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!

Polina and Taras •July 21, 2008

This weekend 4 of us went out to shoot Polina and Taras’s wedding.  Polina and Taras are a very cool Russian couple that we had the pleasure of working with this past weekend.

The day started off with me dropping Prashanna off at Harbourfront, DT Toronto, to shoot an engagement walk with Annie and Oneil, who are getting married in 2 weekends from now.  From there, I drove up the street to the Westin Harbour Castle to meet up with the Frame of Mind Photography guys and the Bride.

As usual, I was shooting the HDV format with my Sony FX1 and Prashanna was armed with his XH-A1.  Prashanna actually finished the engagement shoot and walked back to the hotel before the bride was even ready for us to start, so we ended up with alot of coverage of Polina getting ready.

We got to the church and did the detail shots inside and out and while I miked the groom.  The Frame of Mind guys shot stills of the decor and guests getting seated while we took some really nice footage using the tripod and Glidecam 4000.

As the ceremony ended, the rain started.  The plan was to go to the Guildwood in Scarborough.  If you haven’t been to the Guildwood, it is an amazing place with a lot of stone structures and very geometrical shapes to shoot with.  Almost like shooting architecture and live subjects at the same time.  The only problem is that when it rains, the whole place is wide open.  Anyways, we were on the brink of going to the Tannery Mall but the bride said that she put in  request with “the Man upstairs” and she was sure that it was going to be fine.  Well, sure enough we drove through the storm (and yes…it stormed), to the Guildwood where it hadn’t had a single drop of rain.  We had a lot of fun there, shot with 2 cameras (we had to bring the Glidecam back out for this place), and just as we said it’s time to pack up and got in the cars…the rain came.  Talk about timing.

We finished our day at Russian Nights in Thornhill.  Cool little spot that holds about 100 people.  The food was great and the entertainment was really good.  There was a cover band and these 3 Russian dancers that entertained the guests throughout the night.  With a small lighting kit we were able light the place very nicely  for speeches and some of the entertainment.  We did a Speakers Corner outside using a wireless handheld mic, which let’s us hear the person speaking extremely clearly while providing just enough ambient sound so that you know there’s a party going on (sounds natural).

The night ended at about 12:30a and we hit the road, ready to do it again next weekend.