products,

[08:45] oh I mean you know, every day and there's something and you know, the trends and stuff. But like I guess I just don't think a wedding is, is a time to, you know, learn or experiment on site. You know, when we, when I back up all our stuff, you know, a corporate stuff gets backed up. Well I do online backup too. But physical backup, you know, corporate stuff goes once and weddings always go twice because um, you can't replace it. You can't replicate it, you know, like if, if the world, if something really happened and something I had shot for a corporate client, you know, if the computer broke or the, you know, some have, you know, catastrophic happen, you know, we could go back and yeah, I, you know, it would be uncomfortable to come to read Phil, you know, if we had to refilm it interview or something. But I mean you can't, you can't replace a wedding, you know, you can't go back and do that. So, you know, I always kinda think about that when it comes to like, even just the backups and stuff that I do.

[09:51] Yeah, the care that you take, I'm going to put it like this could be something that would convince them to use your services is the care that you take

[10:08] can be even,

[10:10] uh, I'm trying to think. It could be a good selling point to say even more protected than a corporate video. You

[10:21] know, you hear these, you hear these things. I last, I believe it was last year, they had um, a new, you know, an amateur videographer had shot a wedding or to weddings or something and he had the footage on this laptop, hadn't backed the or anything, and then his laptop got stolen out of the back of the car and it was supposed to be like a, a boo hoo for the photographer or the videographer, uh, you know, oh, how terrible this thing could happen. And I just remember looking at it and all the comments were people say, well, what a dummy. Why wouldn't you have that backed up somewhere? You know, why would you only have, um, you know, the only backup on the laptop in the back of your car, you know, I mean, this is these people's wedding day. I mean, I spent probably $5,000 last year and just on equipment for backup, you know, getting the new.

[11:14] I'm a tape drive that I use for long form backups and then between the hard drives and cloud storage, I mean it's probably a five or $6,000 investment, uh, just last year in terms of protecting, you know, our couples videos, you know, corporate too. But everything, you know, events. Um, you know, I just shot an event, uh, it was these charity fundraiser, uh, like a rock'n'roll these kids playing in the band thing. Well you can't, even though you can't replicate, you can't replicate alive experience, you know, with a concert that they filmed for this airplane, for this fundraiser, you know, and so mean you have to look about the same two or yeah, they could have found somebody on craigslist or whatever that could have come and filmed and you know, probably maybe could have done a better job than I could do, but I don't know if they would take the care and the skill to, to kind of see that from start to finish and make sure all the necessary backups and everything you know have been done and all the footage, just security.

[12:17] I'm on the board and the Planning Committee for the International Festival and we have three stages going all the time with entertainment and, and just by the nature of it, it's so colorful and vibrant through the whole festival. And it's capturing that. Sometimes we get photographers that are kind of, or if they're not a professional, the realty, Keith out not wanting to share what. Oh. And yeah, it can be really tricky.

[12:58] But even like, um, you know, even just like getting the footage back or getting the photos, you know, when you have like these amateurs, like I just, I do. Um, I was talking to a guy the other day out of the Portland about a different project and he's a videographer. He down there and he was saying, Oh, you know, well how do you, what do you do for your music? Uh, because he said, my, you know, I keep doing these videos with the music and I keep youtube, keeps pulling them down or vimeo keeps pulling them down. And he said, what do you do? And I said, oh, well what, what music, you know, licensing software, do you know, what website do you use to license your music? And he said, oh, I don't know. He's a newer guy. He goes, well, I don't know, I just, I don't do that.

[13:42] I just tell them, pick whatever they want. And I said, well, you know, I said, you always have to pay. I mean, you know, you can find sites for five bucks or 50 bucks, but you know, you gotta pay for that. We'll see if you're a client is his and you're getting these videos, you know, he's given you the youtube link to share and then it gets taken down will then, you know, your friends are sitting there and trying to watch it on facebook or wherever you've emailed it. And they're like, what, you know, what, what's going on. It's not here, you know, and like how do you distribute that? I mean I pay for software and websites and stuff to distribute my videos all the time where if I shoot your thing I can upload it and give you a million different ways to do it. Well, I've had buddies that worked in news that, you know, know what to do with video blog if they were to do a project on the side. They don't have the means to do that, you know, they don't have the ability to distribute that like I would because I do it every day. I mean that's just not something, you know, most people don't store and share, you know, hundreds of gigabytes of video every day, you know. Whereas we just do that, you know?

[14:54] So

[14:57] yeah, for the distribution, so it ends up where it's supposed to be a stays there.

[15:02] Yeah. And otherwise, yeah, they're sitting there like, well how, you know, why can't get this or you know, or how do people just don't know because when I started, you know, you shoot this video and then you're like, how the hell do I get this to the client? Or how do I start? I mean, you just don't know. And the, I don't really wouldn't want my wedding video. I had been doing corporate stuff for six months, you know, private before I even started, you know, doing wedding and so at least I kind of had that infrastructure, you know, plugged in and ready to go. But like when I, when I shot my first corporate thing, you know, it was this event for a, for a client. I didn't know how to get him the video to review it and how to figure out what he wanted done with it. And how did you changes and all that. I mean that's the stuff, you know,

[15:53] oh I know. And how to tell people to, you know, you have to make sure your watermark is on there too.

[16:03] And

[16:04] they just like, I've done $900 watermarks for one wedding because the photographer, if that was how I was going to get some pictures, that's what I had to do. And I was more than happy to give credit because of one of those pictures.

[16:18] Yeah.

[16:19] And are there tools that make it pretty easy and time consuming that they just don't realize all the behind the scenes type of things that you need to get things done?

[16:33] No. No.

[16:36] So let's see. I'm going to the consultation part. How do you wish people would live in it? Be prepared when they arrive for their first consultation?

