Monday, July 26, 2010

Wedding Videos: Creativity or Preserving Memories?

by Chris Harding
The current trend for the production of wedding DVD's seems to be heading towards the creative approach with more “film-like” images, slow motion shots of just the bride and groom set to romantic music.

This, of course, produces very pleasing asthetic results when first watched and the wedding memories are fresh in the couples mind, and provides the newly-weds with an extremely professional and visually pleasing result of their special day.

However, are we maybe losing sight of the most important reason a bride decides to have a wedding video, preserving memories ? On a recent survey of “Why would you have a video of your wedding” almost all participants said “memories”.

A wedding day is one of the most important occasions in your lifetime, that should forever be remembered in the hearts and minds. Yet with each passing day human memory drifts away and some things are not as lucid as they were the day of the event. A video will allow you to relive the magical moments of the day for many years to come.

Without video the vows you made to each other, the first dance, the speeches, and the whole wedding day can never be seen or heard again, they will only exist in your mind. Yet wedding trends and cinematic style filming that replaces priceless sounds and vision of people who are perhaps no longer with us often now means that all the wedding wishes, speeches and toasts will be forgotten forever, often along with the people that made them!

Picture yourself 10 years from now flipping through your wedding album. You find a picture of your chief bridesmaid giving her speech. You remember that it was so funny and nice, but cannot remember what she was saying. Look for the picture of your Grandfather proudly telling the guests of all your achievements, he has regretably passed on now. Wouldn’t you want to let your children see and hear what nice things he had to say about you ?

So many wedding DVD’s seem to now consist mainly of slow motion footage set to music (seemingly to show off the videographer’s camera skills) and the real emotion, human element and atmosphere are lost.

Surely by ensuring that your wedding is carefully documented rather than made into a creative work of art, you get meaningful visual memories that you will cherish for the rest of your life.

Chris Harding is the owner-operator of the video production company, Softweigh Multimedia, specializing in event video productions. He is located in Perth, Australia. The author is also an associate and Australia representative for Video StoryTellers!™ an international video services and branding program that focuses on the preservation of stories and memories. He is a guest writer for E.C. Come, E.C. Go a video marketing and production blog by Earl Chessher.

Coming soon: Another great article by Heidi Mueller focusing on Special Interest DVDs.

Remember: If you market, you will make it! © 2010 Earl Chessher

1 comment:

Motion Picz said...

Good Blog post. I agree, some things should not change with the times, and wedding videos is one of them.