Finding a good wedding videography team can be quite tricky. With cameras becoming easier and easier to use, the industry is saturating with mediocre video creators. There’s more to videography than just pointing a camera and shooting. Where to start? Word of mouth and social media.
The best place to start is by asking your photography team. They will have the most knowledge and connections as to which videography studio is the best. When I say, ‘best’ I don’t just mean the videography studio that shoots the best video. They will recommend the most well rounded studio. One that shoots amazing video that seamlessly retells your wedding day through soundbites, time lapses, aerial videography, and most importantly unobtrusive docu-style (documentary style) images. What I’ve learned during my career, in not only the wedding industry, but as a freelance cinematographer is that I’d rather work with the 2nd or even 3rd best team if they were nice and easy to work with. I could be pair’d with the number 1 videographer in the world, but if they were a jerk and difficult to work with, I’d never want to work with them again. I talk more about this in my other blog post, Importance of a Photo/Video Team.
If you don’t have a Photographer yet then the next two options work for both! This one’s easy. Just ask people around you. Ask your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, ANYBODY! A first hand experience is the best way to feel out a studio. Not every studio is what you think. It’s not always the most glamorous job. Studios are often comprised of a handful of people, who wear many hats. For example, the lead videographer is often the director, CEO, accountant, marketer, editor, audio technician and lead videographer. Every studio runs their business differently and, unfortunately, sometimes marketing falls low on peoples list. Like our parents, teachers, role models may have said in the past, never judge a book by its cover. Just because they don’t have the sleekest website and 10K+ followers on Instagram doesn’t mean they aren’t worth considering. To be honest word of mouth is probably the best form of marketing out there. If people are taking the time to talk about and refer another studio, it might be worth checking them out.
Another option is right in front of you. You probably look at this one thousand times a day. Sometimes without even knowing it, you unlock your phone and instantly, by habit, you click on that reddish, yellow, and purple icon. Instagram. Start by searching by hashtag. Using Instagram to search for photo/video will take a little bit of time because of the amount of content. But not only will you see the different studios, you are consuming so many different styles and examples of photos & videos. You can multitask by bookmarking styles of photo/videos and save them to give to the studio you end up hiring for references. Not only are you seeing the different styles of photo and video, you are seeing everything from floral arrangements, to venues, to dresses, and everything else for inspiration.
If you have no luck with any of the above then check out some of the industry leading wedding websites. There’s, The Knot, Wedding Wire, and Style Me Pretty. Those are only a few examples, but a great place to start and some of the best in the industry.
תגובות