[16:47] Um, either with video people either have a lot of questions and they don't have any questions, you know, it's either something that's a big priority to them but they've thought about a lot or it's something that they've decided to do kind of last minute. So I just met with a client last week and they had a string of questions that they wanted to know because obviously video is, it's really important to them and that's something that they've thought about it budgeted and you know, they're going to meet with multiple vendors in and do the proper research and figure out, you know, personality and what meshes together. And then there's some people that, you know, for better or worse, just look at it and go, I need to have a video, I need to find somebody that's wrap you the ball. I have a lot of reviews. So they see that and then they, they don't really have too many questions at all, which, you know, I always with your videos

[17:40] and I went onto your site, looks really good.

[17:45] So, you know. But I mean we, I feel like at this point, you know, have an established reputation where people generally don't have too many questions. I think I do a pretty good job of filling out our website with the appropriate information and, and you know, Faq videos and kind of all that so that people know. But, um, you know, I, I would rather have obviously somebody that's got a ton of questions, but, you know, I, I tell people, I tell my clients that everybody plans their wedding differently and whether it's email or phone or in person or skype or kind of however they want to do it. Um, you know, I, everybody plans her wedding differently so I kind of allow that and some people have lots of questions and some don't have any and we just kinda try to make sure everybody's educated. Then I take it on my end, you know, if they don't have questions to make sure.

[18:42] Yeah. The most difficult ones it seems like for anything that's on the creative side or making a decision that's hard for them and you just have to roll with the punches and it can be kind of funny sometimes

[19:05] 10

[19:06] you don't think they're listening to. You find out that we're after all the entries, size, here's fucking read it. And so it sounds like you really helped him out a lot on your website and so by the time they meet with you for the second consultation, it's probably more undefined details.

[19:42] Yeah. I mean, I want people to be either really educated. I mean, I want them to find the right vendor for them and whether it's me or somebody else, you know, I had a client this summer that I don't think probably did the proper background research in terms of the videos that we produce a, even though we, you know, we communicated a lot and talked a lot about a lot of different things and I don't think that they, you know, I want people to watch the videos that we do because when you get them, I want you to be excited and I want you to be happy. And, you know, I don't know if she was unhappy, but I, it was not what she was expecting. And I is, I purposely build our portfolio so people know what to expect. Uh, I think that with some videographers in some companies, there's a little more artistic freedom that goes into it, which I think is great, but I think that sometimes in if you're a client you might not know what your video is going to look like.

[20:52] And that might be really exciting for some people because, oh wow, I'm going to get this really cool bunch of different special effects and stuff going on and I'm going to be really surprised and some people really want to know what they're going to get. And I want people to know like you would if you're ordering a wedding photo album, I want people to know what they're going to expect with our videos. And like with this client, I don't think that she had had looked enough or I don't know where that lack is because like I said, we have hundreds of videos on the site that I think do a really good job of showcasing what, you know, your video is going to look and feel and sound like. And um, you know, laying thing content.

[21:38] No, I'll let you want to match personalities. Everything that personality style and budget, that's how we choose your vendors. Like a photographer. I, you know, I'll tell the client it's just a target for, doesn't it make you feel like you or you don't catch yourself smiling a lot. You played on how the right one. Exactly. Yeah. Or they expect miracles in pictures and you know, they don't know how long editing takes and where does videography. I don't know. Can you edit out the still?

[22:31] No, you know, and that is something that we, you know, that's something that their clients, I think for the most part are pretty hip to nowadays. Um, you know, we can't photoshop like UK on photos. So, you know, I always talk with photographer photographers. I, I, you know, I think they have a harder job sometimes because you could go back and Emo, smooth out wrinkles or get rid of, you know, uh, spots on a dress or a suit or if there's a makeup smear, if there's something that's crooked or, or, or, uh, no assignments there that you didn't want to be there. A light switch or the is going weird or whatever. And you just can't do that with video. We just don't have the same capabilities. Uh, and so I do think that, you know, kind of what you see is what you get more or less.

[23:23] But that also again, requires us to have a lot more, um, knowledge day off to kind of keep an eye out for those things. And so like, you know, if you're somebody that is new to video or new the weddings and you're messing with your camera, you're not paying attention to all those other things. That may be someone that's done it a lot more, is more, you know, he's going to have a keener eye looking at, uh, you know, I noticed a lot more things because I do know what I'm doing. And so, you know, in terms of the video taking, you can go on a little bit of an autopilot and that allows you then to pay way more attention to actually what is going on around you. You know,

[24:07] two or three times, two or three different shots.

[24:13] You gotta get it. Man, you know, when I worked in, when I worked in TV, uh, they would say, um, you know, because we would shoot, we'd go out and shoot stories and you'd have to edit them together and you'd have to make a deadline and they'd say, you know, it can be the best package in the world, but if it doesn't make your deadline, you know, it doesn't, doesn't count and if, if it could be the best shot in the world, but if you didn't get it or if he didn't hit record in time or if you missed it, it doesn't count. It's the same with video, you know, you can't, I'd rather have a nice clean shot of her first kiss, then trying to do some crazy sweeping thing through the crowd and then you miss it and then you don't have it, you know,

[24:59] and most challenging shots. And if people interfere with them or the cake cutting and things like that, people don't really tell lighting can from all these other families can really mess up a great picture. And even, well, I always do unplugged weddings if I can, as far as officiating. If you like best to ask for that because it affects the sound and it makes the noise of the cameras louder and it's just, I don't know if people have to. I do a lot of, I have one section that's called a somewhat stern letting a warm theme or message to wedding guests. Part of that is because in two years or three years and I had two weddings where vendors were attacked and I just thought, I don't know if I get paid enough to watch who's coming back through the door, we'll forget. And uh, you know, I took precautions by having a person that everybody would probably know so that if anybody did try to cause problems, there was someone with calming personality to tone him down or talk some sense into them that, that didn't work during a ceremony when someone got up and yield and just at a photographer into the wall and it was crazy.

