Video for friends
Every time I finish a job and give the video to my clients, whether it be for a party, or a wedding, or anything else, I am always nervous. My job is done, I created a great video as far as I am concerned, but I always seem to hold my breath until I get the phone call or the e-mail thanking me for the great job. No matter how well I think I did, I don’t believe it until the person who the video is for tells me that it is a great video.
Am I always nervous? do I always hod my breath? I would say yes. But the times that I am even more on edge is when I do a video for somebody I know. Most clients I don’t hear from for months or years until they need another video, but my friends I see all the time. Recently I recorded the wedding of a friend of mine. The pressure was on.
It was a two camera setup for the ceremony, I was going to know a good amount of people there, and this was the first time I was bringing my fiance Joy on as a second camera. First off I had to balance the time I spent talking with friends and doing my job. I never like the idea of my voice on video, especially if it’s for someone else. The good part about knowing the people was that they weren’t shy with the camera. In fact, a lot of them enjoyed having it around. In the end, I had fun with friends, and kept the video professional.
Next was making sure that Joy did a good job. Most of her experience with the video camera was from video taping some of my old bands gigs. That’s ok though because in those videos I could tell she had the good sense of what to keep in frame. All I needed to do was a crash course in the rule of thirds, pan and zoom techniques, and we were ready. After reviewing the video, she did a great job! I’ve seen media students that aren’t as good as her. I can’t wait to see how she does after a couple of weddings. The best part about her doing the second camera? I don’t have to pay her (by her own choice).
How did the video turn out? Well, I had some audio sync issues which I cleaned up in my editor. Aside from that, it looked like a great video. Then it was the moment of truth. My friend stopped by on Friday to picked up the DVDs (which I had for two weeks waiting for him). On Saturday, I was working on an audio job when my cell phone rang with his name on the caller ID. I picked up to hear his wife say "Hi Z" (that’s my nickname). I took a deep breath as I new this was going to be the moment of truth. The result, they loved it. They cried while watching it. This made me feel great. Another job well done. The only thing left is for me to give them the un edited video. I usually give all of the videos at once, but when you are dealing with friends, you have a little more cushion on the time table.