It does indeed seem to be catching on. It really is magical to see a wedding on Super 8.
My parents never had a Super 8 camera or a wedding film/ video in 1979... or so I thought until a couple of years ago I discovered that a cousin of mine in France was a Super 8 user in the 1970s and 80s.
Yes... you've guessed it, she had some wedding footage on Super 8! It was the first time I'd ever seen footage of my parents from before I was born as well as family friends and relatives, some long since dead. It was like a window into the past. Movies like this become more special as time passes. Fantastic stuff!
My grandfather was a prolific std 8mm shooter and he shot my parents wedding. He and another relative had two cameras, and three films between them so some shots are covered from two angles such as the couple driving off to their honeymoon after the reception.
Interestingly there's also evidence that a third person had an 8mm camera there...but nobody seems to know who he is!
I filmed my cousin's wedding on super 8 in 1988...the only time I've done such a thing. She divorced a decade later, but I am told it was nothing to do with my film.
The government says that by 2010 30% of us will be fat....I am merely a trendsetter
jusetan wrote:Mattias, did she fall in love with you before you had the moustache or after?
i didn't have one when we met but iirc i had one when we moved in together. she thought i looked like a polish poet. maybe i should grow one for the wedding. it would probably look cool on super 8. :-)
Angus wrote:I filmed my cousin's wedding on super 8 in 1988...the only time I've done such a thing. She divorced a decade later, but I am told it was nothing to do with my film.
mattias wrote:me too. august 12, this year, in leksand, sweden. i was actually thinking of shooting it myself, well maybe not for the actual ceremony but that's only like 30 seconds which i'm sure my dad can handle. ;-)
btw do you live in brighton now? i'm thinking of coming there for a couple of days in june. i guess there's no surf in the summer (?) but it's been ten years and i miss the town. i'll be in luton for the filmstock festival and i think it's the same train all the way down, very convenient.
/matt
Welcome to the club! If you're in Brighton give me a shout. Im down there every so often visiting friends.
For my outdoor wedding last year I passed around a Bauer C2A (and used it a bit myself) instead of those stupid disposable cameras. My short brief to each shooter (who I shot for the first few frames of their reel) was to NOT move the zoom or the focus, pretend it's a still camera but that you need 5 - 20 seconds of exposure for each trigger pull, and don't go MTV with the pans. It came out pretty darn good, except for the one guest of an invitee who dismissed my instruction since he "went to film school". I kid you not, his was the one totally worthless roll of film, completely out of focus, shaky, total garbage!
Of course, I also had an HDV camera on hand, too, so all of the bases were covered.
(And sound is definitely overrated for wedding videos, which are mostly white noise....shoot silent instead.)
I had a friend shoot my wedding video. It turned out horrible. I have 3 DV tapes (3 hours) of footage that is just so irritating to watch it makes your skin crawl. I found myself yelling at the screen "Why did you shoot that?" "Your missing this shot" "Pan just a little more to the left...a little more...pleeeese!" Plus the building was to dark and turned the color video to mud.
Maybe I can just desaturate all the footage to black & white, blast the contrast and call it "artsy" :evil:
I filmed 2 carts of K40 for my sister in law's wedding. I'm biased but those 6 minutes of film say more about that day, the atmosphere and the feel of that day than the X hours of DV the other filmers covered.
I had a Nizo pro and canon 310XL for the low light takes. I had to use that little Canon camera a big part of the ceremony. And you can hear it clearly on the DV recordings.. But the footage is sweet..
Make sure you get someone to film the wedding on S8, you will enjoy it for the rest of your life.
Congrats Jamie and Matthias, for jumping into the "deep end"
The very first super 8 I did was back in 1977 for my cousin with a Sankyo ES XL40 and K40...20 minutes long and it was all edited in Camera. I remember I had to film at 9fps inside the church because it was very dark, came out just right and luckily no one was moving. It was memorable, and my cousin was very happy...I have to get it transfered to dvd when he finds the film.
After that I did many video weddings for friends and relatives, which wasn't memorable, video tape is cheap there seems to be "total" coverage of every single detail and far too long and boring to watch.
I remember a colleague who works at a local TV station, at his banquet one of the guests showed up with an Arriflex SR!
Wish I had my wedding captured on film and not video...
Congrats. guys - I got married last year and had a couple of friends I "acquired" from the Cinematography.com website come up from Southampton and film it in 16mm and DV.
I'm still editing it - rather embarassingly.
We shot 1800 ft. of Fuji Eterna 500T. I chose the Eterna rather than selecting some slower emulsions for the outdoor shots, because I didn't want them to be making decisions about filmstock choice in the heat of the moment and miss an important shot.
So we used some ND for the exterior shots and then, in the evening when there was dancing etc and light was very poor we pulled off filters and pretty much just left the lens wide open at F2.2 (Angenieux 12-120)
The results were excellent, although we useed a couple of redheads in the main room of the venue pointing at the ceiling for a litle extra light.
Matt
Birmingham UK. http://www.wells-photography.co.uk
Avatar: Kenneth Moore (left) with producers (centre) discussing forthcoming film to be financed by my grandfather (right) C.1962
ccortez wrote:unless you want to hear about it for the rest of your married life, i recommend not shooting it yourself.
you're probably right, but my fiancee is a filmmaker too....
Yikes! I can only imagine the arguments to come at your dinner table. ;)
My wife and I are both photographers but we hired a fellow photog to shoot our wedding. Came out nice. The best reception photos I've seen are when you have punch bowls filled with the little disposable 35mm cameras so guests can take pictures at their whim. Less posed, more spontaneous and much greater volume to choose from. I highly recommend it.
Congrats, dude. Marriage is a wonderful institution.....if you're ready for an institution.