[26:37] And um, yeah, when you have to don't know, people just don't realize all the things that are going on behind the scenes. And usually what we prevent.

[26:56] And what's the video too? It's very real and uh, I know we did a wedding and my husband, that tissues, this was long time ago after this wedding, he said, forget it, I'm not going to do anymore. And I really hated that because that would usually give me really good leads for planning even though I would promote the planning. It made it so that people would get their officiant and then as her going through the process of planning, they're going, oh man, I think we need help. And so I kind of lost a little momentum during the time that they were complaining about. They always said we had a sound system. We didn't want to use it.

[27:48] It was like a back patio type of wedding and they made assumptions about our system not working. Then the video wasn't any good, but what really happened is that with the video got the offer for plugged into it. My husband went out and we warned them. We told them. And then so they also saying that we ruined the video, but we did ruin the video. The video came out. Those were the early days. Now we don't say if you have a dj with your own sound equipment. Okay. That sounds good. If there's more than 20 people. No, no, no. You have to get tough skin when you're in this industry to do. How many consultations do you think they have with you or the average wedding?

[28:59] If I meet with our clients, we usually just meet once, uh, everything else is usually on the phone or email. Like I said, I have, um, I have a pretty good system in terms of educating and then appropriate questionnaires and forms that I need filled out that generally give me the knowledge that I need for day of. So anything outside of that is just reassuring the client that they have extra questions or concerns or things that they need, but most everything that I need, um, I have built into our system.

[29:35] [inaudible]

[29:36] yeah. I believe in questionnaires for my wedding and in the book I included my consultation for. And it's all about getting them to set priorities and to think about how they want to remember the ceremony, how the guests. Do you remember the ceremony? And same thing with the reception and just you choose, I give them like 20 choices of vendor categories and I'll say, okay, this room you get to choose five broad, you get to choose five, now I want you to come together and choose three because that makes them focus on what is important to them and it just remembering the day you have good memories,

[30:25] they'd better get a videographer and I mean who doesn't like watching those videos and they don't think about the generations to follow. Little Kids do love watching that and reflect with wedding dress. It's more likely to be the five year old girl that's going to want to wear the wedding grass, not the one that when she gets older and wants to get married, you know, you just skipped two generations before anybody else wants to do it. But enough Dahlia and the connections that you get with seeing things and hearing things and you don't get that with any other elements except for video and get some live there. I like to get them to think about how they want to remember things. It's fear. Do any of them. I have a section here like, oh yeah, the pricing fight. How do you respond when people try to get you to lower your prices or do they or have you educated them enough for?

[31:58] Um, I've never, I think we're pretty competitively priced. I think a lot of feedback is people that know the value. We'll say that we provide a good value of people that know the, you know, the proper pricing and I think um, you know, we get requests for like off season discount sometimes. Um, and usually I just say that, you know, we work as hard in February as we do in July at your wedding.

[32:34] Yeah.

[32:37] Yeah. So I mean it's, it's, I guess, I

[32:40] mean obviously people are going to have different ideas about what's affordable, but I think people that had done the research, uh, that are within our price range generally feel like we offer a good value for that.

[32:54] Okay. That's good. You know, argue the price. Yeah. A lot of that. It's just, you know, helping them wearing what the value is to. Oh, what would you say is your biggest problem before completing the tests?

[33:22] Okay.

[33:24] I shouldn't have eaten lunch. Retired knowing Yes for completing your task before the landing, like the things that you wait on that you really wish they would just get that last bit of information or make the final decision or you know, talk to me.

[33:43] Yeah, I mean, given the questionnaires back sometimes, um, you know, people get busy, uh, you know, planning and the mean as someone that's been married, you know, I understand that. And so I always try to send out the final questionnaire, you know, six weeks out because I think that that is close enough to your wedding that you have a pretty good idea of what your wedding day is gonna look like minus a few changes, but it's, it's far enough out that you still have time to complete it because I, you know, someone that's sending out stuff a week or two before people just don't have time. And so I think six weeks is a good balance. I still think um, you know, I still get some that don't get completed, you know, up until the week or two before. But people, people seem to get it, you know, if you're, if you're willing to spend the money to have a videographer, I think people know that they want to provide me the information so that I can do my job. Because otherwise, what's the point of hiring someone you know, like if you're going to have a photographer or if you're going to have a photo booth or whatever, you know you're going to take the time and energy, that book, that pay for it. You're going to do what you need to do to make sure that that vendor has the information that they need. Hopefully.

[35:11] Yeah.

[35:15] When I plan weddings, it's. I have everything done like a month out, usually perception of engineers. Something left to do that and then that way the whole month is just as far as planning, the only thing that's left is headcounts and getting the RSVP and and so they have so many people coming in or if they do some diy things that are going to realize that they don't have as much time as they fought. Then with need, and I guess you just have to get enough to where they'll go with the flow, but warning of what might happen so that it's not on you when they try to blame you for different things. Um, I know that like this, is that as far as the scheduling, how far in advance should they book your services? But we, we know that always think of us right now is that.

