Miray & Sam

I booked Miray and Sam about a year and a half ago so I’ve really been anticipating this wedding.  The video crew today was Me, Prashanna and we brought Claude along with us for the first time.  Photo was done by Paul; a photographer from Montreal (which is where Miray lives).

The video portion of this amazing event started back in early June with an engagement shoot in Belfountain, Caledon, Forks of the Credit and the Badlands.  The footage that was shot there was edited and ready for the presentation that we were doing at the reception.  This video was accompanied by a SDE (Same Day Edit) that was also played for Miray, Sam and all of the 380 guests later in the evening.

We started with an early morning production meeting because we wanted to give Claude a final rundown of the day, and then we headed out.  Prashanna and Claude left for Sam’s, and I went to Miray’s.  After about 2 hours of shooting at the  bride and groom’s places, we went to the church.  3 video cameras and 2 photographers must have had Miray and Sam feeling like they were going to be on the 6:00 news, but it didn’t phase them at all.  They were stellar!

From the church, we headed to the “park”, which ended up being the Mississauga Civic Center because of the rain storm.  Well, rain or no rain we had a great time at the Civic Center and got a bunch of really cool footage.  The bridal party was really good to work with and they looked phenomenal!  I was shooting very strategically all day for the SDE and as soon as we were done at the Civic Center, I rushed off with Prashanna to the hall so that we could prepare for it.  Prashanna is one of my most trusted and able videographers.  When he said to me, “Joe, you worry about the SDE and I’ll take care of everything else.”, I knew that I had nothing to worry about at all…so I got to the editing.

The time came for the presentation and we set it up.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a pretty large group of family and friends filling up the dance floor and sitting cross-legged to watch the video.  We started with the engagement video and ended with the SDE.  It was a hit! And it was pulled off with the help of my amazing team!

Thanks Miray and Sam for letting us be with you guys on your special day.  Thanks to my team for your awesome work!

Julianna and Kris

Last weekend’s wedding came on the coattails of a trip to Edmonton to shoot a music video, so beleive me when I tell you that I was a bit tired.  Thankfully I was car pooling with my partner-in-crime from Frame of Mind Photography, Anthony.  Sean was also with us shooting candids as usual.  So we met at the studio bright and early and headed off to Kris’s house.

The guys were in great spirits and so easy to shoot.  Lots of family showed up which made for some great candid video along with some of the cool stuff that we set up.  Kris’s mom and Dad were right into it as well; Kris’s Dad having a pocket full of pictures from Kris’s youth, narrating a pseudo-slideshow to the camera as he flipped through some pics of his boy turned man, and Kris’s mom setting up the ribbon to be cut by her son as he walked through the doorway for the final time as a single man.  The bride’s house was a familiar sight to me as I shot Julianna’s sister Michelle’s wedding not even a year ago.  I was welcomed back by Julianna, her parents, siblings and some bridal party members.  As per form and fashion, Julianna looked amazing as did the front lawn that was absolutely covered with a whole spectrum’s worth of coloured rose pedals.

We moved through the church portion of the day relatively quickly and then we headed to the Don Valley Brick Works for pictures.  We’ve been known to pull of some really cool photo and video in the most unexpected venues.  This place was pretty industrial and had some really cool buildings.  After about an hour and a half we decided that we had all the footage that we needed and left for the reception hall.

I was pleased to see that we’d be working with Anthony from DJ Emporium again (amazing DJ and great guy).  Right away I knew that we were in for a smooth sailing night.  Julianna and Kris had a martini bar set up in the middle of the dance floor with an ice fountain in the center.  On the two ends of the dance floor were the Antipasto tables…good stuff.  As the night rolled smoothly along we saw the bride and groom dance with their parents and each other, we ran our Same Day Slide show, ate 5 courses of great food and wound it all up with a packed dance floor, great music and a midnight seafood table that tasted just as good as it looked.

Julianna and Kris, thanks for sharing this day with all of us!  Hope to see you guys again for your next family wedding!  Cheers.

Amy & Anthony

Today started off at 7:45am with the team meeting at the studio so that we could all head off to our first location of the day; Anthony’s house.  Now, we had worked with both Anthony and Amy, having done their engagement shoot in Unionville in the fall of 2008 so I knew they’d be great to be with for the day and easy to work with as well.

When we got there, Anthony was getting ready with the rest of the guys, so naturally we did our thing.  The grooms men and family were really easy to work with and seemed to be game for anything that we had in mind.  We were able to get a ton of awesome footage and pictures in the time that we were there, and it kind of set the pace for the rest of the day.  When we got to the hotel that Amy was at with the bridal party we didn’t want to waste any time, so we scouted the place out before going upstairs to see her.  In doing this we found some really unique shots that we wanted to do (and we did them), so we headed upstairs to begin.  The brides maids were getting ready with hair and makeup and Amy (who looked amazing), was ready for us to start our coverage of the day.

The church went as smoothly as every.  The groom was fitted with a wireless mic so that my video camera picked up all of the speaking, my HD spy cam was set up so that we could get a really cool perspective of the rings, vows, kiss etc, and of course I manned the main video camera. Frame of Mind ran the photo side of things and I also had Eric shooting 2nd camera with his Canon XHA1S.  Total coverage!!!

We went to U of T for the park photos, which started off with a friendly game of basket ball.  The bridal party vs. the guys that were playing when we got there.  Needless to say, the guys (bball players) were a bit better dressed for the game.  We continued through U of T for about 1.5 hrs and we shot a lot of great video and photo, then we headed back to the bus to go to the reception.

On the way to the reception the weather changed.  Actually, it was almost like we were in a tornado by the time we were in the thick of it, and I saw many felled hydro lines, fences were torn out of the ground and the rain was coming down with such force that it sounded like small stones hitting the car.  Oh well, we were done outside!

The reception was at Le Jardin.  As always, the hall was amazing.  Anthony and Amy had a large screen projector presentation of the engagement video that we shot, but we decided to do a same day slide show as a surprise to them.  We got it put together and boy were the bride and groom excited when it started playing.  They were able to show the guests that didn’t attend earlier what had happened.  It was very impactful.

At the end of the night we wished Amy and Anthony all the best and thanked them for allowing us to work with them for the day.  Have a great honeymoon!

Nelson & Marlene

Nelson and Marlene were an amazing couple to work with. We did the engagement shoot and wedding for them and it turned out to be a great day. Here are some of the edits from thier wedding project.

This is footage shot and edited in 2007 for Marlene and Nelson’s wedding. This is footage of Marlene getting ready before the ceremony.

more about “The Bride’s House – Marlene and Nelso…“, posted with vodpod

This is footage of the park photo/ video session. We were at the Mississauga Civic Center. Shot with Sony FX-1 and edited with FCP and Motion.

more about “The Park – Marlene and Nelson on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod