Tropical Imaging Turks & Caicos wedding portrait commercial photography video

	Wedding Video: General Information

Canon HDV video camera A video of your wedding will capture many great moments and allow you to relive the joy, see what your bridesmaids and guests saw, and share the experience with friends. Your wedding video will act like a time capsule, forever preserving the voices, sights and sounds of your cherished friends and family. While the majority of brides book a wedding video as one of their top 5 most important ‘must haves’ for their wedding day, those who didn’t have a wedding video made often claim that it is their greatest regret. We feel that both video and photographs are of equal importance.

Video format

We shoot with Sony and Canon DV (digital) 3CCD and HDV high-definition camcorders, and edit your video on Apple computer workstations. The finished product is delivered on a DVD-R disk. We use the NTSC TV format (US, Canada & Caribbean) – but most recent European DVD players and TV sets can play NTSC disks without a problem. All our wedding videos are produced in the modern 16:9 (widescreen) ratio for a cinematic “look”. High-definition coverage is available on request.

Sample video

Alternative download: Erin & Dan's wedding : MPEG-4 file (20.2MB)

One or two videographers?

For smaller weddings, one videographer may be perfectly adequate, to give you a straightforward video record of the ceremony. However, having two videographers shoot your wedding allows us to make the coverage more comprehensive and more interesting to watch, as we will be able to add multiple angles, close-ups, and reaction shots during the ceremony. It also acts as “insurance” – giving alternate coverage in case the view of the primary videographer happens to be blocked for some reason. Once recording has started it is not always practical for a single videographer to change location without disrupting the coverage. For big weddings we usually also set up a third static camera on a tripod to provide a “wide-shot” of the whole scene whenever possible.

Couple's Interview

As part of our video coverage, we like to meet with the bride and groom a day or two beore the wedding and tape a short interview with you. it's very relaxed, and is an opportunity for us to get to know you a little, and also to record your thoughts about the wedding, how you met, about each other and so on. It's totally optional, and you set the tone for what we talk about, but typically it gives us some nice "sound-bites" that add a really personal touch to your wedding video. And having your own voices on the video makes it even more valuable for your children and grandchildren in years to come as a record of your special day. We used this technique in the sample video above. It is completely optional, but we encourage our couples to set aside maybe half an hour to do this.

Video and photography by guests

We are happy for your guests to photograph or shoot video of your wedding day as events unfold. However, we would ask that they give us priority and space to work in order to effectively capture those important and unrepeatable moments on your behalf.

Video sound

Since we are usually filming outdoors, we cannot always guarantee perfect sound. For the ceremony, we will normally ask the groom to wear a small unobtrusive lapel radio microphone, and we usually have one on the minister as well. This arrangement helps to obtain a clear recording of the ceremony itself. If you plan to have other people apart from the bride, groom and minister taking part in your ceremony – for example relatives or friends giving readings, prayers or songs – please let us know so that we can plan the audio and video coverage of their contributions. The rest of the video will be set to music, or use a voice-over. If you are having reception video coverage and expect there to be speeches, please give us details ahead of time so that we can be ready and place lights or microphones accordingly.

Shooting after dark

Most weddings here in Turks and Caicos take place in the hour before sunset. This is a more comfortable time of day for everybody, and often there is a warm romantic quality to the light which looks great on the video. However, once the sun dips below the horizon it gets dark very quickly! We use cameras that are capable of shooting in very low light, but bear in mind that some footage taken after dark may be grainer and less clear than that taken in daylight.

Video lights

Depending on the location, we may be able to bring video lights to your reception or rehearsal dinner to help improve the quality of video of speeches, cake cutting, or dancing. For best results, we need to use mains-powered lights on stands. We will only turn these on while we are shooting, but bear in mind they are quite bright and will change the ambience of your reception. We can use smaller camera-mounted lights but these are a litle more intrusive and produce a harder light. Without secondary lighting however, reception video will be dark and grainy as the typical subdued lighting in a restaurant or ballroom is insufficient for clear video, even with modern cameras.

Please consider the above points carefully. We don’t want to spoil the atmosphere of your wedding day but we do want you to have good video! If you have any questions or special requests, please ask.