[36:33] Yeah, I mean we're generally six months in, last out. I would prefer if it was, you know, nine months to a year, but that's just the way it is. You know, most people either booked or videographer, you know, one, two, three or four or else they wait to see if they have any leftover, you know, funds at the end or if their parents are going to come in or someone's going to give him a gift and help them pay for it. So, um, you know, it would be nice to think that we were both at the same time as a photographer, but I understand that that's not always the case. So

[37:11] yeah, and it's so important short that videographer and photographer to be able to communicate well in advance of the wedding. Did you have to kind of know who you're working with and if it's going to be a team effort after her stay out of each other's shot from all that? Yeah,

[37:35] I reach out to every photographer that we work with prior to the wedding, which I know is not a standard just because of the photographers that I talk to, but I do make it a point to reach out and touch base at of time because I think that it's important

[37:52] and that's the way that you'll get more referrals from photographers to. Well, hopefully. Are you reaching out? Yeah, and also the planner, the planner. Everybody's reaching out to everybody crazy. Yeah. It's hard to sell. Well, planning not as hard for a and day out is something that some planners just won't go. It's what most people are requested to do and the reason for that is because we, when we can select quality vendors were and then worked with their work and health outbreak. We know the wedding's going to be so much smoother that if we know somebody who has a relative, because pictures, I don't care if they have their own photo studio that doesn't make them a wedding photographer at all. And Oh man, I had some weddings where it was just perfect one vendor at it, you know, everything I predicted came true unfortunately that, oh, you can do this this morning. Okay. Um, what other things would you like potential clients to know? What you get an appreciation for what you do?

[39:28] I said, you know, when we started the conversation, I do think that it's built a lot around regret and I think that people hear that and they think, oh, you know, you may hear that people did. That's the number one regret. And people hear that and they think, well, that's not going to be me. Uh, I'm not going to have that regret. And um, I would say 60, 70 percent of the time they will. And whether it's a smaller group grant or a big regret, uh, people do have regret. I talked to to wedding vendors that had been married for 10, 15 years and they say, yeah, you know, one of the only regrets I have is not having the videographer or that we didn't hire, you know, spend the money to get one and that we, you know, we decided not to or whatever.

[40:17] Um, you know, and it might not be tomorrow or it might not be the day after your wedding. Uh, it might be when you have kids and you want to show them or it might be when you have a grandparent that's no longer with us or it might be that, you know, um, something happened to your wedding pictures or something happened to something else. Then you don't have that memory anymore. I mean, it does happen and I know that not only from talking with people, but from doing the research and doing this long enough that you will have that regret. Uh, most people well. And so it, like I always say, you know, whether it's me or somebody else, I do think it's tremendously important to have a video. I think that people, if you talk to people and they say, Oh, you know, my friend got a video when she never watches it.

[41:07] She doesn't, she, you know, they never watched her video most of the time it's because that's not a good video and you cannot base, you can't base. Uh Oh well my friend ever wants is there a video so I'm not going to get one. Well, how have you seen their video? Watch their video and see if it's a good video and they watch it and then say, maybe that's not for you. But a lot of the time it's, it's not a good video and that's why they don't watch it. Well that makes sense. If I'm only going to spend 500 bucks or whatever and then it's not any good, I probably wouldn't watch it either. But I, I just, I hear that a lot of, oh well, you know, my older sister, they never watched their video. Well it's probably because it's not any good and that's sad, but that is what happens. And I, and I know that from talking to people and doing the research

[42:00] almost, what is the new wedding pictures out. It's a nice one and every now and then I'll look at it or people will want to look at being in the wedding industry. I have never felt like it tasted as good as mine. And I go, what do you see that cake? And I only found two and since 2007 when I started the business, I've only found two kicks in that whole time that tasted as good as mine. And it was the person that made the governor's cake down in Oregon. So I guess that was probably why.

[42:46] Well, and you know, you just don't know. I mean like my neighbor, their wedding pictures, we uh, we were talking about something and he is retired. And my wife said, man, I'd really like to see either Craig's wedding photos and stuff. And I mean, who would have thought? I'm sure he never would have thought, oh, I'm going to be living here and these kids are going to move in next door and he's going to be a wedding videographer. And that they're going to be watching this, you just can't foresee 40, 50 years down the line of, you know, your father was envy. I mean, it's not just videos, photos too, but I mean, you just can't, you do still know where anything's going to go, where you might need that or not and you know, or you might be interested in or they're not. And so when you have the opportunity to do it and you don't, it's sad because you can never, like I said, you can never replace that.

[43:40] So it is just, it is regret. But you don't know today if you're going to have, you know, five kids 20 years from now and they're all gonna want to see it or you know, that you're going to have, your mom's going to get sick and you're going to want to see the video again or you know, you just can't. You can't foresee down the line. And it's more than just, you know, the wedding day. It's the collection of the people that are there. And it's a lot of, uh, you know, we had a bride this summer that her father was terminally ill at the wedding. Nobody knew, not even the planner knew just the photographer and I did and she had said, you know, it's really important to us that you capture as much as you can, you know, unposed shots and video of him with his friends and stuff because we don't know, you know, he's, it's terminal, you know, we don't know if it's six months or whatever, but he's not going to be with us and you know, I mean, and that's a very short term benefit I guess, of having the video.

[44:42] But, you know, most people don't know that they aren't, you know, they don't know, oh, in six months, my dad's not going to be here, so we're going to need to get that video. Normally it's 10, 20 years down the line and then you go, man. And would've been really nice to have that and I'll have it, you know,

[44:58] I might add a little something that you are providing future comfort.

[45:04] Yeah. Of everything, of everybody, of everybody at the wedding. It could be, it could be your foe. We had our, our friend, we have a bride three years ago that girl and her husband both caused the bootcamp the Garner, so then we did their wedding this summer and we were able to incorporate that stuff. How we never knew three years ago. I mean I had met this girl, the first bride randomly online through various circumstances. We ended up giving her a discount to do her wedding just because it worked out that way and then come to find that now, you know, three, four years later, you know, they have a kid, we know their family and now her friends getting married and we shot their wedding. We're able to put their stuff into their video. I mean, you just, you never know. We would never have known that five years ago did this will all be the way it is, and so you just can't. You can't tell the future like that. You know, you never know where people are going to end up, where, who's going to come in and out of your life or who you're going to want to have memories of. You know.

[46:12] So many times they'll say, oh, I didn't know that happened. Exactly.

