Heirloom Wedding Films

Meet a Wedding DJ in Chattanooga, TN: Keenan Daniels; MillionDollaMan DJPM

This week’s blog post is going to focus on one of the many amazing wedding vendors in the East Tennessee / North Georgia area; Keenan Daniels, otherwise known as The MillionDollaMan DJPM, based out of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Keenan is not only a great vendor to work with at a wedding, but I consider him a good friend and he is always on my list of recommended DJs for upcoming brides.

Keenan Daniels – Chattanooga Wedding DJ doing his thing at a wedding at wedding venue The Barn At Drewia Hill – photograph by Chattanooga wedding photographer Rich Smith

WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU GOT INTO THE WORLD OF DJ-ING AND ENTERTAINING?

Like most men with a family I was working a job. One I had for over 14 years. During that time I got married, had kids, and I began to identify what I was good at which was interacting with people. Having graduated from the Center for Creative Arts, I was never the shy type but I didn’t know much about business and responsibilities. Working for that company helped me develop those skills.

WHAT INFLUENCED YOU TO TAKE THE LEAP AND GO FULL TIME INTO THE WEDDING AND EVENT INDUSTRY?

2011 was the year I started to get my DJ feet wet. 2012 only produced three weddings for me and out of those three weddings I knew I loved what I was doing. I continued working my full-time job until March 12th 2015. During that time I would have frequent conversations with other DJs but only one guy was full-time and that was Steve Lyles. We are such a “See First – Believe Second” generation so after I met one guy that was full time, I believed I too could be a full-time DJ. So after 14 and a half years, I decided to take a leap of faith and go full-time with my company.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE THE MOST ABOUT BEING AN ENTERTAINER?

Seeing people come together on the dance floor; laughing, smiling, and dancing just flat out does it for me. I gave myself the title of an Entertainer but in all honesty, I’m just being myself. Getting the opportunity to take people’s minds off the everyday problems of the world is definitely needed. Music is the soundtrack of life and regardless of what race you are, having fun is universal and I love being able to give people that.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SONG TO PLAY THAT WORKS FOR ALMOST ANY TYPE OF CROWD?

70’s funk music has got to be the most universal music that’s ever been made. Earth Wind & Fire’s ‘September’ is definitely respected by young people and loved by the more mature crowd.

WHAT’S THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF YOUR JOB?

All the preparation that goes into every event that I do. Showing up for the event and DJing for 3 or 4 hours is extremely easy. It’s all the work I have to do off the clock that takes time from my family. Consultations, going out to different venues you haven’t been to before, mental wear and tear.

WHAT SETS YOU APART FROM MOST DJs?

I really don’t get the opportunity to go out and hear other DJs play. Over time I’ve gotten feedback and people have told me I’m different in the sense of how I interact with the crowd. No one taught me what a wedding DJ is supposed to act like and I think that’s worked in my favor. In my mind, if someone has paid me to render a service I should do it with 100% effort and do my best to try and connect with everyone in the room on a musical level. First, it’s important to create a party atmosphere and then after that, direct it: People need to be told what to do sometimes and after that, just stand back and let the magic happen.

WHAT ARE SOME THINGS COUPLES SHOULD LOOK FOR WHEN LOOKING FOR A DJ?

Of course they need to make sure he has his own equipment and can cater to their needs, however, find a guy that fits their style. Just because a client has a deposit in hand doesn’t mean I’m quick to take the event. They want to interview me and I want to interview them to make sure we have chemistry. Any DJ can stand there and play music but not all DJ’s fit every event. So clients need to do their best in researching the guy and not just book the cheapest or the guy that fits in their budget. Not to be insensitive, but you can’t put a price tag on a great experience.

MillionDollaMan DJPM warming up the crowd while at a wedding at the Tivoli in Chattanooga, TN. Photo taken by wedding photographer Ben Finch of Finch Photography.

WHAT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR A BRIDE WHO DOES NOT EXPECT MUCH DANCING OR PARTYING AT HER WEDDING RECEPTION?

Brides know the people that they’re inviting to their wedding reception. They know in advance if the people they’re inviting are party people or if they’re more reserved. With that being said they shouldn’t be too surprised either way. However if I’m there she knows I’m going to do my best to ensure all her guests have a great time. If she invites 200 and only 50 are on the dance floor, then party with those 50. Guests have fun in different ways.

