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Tips for finding a great videographer

Almost every day there’s some brand new “videographer” out there advertising. With camcorder prices dropping, there are multitudes of people who will gladly take your money and deliver an inferior product. With just a little investigation, you can save hundreds and get a great video...
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Great video is more than just “video”

Uncle Lenny has a camcorder, and he’s just offered to tape your event for $50. It might sound like a great deal on the surface, but before you let him set up his tripod, there are some important questions to ask...
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GREAT VIDEO IS MORE THAN JUST "VIDEO"

Great reasons to hire a professional

This is a true story. Some names and details have been changed to protect the innocent (or guilty, depending on your perspective).

My wife and I were at a coffee shop, meeting with Lynette about her upcoming wedding. She had seen our demo, looked into our services, an she absolutely loved what we had to offer. There was just one problem - she didn't want to pay anything remotely close to our regular rates. We offered some options to her, such as our affordable payment plan, but she had her mind made up: There was no way she would spend over $1000 on her video, especially as she put it, when Uncle Lenny offered to record her wedding for $50.

We politely explained reasons why we felt skipping a professional videographer would be a mistake, but Lynette's mind was made up. Uncle Lenny was going to do her video and save her piles of cash.

About four weeks after her wedding, Lynette gave me a call, asking for help. Apparently her uncle Lenny had let her down, in a major way. He was smart enough to use two cameras, but he couldn't figure out how to work his free editing program. After about a month of trying, he gave up and delivered her "video" to her (which by the way was also her wedding present!). The "video" was two miniDV tapes, completely unedited, with labels written in pen stating "Wedding video by Uncle Lenny!"Especially sad was the fact that Lynette didn't even own a camcorder that could play those tapes! She had paid $50, didn't get a wedding gift, and now she couldn't even watch the unedited raw tapes!

She asked me if I could take Lenny's videos and edit them into a watchable program for her, and I agreed. She brought over the tapes and we reviewed them. The video quality was poor, and the audio was terrible. To make a watchable DVD, I told her the least it would take me was nine hours of work, and at that I started on the job.

In the end, my labor costs came to about $975 to fix Uncle Lenny's mess. Between that, what she paid Lenny in the first place, and not getting a gift from Lenny, she wound up spending more money than if she had just gone with us in the first place, and her final product wasn't nearly as good.

Now you're planning for your wedding. Uncle Lenny has a camcorder, and he’s just offered to tape your event for $50 (and in lieu of a wedding present). It might sound like a great deal on the surface, but before you let him set up his tripod, you might want to stop and consider what goes into making a great video. You might be surprised to find that there's a lot more to it than you think. Here are a few reasons why it's smart to go pro:

1. Multiple Cameras
I will admit, Lenny's two cameras were better than most people. More often than not, amateurs will show up with one camera, and expect that to be enough. It's not, and the result is a terrible looking video

2. Camera Quality
Consumer grade camcorders (the ones you can buy at any big box store) have terrible quality compared to professional grade equipment. Pro cameras are designed to produce pictures uncle Lenny couldn't dream about.

3. Shot Composition
When my wife and I got married, one of her relatives brought a camcorder to record the event. Some years later, we got the video, and it was almost amusing. Half the time the camera was aimed at the floor. The other half of the time, the shots were zoomed so far out you couldn't see us, or were trained more on the flower girl (her daughter) than on us.

4. Audio Quality
On the same video from my wife's relative, we constantly heard her talking to her husband, commenting on the wedding, etc. Because she only had her camera mic, the audio was only picking up the sounds near her - our voices weren't even audible! Pros have multiple mics, and can get the important audio, not family members chatting.

5. Pros aren't "there for the party"
When a family member or friend does your wedding video, they're also attending as a guest. The result is that many times, instead of getting the best shots, they're out being a guest. By hiring a pro, your guests can just be a guest, and leave the technical stuff to experts.

6. Pros know how to edit
Poor Lenny had edited a couple home movies with his copy of Windows Movie Maker, but he soon realized that editing wedding videos is incredibly complex work. Without professional grade editing software, it's virtually impossible to sync multiple cameras, draw from several audio sources, and pull it into one package. It takes years of experience to build the ability to put together a great wedding video. Most relatives just don't have that skill.

7. Pros will save you time, hassle, headaches, and cash
In the end, many brides wind up paying just as much to have their family-shot terrible video edited into something remotely watchable as they would have paid by just hiring the pro in the first place. And then, the video is still nowhere as neat as it could have been.

In conclusion, while you CAN have family members shoot your event, be prepared for a product that won't look as good, where you might not always be in the shot, and where the audio will be marginal at best. Also be ready to pay to have it edited in the event that your family member realizes they're in over their head, and hand you a couple tapes you can't even play.

Or you could just hire a pro, and avoid all the headache.