[46:17] It's half the day that you don't, you know, especially when you don't do a first look or your separately. I mean it's half the day that you don't see, you know, you don't see what your husband or wife or you know is doing. Um, for half the day, you know, until you guys get together. I mean, the one that we just delivered last weekend, they did their first look at the ceremony at I think 5:00 and then, you know, we are with him together for another four hours during the reception. But we were there for eight hours. So that's half the day that we were separate and they didn't see each other.

[46:53] So it's just really. Yeah, getting that point across in the future, you're not going to be thinking the same way as today. No, you're not. And, and even some of the things that they think are so cool for their wedding, you have to remind them that, oh, well, you know, looking at your parents or grandparents in pictures and all that, what are the ones you really look at as the ones that are still photos, nobody jumping in the air and all that. And he could be thinking, well, Gosh, you know, he can't even tell who's jumping in.

[47:45] It's really kind of funny to have been realized to that in the future. They're going to, their kids are going to make it look really dorky and there's no getting around that. I know it looks at our wedding pictures like, oh my God, would we ever. That y'all are like, oh, how did this happen? Then? Yeah. So then again, you know, you see things that remind you of different things and it's nice to be able to have that overdose pretty good since they're just kind doing this obstacle explained in a, can you please explain their costs and money from them trying to attempt this on their own? Well, you might save them money in the fact that they won't be wasting it and not getting a product perhaps. Whereas you will get that to them.

[48:55] Yeah, I mean, I said I'm probably half a dozen times over the last four years. Had to edit a video from a client, from a another company that the client either never got the video or how to threaten legal action to get the video back. Uh, there was a company in town here a years ago that was a husband and wife team and they ended up splitting and they lost a lot of people to this day. There's still people that are in the lurch about that. And um,

[49:28] the one client I had last year, she had spent $6,000 with them. So I mean, this wasn't a, this wasn't, you know, she told me, she said, you know, this isn't like I found somebody on craigslist and now I'm upset because it didn't work out. She said, you know, I, I spent $6,000 on this video and I don't have it. And the only thing that we had was a DVD that the company had burned up the raw footage. So not only was it just the raw footage, but then it was, you know, this poor DVD quality. I had to, you know, rip the video off the DVD and put it together of um, you know, kind of the remnants of their day. Uh, on another story, we had another client this year that she had gotten a photographer that had offered to do their video. I had never done a wedding video before.

[50:23] And so he had given them a highlight video with some music stuff on it. And for whatever reason, uh, she wanted more, she wanted like, parts of their ceremony and parts of their, you know, their wedding toasts and all that kind of put together. So. And she had wanted to work with him. So she said, hey, can you, can I hire you? I have all the footage on a hard drive. Can you go through. And I'm just kind of pull out part of the barn vows and things. Just so you know, my dad gave a nice speech at the wedding, can, can we just kind of figured out how to get those things off. So I took the hard drive and I opened it up and he had shot it like a photographer woods, so there's a couple of seconds and back a couple of seconds on the side, a couple of seconds on the other side, you know, a shot of the bridesmaid watching the shot of the whatever and there's nothing that's more than 30 seconds long of the toasts, the vows there, you know, any of that stuff. It's all like, you know, like you would do in photos, you know, you can stand in the back and you'd get a couple wide shots and then you would move on with not giving any thought to

[51:37] we're going to need this content continuously if she's giving them. If the bride's giving her vows, we're going to need to record this from start to finish. You know, we shoot our ceremonies with two cameras. I mean, you could do two or three or four or five, whatever, but you need to have at a minimum one camera rolling the whole time because you need to have continuous coverage of whatever it is, whether it's a speech or the vows or the officiant or whatever. And this guy, you know, just have one camera. And so I emailed her and I said, you know, you're really not going to be happy about this, but I said, this is. I'm like, I explained, you know, there's, there's five seconds here, there's five seconds there and, you know, I said, I know that that's not what you were expecting. And I said, I'm really sorry and I'm going to look and see. Because I emailed her, I emailed her on September 10th and she still has it figured out, you know, got back to me to figure out when to pick up your hard drive because I think at this point it's, it's pretty worthless to her the rest of the footage that they have, knowing that it's none of those things. I mean it's been,

[52:47] you know, because I told her, I said, yeah, so you know, I mean to them it's basically worthless now. You know what I mean? They have their, their montage with their music and stuff put into it, but they don't have any of that other stuff that they wanted.

[53:04] Yeah, a lot of things. You can people that are.

[53:15] Oh,

[53:18] you think that the regrets either way, whether it's a bad service or not doing it at all that. Yeah, the nonprofessional. Oh boy. Yeah. It's like anything you have, they think that they get a camera there or photographer drove everything drone and it's just not that way. Some, it's a lot of learning and most people. Well and then another thing too is that if we happen to do things that look like they're fun.

[54:04] Okay,

[54:05] got another call coming in, but that's okay.

[54:08] Oh, we can wrap.

[54:10] Yeah. Well yeah. Do you think that because we. But what we do looks like fun that it shouldn't cost too much or you know, they don't see the time that goes into editing or for me, they don't recognize how much work for me, months, long days, 16 hours on your feet for the wedding. It's really a big educational process and I just hope that this book will give people a glimpse as to what goes into everything that vendors do. And the next time they hear something on tv that put this all into the bus will not take the word producer for that. I'm trying to think. Is there anything that you wish vendors knew about what you do?

[55:17] Um,

[55:25] or how could they help you? Um,

[55:32] we pride ourselves on being pretty adaptable. Uh, I do think,

[55:38] um,

[55:40] the, the one, uh, honestly, and this is totally off the, the side, but um, when it comes to reception stuff, whether it's the first dance or toast or whatever, I cannot stand when the catering staff is serving the cake or cleaning dishes when those things are going on because generally what happens is, you know, most timelines, a couple of cup of cake and then go on to do their first dance. And then that opens a dance floor. Well, what happens is once they cut the cake, generally that cake is put in a position of prominence in the reception, right? Because you want it to be spotlighted. People have a look at it and at the same time the couple is dancing generally somewhere in a prominent, you know, location. And most of the time that's, it's near the cake. The cake's behind them as often the side.

