wedding videos (part 3)

So who did we choose to capture our wedding day for all eternity?

Drum roll please...

Andy Jackson of Portal Films!



Please go there now and click on Enter Gallery to view a short clip of his work. Or if you have the time, check out his blog for a few full length pieces (20 minutes max) - but only watch them if you have the time to do so without interruption. Trust me, it's worth it!

Yes, the Stillmotion videos make me tear up and I love that they so beautifully capture the emotions of the day. But, Andy's films make me ball like a baby AND they give me chills. AND he shoots in Super 8mm. Which, by the way, fits so completely with the feel of our wedding.

I'm not sure I could really say it any better than Andy can himself:

"The films I have been creating over the course of the past few years, or at least the style I have been striving towards, is purely impressionistic. When I say that, I mean that what I capture is not necessarily literal... love is not necessarily portrayed with a couple exchanging a kiss, nervousness is not necessarily portrayed by a bride shedding tears, joy is not necessarily portrayed by smiles and shouts. Within the films I create, I do not strive to show memories that people already have; I do not serve to replace or dilute those memories. Therefore, love is more evident within a hand caressing an arm in comfort, nervousness is more evident within the fiddling with one's hair, and joy is more evident within the look the bride and groom give each other after all the cheering has passed.

So when I say 'impressionistic' it is not because I exchange images entirely with metaphorical replacements, but rather because I tend to show the in-between moments, the gentle details, and the little interactions instead of just an 'event.' My work is about experiencing a feeling rather than watching history.

Add to all of that the geometry of composition, the emotional relation to objects, and the piecing together the flow of an edit like a puzzle, and you have the reasons why I call what I do 'impressionistic art films.'"

I get giddy just thinking about Andy capturing our wedding day. If I cry and get chills by watching strangers, I can only imagine that those emotions will be one hundred times stronger for our own film. And THAT is something I can watch over and over and over again.

wedding videos (part 2)

UNTIL! Until, the wedding blogs came to the rescue once again. It was love at first sight. I was head over heals. BUT, this person was about two hours away. Nothing lost, though, by finding out pricing and travel fees. I'm telling you, this was fate. The videographer, or in this case cinematographer (read about the difference here), has a brother in Atlanta so we would only be charged for mileage, which was pretty insignificant. I was floored.

However, this was pretty early on in the wedding planning. We didn't even have a venue yet. So we sat on it. Then, come January, I decided it was time to get a move on and start making other decisions, mainly regarding the photographer and videographer. So I went to this guy's blog and read that he had moved to Vermont! I almost cried. But again, nothing lost by finding out what the new travel fees would be. They only went up by about $100. Are you kidding me?! It really was fate. Just two weeks ago I signed the paperwork and paid a deposit.

Curious yet as to who we picked? I think I'll drag it out into one more post...

wedding videos (part 1)

Before getting engaged and discovering the wonderful world of wedding blogs, I was of the mind that wedding videos were boring, sometimes cheesy, and almost never looked at again once the wedding was over. Not something I was interested in.

Then I saw this:

Laura + Josh // The All Brevis Wedding // Mexico from stillmotion on Vimeo.

And I cried! I don't even know these people and I'm crying and watching their wedding video over and over again! Wouldn't it be great to have something so touching that wasn't mind numbingly long and boring - something that we could watch on occasion to remember how special our wedding day was? Of course!

The company that did the video above is called Stillmotion. Unfortunately, they are based out of Canada. So the search began. Most other companies in our area couldn't even compare. Some weren't quite as corny as others, but they still didn't have what we were looking for. Until...

What are your thoughts on wedding videography/cinematography?