Story, story, story!
It’s my mantra. Years ago, taking video files and coupling them with cool music was all I felt I needed to do. I was NEVER happy with my final product because it always lacked… story.
As a fan of classic film, I started to realize that my favorite films weren’t the ones with the cool special effects, the best looking actors, or the most ground breaking action sequences… it was the ones that told a simple and clear story.

So I changed the way I did wedding films. And I love when I can artfully and skillfully arrange the scenes in such a way that you can be locked in to the couple and forget you are watching a video of people you don’t know.

This brings us to raw footage.
In short, you don’t want it. And, you won’t miss it.
The moments of your day are important. Just not EVERY moment. The minutia of your day isn’t important, until, that is, they are used to tell your story.

Sometimes we get a client asking if we provide raw footage, so I want to explain why that isn’t something that we offer, and why that’s… okay.

Raw footage: It ain’t what you think it means.

What I offer in some of my packages or as an add-on is what we call a “Documentary Edit”. A 20-30 minute ‘glimpse’ of things that happen as you go through your wedding day; usually in a moment-by-moment sequence.
We offer these for pre-ceremony (Which would include all the first-look), ceremony (Which would include all the vows and basically the entire ceremony), and reception (which includes the full first dances, full toasts, and LOTS of dancing!)

But, “Raw Footage” is not a “Documentary Edit”.
Firstly, video footage doesn’t come all neatly spliced together like that.  It’s just a big, ugly list of files with weird names like this:

Until they are imported into an editing program and put together, it’s kind of a drag to try and watch them.  Furthermore, since I work with multiple cameras, those files may not even be in order of when the events occurred.

Also, video footage doesn’t look that fantastic right out of the camera. Our cameras have many settings. Some look amazing right out of the camera, but if you want to tweak it or make it prettier in the edit, there isn’t much details to work with. We shoot in a very “flat” setting which allows us to pull out an insane amount of beautiful detail when we end up editing it. Sometimes I can spend an hour on one scene just making the colors pop out and make the day look prettier than you dreamed it was!

Here’s an example below. The first is how video looks straight out of our cameras:

Almost black and white, huh?

Then, after some fine tuning…

Raw footage is not why you hire JBV Films

JBV Films is all about the story.  We’re about carefully knitting the moments from your day together until your heart swells. Sure, you might get emotional watching that cell phone video one of your friends took of your first dance; that’s a special moment that when viewed alone is emotional.  But brides hire me to craft all those little “moments” together to encapsulate the whole day, and all the emotions of that day to create your STORY. Some examples of little moments could be seeing that small photo of your grandmother on your bouquet, watching your mother put on the pearl necklace that SHE wore on HER wedding day around your neck. Or that look your dad gives you before putting your hand into the hand of your groom.

So while all those happy moments ARE there in all those raw video footage files, you probably don’t want to watch 6 hours of flat-colored video, some out of focus, some shaky, just to experience those earth moving moments.

Why you won’t miss having all those RAW video files.

“Story” is why we spend so much time doing legwork BEFORE your wedding day.  You won’t miss all the comings and goings of make up artists, funny things said that day, who brought the food during prep time, seeing the cake get its final touches put on and so on because we spend quite a bit of time before your wedding day finding out what IS important to you.  I take time to learn “Your Story” and what you and your fiance find important to your story. After all, your wedding day is the outcome of your story. If your wedding film isn’t going to have a story, then you are just going to want a montage of video footage set to music. That’s easy, and quite frankly, a bit lazy on a videographer’s part.  Once you’ve booked with JBV Films, I send out a questionnaire, and start the “getting to know you” process.  I meet with you, talk with you, and go over the details and plans for the day, covering any concerns. This is all to ensure that even before the wedding day, we have a pretty good idea of what those special moment are going to be, and how the best way to capture them will be to tell that “Story”.

So here is a final example of what video footage looks like before and after I do the color edits.
No, it isn’t as easy as pushing a button and the screen wipes away the flat colors and replaces it with beautiful shades (I wish).

Before and after edit from JBV Films on Vimeo.