[56:39] So then what you get during this first dance or usually it's like they'll wait for the first dance, but then there'll be like the mother son dance or the father daughter. You get this string of waitstaff going back and forth. And back and forth and back and forth trying to serve this cake while this like super meaningful three or four minutes, you know, dance is going on and generally it's only like two minutes a piece, you know, most couples nowadays, they'll, they'll cut down the song and they'll only do like a father, a mother son dance for like two minutes or whatever. And more times than not I'm sitting there film in and I see, you know, the, the caterers or the wait staff or with whatever cutting the cake and the kick finishing dishes, trying to clear things off. And it's like, just wait for that to be the.

[57:28] And this, the same thing with, uh, with toast. I'll see people doing toes, no go up and they'll start clearing plates in front of the bride and groom. And I understand that like, you're probably trying to do that. You think for like, you know, it'd be picturesque or kind of cleaning it up. Like, you know, if we're going to a video of the bride and groom listening to their toast, we probably don't have their food in the shot anyway. It's probably just looking at them and when you're coming up and like walking around and behind and doing those things, like there's so much time at the reception that's not debt, like nobody's paying attention, but you can easily do those things like where we filmed the toes, we set up the camera, frame the shot, and then we get out of the way because we don't want.

[58:13] We want the focus being on the person giving the toast and on the bride and groom are room group or Brian and Brian or whatever and you know when you have like the staff going through like doing these things and I know they're just trying to do their job, but just wait 10 minutes. It's going to be fun. There's nobody's going to care if there's a couple empty champagne glasses on the table while people are doing this and I do know this that a lot. And especially the cake thing, the key thing is a big, you know, people. I just wish that the vendors have the staffing. People would be more aware also like getting the room together in time to get photos and video. I was at a hotel a couple of weeks ago and Nice Hotel and yeah, you want to get some shots of the room empty with the decorations before the guests come in.

[59:09] And I, you know, we, we have a point of contact person and I said, um Oh, can I just needed a second? And he goes, well, he was kind of irritated. He's like, well, how you know, how long you need, we need to get people in here. And I said, the, the, the cake person, that setting that bid desserts is literally still wheeling their cart out of the room. So the room hasn't been set up for more than 30 seconds. Right. I mean we're still, we're not even out of the room from setting the room up. So like maybe we could get just five minutes to do this.

[59:48] Yeah. Yeah. We are not. Photographers actually tell us not to. Do you think that they wanted a certain shot? But we knew that the time crunch are so bad that we couldn't allow it. Like of the people need chairs sit in the. Yeah. Oh No, I think I'm going to keep that in mind to timeline.

[01:00:20] I mean, you know, and it's not, um, it's not a lot on the planner. It's genuinely, it's the incident venue, but that one a couple of weeks ago. I mean they literally, they haven't even cleared the room. Yeah. And it's like when are we going to get this done? And I go, man, they were setting up desserts until 30 seconds ago. I mean, how are we supposed to get, you know, they're paying a lot of money to get this. And I mean I only need literally about 30 seconds just to get one or two wide shots or a pan of the room or whatever. And like, yeah,

[01:00:54] the close up of the centerpieces or something?

[01:00:57] and if, and if I don't get that or if the photographer doesn't get that, then that never exists because the bride and groom for the most part will have never seen now certain, you know, certain people will, they'll set up like a first look for the bride and groom to kind of see the reception space. But nine out of 10 weddings we do the pricing group. Never see that ever because by the time they come in and it's the grand entrance, everybody sat down. Everything's a mess. There's codes everywhere, you know, everything's moves around. So again, if we don't get that or if the photographer doesn't get that, then that doesn't exist ever. They'll never get it. Yeah. But do you think that like you never like, that never exists then? Like if they don't see that, if that's not captured, that doesn't exist and people just don't think about that.

I was recently interviewed by Peggy Studivant about being a sponsor for the 2020 Seattle Wedding Show.

*Please forgive any spelling or typographical errors.

00:48 What would you like people to know?

01:27 Um, well, so cause I was, I was kind of talking to my wife about this too, because I knew that this phone call is come in and kind of trying to figure out, you know, the spin and whenever. And I don't know, I think, um, the biggest thing for me about, you know, kind of being the sponsor and [inaudible] always kind of when I tried to do in terms of, you know, the podcast and kind of everything is, um, just kind of the level of service and care. And I think, you know, anybody that's, you know, taking the time, all the sponsors and I mean anybody really in the wedding show, but, uh, you know, where you're taking that time and energy and, you know, especially money, um, you know, I think that you're, you're trying to guarantee a certain level of service. And I think, um, I've found kind of this year talking with, um, couples and stuff and, um, you know, uh, I give people trying to save money and whatever, but valuing, you know, $100 less here or there versus, um, you know, just kind of the dedication that I think a lot of the people that like do the wedding shows and stuff or just, you know, vendors in general.

02:37 But we had the, um, the other day we were talking to someone online and she had posted the budget and I said, Oh, you know, happy having to chat with you about kind of with, you know, whatever you need and you know, we've shot there and perform whenever. And she said, uh, well I looked at your side and you're a $100 over with, I'm going to spend, so I'm, I don't even want to talk to you on the further. And I was like, I said, cause you know, I said, I saw your budget when you posted it. You know, I'm happy to, you know, I mean $100 off of a thing if it means trying to figure out something for you. And you know, some people, I don't know if it's a, if it's a young person thing, if it's just a money tightening thing, but that I would say, you know, the level of service if we all try to provide is important to me.

