I really enjoy working with Jennifer Horsely from Habitat Floral & Event Design. She does great work! I admire her collaborative spirit and her desire to listen to her clients needs and provide top notch service. Some of the best wedding videos I’ve ever produced have been ones that were coordinated by a professional. I highly recommend getting your event planned professionally. It takes the stress and worry out of the day and allows the bride and groom the time to really enjoy things and soak it all up.

This is a little promo video I put together for her company. Share it if you like!

Jeff and Linda got married at the Chirf Joseph Ranch, right outside of Darby Montana. There is so much Lewis and Clark history in this area that I decided to create a parchment paper looking opening segment for their wedding video. Every image, except the paper are video stills, was taken from their actual wedding video. I imported them into Photoshop and created a very long file that I animated as a scrolling effect in Final Cut Pro. I was very pleased with this effect.

This post goes out to all those brides getting married in Montana! Cinematic Wedding Videography is here to stay! If you have not considered having your wedding professionally video taped or are sitting on the fence, please take the time to view our demo. NCP offers more than your average wedding video. We produce artistic and romantic wedding films that capture the beauty and romance like nothing else.

This demo is a mix of different shots edited to gether to give a sense of the style and scope of our wedding video productions. These clips were shot in widescreen High Definition.

Aaron and Katie Buckalew were able to capture some video as they made their interstate trek. Their trip started in Oregon and ended at their wedding destination which was the Springhill Pavillion located in Bozeman, Montana. I used this footage to make a little pre wedding video that plays at the beginning of their wedding video.

I just love the look and feel of old Super 8 film! It’s so nostalgic, warm and colorful. Aaron did not have a Super 8 film camera, but he did use a regular mini DV type cam to capture the footage. It was fun to mimic the look and feel of film digitally- adding color bursts, projector noise, film grain, and other nifty effects. Enjoy!

This is a mini documentary about their wedding day. I recorded some pre wedding audio interviews to use as a voice over for the piece. We got some quick interviews with some of the key family and friends on the wedding day. The video was shot at the Daly Mansion in Hamilton, Montana. The weather was perfect and the bride and groom were really great to work with. I really love the story about the ring bearer. Towards the end of the video you will see how is presence at the wedding was very meaningful and profound to everyone at the wedding.

Life happens so fast! Great Photographers and Videographers know that it takes planning to ensure a successful shot is captured. You don’t have to be a pro to get a good shot though. It’s often simply about being at the right place at the right time with camera in hand. To be consistent at this does takes practice. Here are some simple tips to ensure you are ready when “the moment” is right. If acronyms are your thing, always think of MACK. 

Memory

Availability

Charge it

Know it

Memory- Keep an extra tape/memory card next to the camera. Make sure your memory card or tape (in the camera) has extra room left on it. 

I know this sounds like a no brainer, but how often has this happened to you? Have you ever faced the delemma of having to delete pictures just to make room on your memory card? Have you ever had to fumble around to find a card or tape only to find that you lost the shot? It’s easy “remember the memory! “

Availability- Keep your camera within easy reach at all times.

I can’t stress this enough. From my own personal experience, if I have to work too hard to find my camera, or dig to extract it from a case or bag, often, the instant is gone. I suggest keeping your still camera and/or video camera on a mantel or on a shelf high enough to keep away from the kids, but within your reach. “Out of site, out of mind” is true in this case. If you leave your camera visible and ready for action, it takes mere seconds to run, grab the camera, turn it on, and take your shot. When your one year old is ready to walk, you’ll be ready with camera in hand!

Charge it- Always keep an extra charged battery available. 

For video cameras, I suggest having at least three batteries available and fully charged. The larger the better because video cameras suck up energy quickly. Camera flashes drain the charge more rapidly as well. 

Know it- Know your camera like the back of your hand.

If you are familiar with your camera then you will be able to confidently take pictures quickly and with better results. I know, manuals are boring! If technical reading is not your thing, there are plenty of online tutorials, user groups and blogs to help you know with your gear. Many sites offer free information, tips and tricks, and training DVDs to purchase. Google your camera’s name and model number and see what you find.

It’s often the little details that can determine weather a successful shot is taken. The question isn’t weather interesting things are going on around you. It’s are you available to capture it?

The creative process is about taking different ideas, concepts, influences, etc. and combining them together to come up with something that is your own. I am constantly viewing the work of other professionals, meeting and chatting online, looking at art in books and galleries, and downloading demos and attending video expos. I do this to gain insight into new trends in art, photography, design, and videography.

I thought I’d share with you a list of some of these artists who have had a significant impact on my work. These individuals have excelled in their craft and posses certain attributes that I find fascinating as well as informative. They have helped me to see and think about my world in new and exciting ways. Please take a look at some of what they do. You might find yourself being inspired as I have been.

