What exactly goes on with wedding video post production?
Post production at Perry Productions is a favorite part of the process. We’ve done all the preparation, we’ve conquered the wedding day, we are in the home office and ready to relive it all and begin creating lifelong keepsake films.
We could actually back up and spend time discussing things well before the comfort of our home office that all play into setting us up for a streamlined post production process. We will not spend much time in these matters, but items worth mentioning: planning with the bride (and groom) prior to the wedding date, shooting with purpose and style in mind, having a well organized machine at home with a brand new folder waiting for new footage, and of course plenty of back up hard drives hungry for their files as well. Now, we are home cards are dumped to the machine and backed up…..
We, at Perry Pro, have a unique “revolving weddings” cycle of which we have found works well for us. We try our best to get each wedding highlight out ASAP without risking quality (we will never rush a project for sake of time). So, once all previously shot wedding highlights are complete and released we will begin on the current. Once ready to begin the current wedding film we strive to complete a quick rough draft of each of the main portions of the day – ceremony, formal dances, and toasts. We know we will come back and do quite a bit of tidying up and correcting these edits in the end, but for now – rough drafts of each will suffice..
Once we have all footage in its own respective customized project we take ALL the remaining footage and create its own project. This project will be a very tedious, time consuming, fun, work space. Watch ALL the footage, without blinking.. Often with good music playing to get a sense of some good beats and pacing of possible shots and how they may flow in a highlight film. This first sweep is important as we are pulling all the best footage and sorting EVERYTHING. The amount of sorting is the tedious portion, but in doing this properly sets us up well for the remainder of several different edits.
We now have everything sorted and the highlight magic is set to begin. It will be our job to tell a story with everything we planned and now have neatly organized on the machine. Placement of words comes first.. We LOVE words. Everything in our cinematic highlight films will revolve around the words. For that reason we start here – with our foundation to a highlight. A close second and somewhat ties right in with the words are: personality.
The personality of not only the families involved but also: the ceremony, the reception, and the wedding day as a whole. Was it country? Was it elegant? Was the reception and celebration the focus? Was the couple fun, emotional, sappy, religious, etc? Floral plays a role in the personality. The band/dj. The bridal party plays a major role shaping the day. The reception details. First dance styles. The toasts. So much plays into what the personality of a wedding day is. No two have ever been the same. We start learning this personality early in the planning stages, it comes to life during the day, and while watching and editing footage we really know our couple and family real well. We are ready to mold the edits with a style/personality that matches the families’..
We have words and now a personality/style paired with music and the remainder of our highlight editing is kind of a secret. Just kidding – but way too many details for here… Magic happens…
After the current highlight we then circle back around and complete the first shot wedding on our log (the cycle I mentioned in the beginning). Those rough draft edits are all touched up, rendered, and written to custom DVDs. We review the DVD on the big screen to see how it plays in different formats. Revise it once or twice. We really do take our time in finalizing DVDs – we know these are going to be watched for a lifetime and want to get it right. Once complete we ship our custom DVDs off to our *clients.
*With the amount of time we spend with each couple/family prior to the wedding, during the wedding, and ALL the countless hours in post production we really are closer than “clients.” It may be completely one sided – but we are pretty much good friends, almost family.