03:30 Somebody was saying I was setting her up and then the guy found out that he said, well, I actually don't want to meet anybody who makes less than $60,000 a year. So right there you figure I don't actually want to meet that guy is already pre decided, you know, we got this thing. So what kinds of things do people ask you? And you've probably got a better, you know, as a sponsor, you get a better location. We thought, am I right? Do you notice a difference or,

04:08 uh, I mean, we always get a lot of traffic there. I mean, videography is, um, it's not a new thing, but it's something that people aren't always sure if you want or not. Um, I always tell people, we kind of live in the, we're a regret focus industry where a lot of times it's people that, that regret not having it or they're getting it because they know somebody that regretted not getting it. Um,

04:37 we're,

04:38 my wife's, uh, my wife's friend's getting married on Saturday and that's why we're leaving this afternoon. And, um, and I had offered to give them a wedding video as a, as a discount, as part of a wedding gift. And, you know, they're kind of help cover some of the expenses of us going. And she said, Nah, you know, Scott, you know, my fiance, he doesn't really want that she wanted it, but she said, well, Scott, you know, he just doesn't know if he wants to really house a with it. And I think that, I guess to your original question of kind of, you know, whether we want people to know, um, I try to always say we always want videography. There'd be, um, to not subtract anything from your day. The only kind of, we want to be in addition to capturing memories, uh, whether that's memories of like, you know, you guys and you know, the bride and groom or the bride and bride or whatever, um, or, but you know, even just family members and friends and stuff that are there.

05:34 Uh, and so we never want it like, oh well it's going to be a hassle we're going to be with, it's like, you know, nothing that you're going to have to do, uh, having a photographer there, you're going to have, you're not going to have to do anything else would have in videography there. And so that's what we always try to like let people know is like, we're just like an extra set of hands to kind of help with stuff. We're just kind of an extra set couple sets of eyes to help, you know, capture and, and remember everything. Cause I do think that it's a common thing. I'm like, well, we just don't want to hassle with that. And it's not, it doesn't need to be. And it shouldn't be. And I would say, you know, it's not just us, but I would say most of the videographers, I know that, you know, I would consider a higher level, you know, we don't want to get in the way or in truth, we only want to help kind of capture that.

06:25 And I saw like how a wedding could be disrupted when they went off to do like photographs and like there's this stupid delay between the ceremony and the reception. So I never would have even thought of videography as anything that kind of capturing all of the, you know, just being a kind of an invisible by versus

06:45 controlling the week aquifers. Yeah.

06:48 And especially, you know, the way that, the way that we capture, you know, we are much more documentary. I mean obviously there's, there's a lot more cinematic ones and, and you know, everyone has a different style, but when people talk to us, I always try to emphasize that of like, you know, we will get all of that stuff that you're not seeing. And I don't know if I said like the story, I always tell my buddy got married two years ago and we did his wedding and the second we got done and like he's signing the marriage certificate and he's like, read. Like I, I literally don't remember what just happened at all. I was like, I said, don't worry man. I said, we got, we have everything. You know, you never have to worry about remembering that because I do think that, you know, you're spending all this money and you know, I this stuff that I hear in that people, well, you know, we're not going to do a video because we, you know, we want to get more expensive chairs or you know, we got to get this extra, you know, play the appetizer.

07:48 You know, when you're spending all that time and money, um, to not try to capture it in some way. Like that is, you know, it's hard.

08:00 We agree. We don't remember what a shame. So like it's been on some of the things that you're, you're not even going to remember later so

08:18 Yeah. Well, and even, you know, even just like, and I know that, um, you know, the other, you know, people talking about like, well, you know why you didn't, and you know, it's like, it's the day, but it's like, but you know, when you, when you get a good video, uh, it's more than just like that, you know, it's, it's kind of the story of your relationship. Right. And you have, you though your vowels and stuff or like our other friends got married and like he wrote the song for her and we captured that. And so then you have, you know, not only their wedding day but then this song that had never been, he had only played it once before when he and that he played with that, their wedding reception and like, that exists, you know, because we were there to capture it. And so, you know, it's more than just like that day that it's, it's, you know, capturing that and also kind of like the way you feel that day. So, you know, maybe five years from now when you don't feel maybe the same every day towards your partner, you know, if you, if you get in a fight or something, it's nice to be able to remember how you felt when you were the most in love with someone. Yeah.

09:27 Oh yeah. Then I looked back and I count the speaker guide since they were at my wedding. And there's a magic sometimes and being able to go back and see people who are part of your life or able to be there, especially if they aren't a lot, you know, they aren't around anymore.

09:41 Oh yeah. And you don't want to be morbid at all, but the only times that you get all those people together is that your wedding or at your funeral? I mean, I have all the, and not to be, we don't try to focus too much on the morbid stuff, but, um, you know, we have a bride this summer and she's every, you know, my dad is terminal and nobody knows except you and our photographer and not even in our or knows. And we want to make sure that we get, you know, as much kind of candid stuff as we can because we don't know how long he's going to be with us. And we did. And you know, we got great shots of everybody dance scene and we made sure to kind of include, you know, extended scenes of all that because you, they don't know how long, you know that, that he's going to be around for. So

10:27 even with people, he just, unexpected things happen and kids grow up. It's also fun to see, you know, how young people,

10:35 oh yeah.

10:36 Get some stuff.

10:40 Oh, absolutely.

10:43 No. Is there anything that's um, you know, you see you're coming up for next year, a good friend or you know, evolved that you think you might be promoting or, um, and we're promoting, I think it almost a year ahead. Okay.

11:00 Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing for me I think is

11:05 okay.