Ron Dawson Cinematic Studios 

 Randy Stubbs Silver Star Enterprises

Bluecore Media

David Williams DVideography

As a professional Videographer I understand the importance of accurately documenting life’s events. It’s not always about “the now.” so much as it’s about “the when.” I am always forward thinking to the second, third or fourth generations who will have an opportunity to look back and actually see and experience life as it was. Digital video will play an enormous roll in all of this. It already has.

So what is the moral of the story? Don’t let the opportunity pass you by. The resources are readily available to you. The future generations will benefit greatly from your extra time invested in capturing your memories. Take pictures and video and write things down. Scrapbook, make photo montages, video edits, etc. Be your own family’s historian. Interview your subjects and get them to be involved. The memory making process should be fun! Keep in mind that video is like a window back in time. You are giving your future audience the best representation of time is it is now. This is very important.

If you are getting married hire a professional Videographer! Understand that video is really the only way to document both site and sound. It is affordable and extremely valuable as time goes on. Preserve all of your photographs by scanning them into a high res digital format. Transfer your videos to DVD and back them up. It only takes a few simple steps that will reap huge benefits in the future. Take care of your memories lest you loose them or even worse, your legacy gets forgotten.

My mother’s scrap book serves as a poignant reminder that time moves at the blink of an eye. I want my life to be remembered, not because I think I’m so amazing, but because I believe a life worth living is a life worth remembering. I want to leave behind a positive legacy that adds to the world when I’m gone. I don’t want to be remembered as some interesting old guy in an antique scrap book. I want to be the great, great, great grand dad that everyone knows!

We now live in the digital age. Advancements in Photography, Videography, and audio recording have paved the way for our family histories to be preserved and shared for all generations like never before. Digital storage is inexpensive and readily available. You can email it, post it, copy it, watch it and hear it in many different formats on a myriad of different media devices. Future generations will greatly thank the inventors of this age in regards to digital acquisition and archiving of historical events. It is astounding when you think about the quick leap from film to digital in just the last 10 years.

I believe video to be the most powerful of all digital mediums for several reasons:

1.Video communicates effectively because it combines both site and sound.
2. Video is very affordable and accessible to the masses. Cameras are getting smaller, cheaper, and better in quality every year.
3. Video is able to be shot, edited, archived, duplicated, shared and displayed in many ways and in many different formats. (TV, web, ipod, v-phone, tape, DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, etc) It’s everywhere.
4.The video you shoot now will be transferable as technology evolves.
5. Advancements in HD video allow for more accuracy in color, contrast, and detail providing a more realistic viewing experience. 

The important thing is that I, the viewer, can come to a better understanding of a person if I can actually hear them talk, observe their mannerisms, and see how they moved about in their world. I can view their expressions and feel their emotions. Video’s representation of movement, light, color, and sound is like looking inside a window that goes back in time. The old phrase, “If photographs could talk” is no longer a question. Video provides the ultimate viewer experience and a price that is no longer cost prohibitive. 

After my mother passed away, I inherited a family photo album that had it’s beginning somewhere in the late 1800s. Within its delicate pages contain the photographs of many of the deceased relatives on my mother’s side. Some of these folks go back six generations! This family relic is an absolute treasure. It has become quite the conversational piece.

The old family album. Notice the impressed leather cover and the brass locking mechanism on the side. 

One of the original owners of this book was my great, great, aunt Maud. She actually took the time to write down the names of each person in the album – making sure the spellings were correct and the names were complete. I am so thankful she did that! Without this information I would have absolutely no idea who these people were and what their relationship is to me and to everyone else in my family. Maud lived to be 98 years old and was born in 1884. I had the pleasure of knowing her when I was a child. (I’m only 37) I have many fond memories of her at the family built, colonial house, where she lived in Pittstown, New Jersey. Walking into her house was literally like stepping back in time. My family history goes way back to pre- revolutionary times here in America. Maude is the only person from her generation that I ever really knew. Without her, these pictures may have gotten lost in the vast timeline of history with no connecting point to give them context and meaning; reduced to nothing more than interesting photos of strangers long gone.

My great, great, aunt Maud. This picture was probably taken at around 1893. I’m guessing.

Even though this family album is very informative and captivating, I can’t help but feel a gnawing sense of frustration. Why would I be frustrated? The more I study these pictures, the more questions I have that bring no immediate answers. Who really are these people? What did they have to say? What were their beliefs? How did they live? Would I see some character qualities in them as I see in myself? What were their personalities like? The questions follow one after another.

Sadly, this scrapbook, although very fascinating, is like an announcement to a theatrical show that can never be seen. The marquee is lit, but the theatre doors are closed to that period of time. Sure, I know their names. I can see what they wore and guess what they may have been like, but I’m still left wondering. There is a disconnect that runs between these generations and mine. Are the real memories of these family members going to live on? Surely their lives were worth something! In a larger sense, all of our memories are just one or two generations away from total obscurity. What are we doing to make sure the next generation understands the previous?

These are some pages from the book. Notice the old guy on the left? He is my great, great, great, grandfather, Daniel Christy Little. (Six generations ago) The other folks are basically a mystery to me.