11:06 Um, you know, I always focus on a lot of the kind of backend stuff that people don't think about. Um, you know, preserving that stuff, making sure we have, you know, backups and backups. You the, I spend thousands of dollars every year, um, you know, countless hours. Kind of making sure that we,

11:27 I realized, you know, especially when I went to the wedding show this year, that the magazine, the guy that they get, you know, they don't get it beforehand. It's really a huge thing, you know, for the take home. Yeah. And I hadn't, it was, it was really helpful to see how that was being used. So is there something, you know, there's questions that people ask when there is there, um, do you get people asking follow up questions? Is there anything that you can think of that, you know, would be the next thing they would have asked or that there's going to really jump out for them when they go home after, you know, being exhausted and seeing all the vendors and then they read the, you know, through the magazine that we hope it would really cut that you'd want that message to be.

12:09 Um, I think people are nervous. I think people, when it comes to the geography, like I said, that, you know, they didn't want it. They don't want to be hassled, you know, they, oh, I feel uncomfortable in front of that or I don't, I don't want to have to deal with that or I don't know if we need that. And like I said, you know, everything that we do is to help the couple, even the questionnaires and I have for like our booking, you know, kind of the, you know, what we need the information stuff. Like it's all designed to like help give you a better picture of the day. And I mean, I've even had that were couples that God like, you know, doing these questionnaires like that helped us like with others.

12:50 Yeah.

12:53 You know, and so like I said, just, you know, going with somebody, um, you know, prioritizing, you know, obviously the personality of the people that you want to work with. Um, obviously pri prioritizing, you know, the style, you know, of, everybody offers a different styles. So making sure that, you know, and not everybody is right for everybody. You know, I mean you might find a photographer that you love and you don't necessarily like their work or you might find somebody who's worth you love and you don't love their personality, you know? And so really, you know, obviously money is a huge factor, but not having that be the, the, the soul, you know, fat and like our pricing this and even that, you know, we're really tried to be really like accommodating to people. And so then even when you find out that that still is like the major factor and you're like, man, I'm not even, you know, we're not even, you know, it's not like 10 grand for wedding video. You know, we really try to make it be pretty, um, cause we want people, whether it's me or whoever, you know, I want everybody to have the wedding video. My wife said, you know, I think that they're going to regret it. You know, I think they're going to regret not having that. And that's a shame. So

14:15 backup.

14:17 Yeah. Yeah. So we keep, so I am a whole page on my website about it. So, but so I keep everything on to all, all our weddings after there other that are kept on two sets of hard drives in my fireproof safe. Um, but besides that, so like three years ago, I guess I invested in a, um, a tape backup system. It's called Lto. Uh, it's a, it's a long term, uh, tape storage bag. I don't know of any other videographer that has it in the area. Um, normally where, uh, we're a hard drive is rated. You know, you might have a hard drive that's you've had for 20 years and it still works, but hard drives as your manufactured are guaranteed anywhere from one to three years. That's what does, it doesn't matter if he's not okay.

15:13 My husband just linking out. Huh? Like it's the new hard drive every other

15:16 Yay. Yeah. Oh, exactly. So these tapes are kids. They're not movie plot, you know, it's a tape. Uh, they have a 30 year lifespan on them at least. And so after every wedding is done, I have two sets of those. I keep a set here at the house and I keep a set, uh, at the bank and um, you know, so that's to ensure that, and then obviously I, I give all our couples, they have six months to get everything downloaded it and whatever. And then if they, for whatever reason, you know, two years from now, five years from now, they need to get it again. We'll charge a retrieval fee just to kind of offset the cost of me doing that. But, um, I really, uh, you know, I have the conversation when we, when my wife Kinda found out how much all this stuff costs and I said all that we have, all that I have is my work.

16:08 And if, if everything's digital, it's really easy to go away. And you don't know how many times I've had. Oh, hey, can you send over that thing again? Or do you have that? And like, you know, most of the time I have everything still on my fingertips are somewhere in the cloud service or whatever. But all that raw video, I have all the raw video from our very first wedding back in 2013 still. So, you know, it's, uh, I think it's important. I know that not everybody does that and I think that obviously it's kind of over the top, but, um, it's stuff like that that I think, you know, people well yeah, it's not necessarily, you know, that specific service, but it's the fact that like, I care enough to do that I think will also speak to, you know, my care for other things.

16:58 Right. And I think that, you know, even just like the way that I like follow up with clients every week, you know, if they're inquiring or you know, sending, like I, I send our, um, couples a happy anniversary every, you know, every day if there's like today we had our anniversary from four years ago, a couple, you know, I email, you know, stuff like that. Um, I think is, I wish more people appreciate it. And um, you know, where that speaks said did other things that you're going to do, you know, for them versus someone that will do it for 500 bucks up craigslist or whatever. So

17:35 yeah. Yeah. People just don't always know how many, what's your staffing right now?

17:41 Uh, so we booked a two teams right now. Um, I book a priority, uh, and the couples will always know they're who they're working with. Um, you know, we'll set up meetings and then I have another team with a guy named Matt and he's been with me for three years. And, uh, if, if couples are working with him, the wall, we'll all sit down and talk cause you know, it's not like a kind of bait and switch kind of the thing. Uh, and then, yeah. So then each of us always comes with two videographers. We have two videographers with all of our packages. And um, yeah, I just think it's easier that way that we can focus on, on you guys. And then if a couple wants to do a, obviously like we offer drone, drone is like the huge thing now. Everyone wants that and all I'll bring that in.

18:30 I bring in a third party for that. Um, just uh, at the, at the cost. I, you know, I just pay them off that and that's so that we can focus on the couple. Um, I know a lot of guys nowadays try to get up there. Do you have the video? Do the drown, tried to do it, you know, do a bunch of stuff and I think it's, we want to be focused on the couple, on the bride, on the group. You know, what, what do they need? Whether it's your family need, you know, we really want to focus on that. Uh, and then we'll just bring in that other service.

19:02 Well thanks again! You're always the first one to respond to an email and did it again this year. I will never doubt your responsiveness.