WHAT WOULD YOUR ADVICE BE TO THE BRIDE WHO EXPECTS A LOT OF DANCING AND FUN AT HER RECEPTION, BUT PLANS TO HIRE AN AMATEUR DJ?

If you hire an amateur DJ please expect to have amateur DJ results. That doesn’t mean that the experience will be bad, however this DJ may not be able to accommodate all your wishes. I was extremely thankful for the three weddings I had in 2012 but at that time I could only accommodate three weddings. I only had one set up so after the ceremony was over I had to tear down a reset in a different location with the same equipment. Some Brides wanted elaborate up-lighting and I wasn’t able to accommodate that or lapels for the Groom and the Pastor. This amateur DJ may turn out to be decent at the reception but his equipment may have complications or his song selection may be questionable. All in all, just be patient.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST COMMON QUESTIONS YOU GET FROM A BRIDE?

The way I market myself attracts a certain type of clientele. Most of the questions I get for my Brides are related more to what I’m willing to do versus what I can do. Will you travel? Will you stay past the quoted time in your contract? Will you make sure we acknowledge this person at the reception? When I first started it was more like… Do you have your own equipment? Do you have microphones? Do you play clean music? If any professional sticks with anything long enough, their reputation will answer most questions.

Keenan loves the camera! Photo taken by one of JBVFilm’s favorite photography teem in Chattanooga; Kenney Photography!

FOR THOSE LOOKING TO GET STARTED IN THE WORLD OF ENTERTAINING AND DJ-ING, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE THEM?

The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone is to make sure they remain true to themselves. Don’t be like everyone else – just be you. In doing that you will stand out. There were so many people that helped me in many ways when I first got started. Staff of A Silverware Affair, my mentors at Pneuma Christian Center, Shaun Cox, Leslie Bailey Mayfield, Staff at The Church on Main, The Venue Chattanooga, Kris Cobb at The Barn at Drewia Hill, Southside Social, Decor 1601, Pro Sound of Chattanooga, Darrell Strickland, and many more.

You have to network with people and you have to give people a product they are willing to refer. Many people start businesses but feel like they don’t need to reach out to anyone and they want to do it on their own. That’s a major mistake. It’s like my Pastor always told me, “Find someone that’s doing what you want to do – copy them and make it your own.”

You can contact Keenan by going to his contact page found here.

And before we end, here’s a wedding I shot where Keenan was the DJ. The party starts around the 4:12 mark!

Photos on this blog post were used with permission by some of the best wedding photographers in Chattanooga, Tennessee: Rich Smith Photography – Ben Finch Photography and Kenney Photography.

Why we limit how many weddings we do each year

Not to belittle the real disorder known as ADD, but I think I MIGHT have it, with a touch of OCD.
I’m ADD in the sense that I get distracted very easily and I am OCD in the sense that I demand perfection in my film work, and once I start a project, I can’t stop for a day until it is done.

I know other wedding videographers who take 40, 50, even 60 weddings in a year! I simply am not one of those. I take less than 20 weddings per year. That’s it. I do not “over-book” and I have ZERO “backlog” (In other words, I am not working on more than one wedding at a time and I don’t have 3 or 4 weddings waiting to be edited while I work on another.)

My clients benefit from this because this means their wedding is my entire focus. No other distractions to cause my ADD to go into effect.

And while someone with true OCD does NOT consider it an advantage in their life, my ‘touch’ of it does allow me to get wedding films done in less than 3 weeks. (My quickest wedding edit was 6 days, my average is 10 days, but my longest was about 2 and a half weeks… still far faster than most in the industry).

But these aren’t the only reasons I limit how many weddings I take in a year. One of the main reasons is my family. I treasure time with my wife and children. Our weekends together are amazing and memorable. No amount of money a client pays me is equal to the time I could be spending with my wife and kids that day. In a few years my oldest son should be old enough to be a PA (Production Assistant) for me at weddings. That’s a really fancy name for the person who carries all the heavy stuff on the wedding day.

One other rule I have; I do not take more than 3 wedding weekends in a row. This allows me to ‘breathe’. I once did 4 weekends back to back and the stress was more than I (and my family) could handle.

Your wedding day is one of the most special days of your entire life. I do not take it lightly. Your love story is my only focus; not just when I am at your wedding, but for the next few weeks after your wedding day as I am working on your film. I cannot and will not allow the distractions of “backlog” and stress to cause me to rush through creating an heirloom for you and your future generations to enjoy.

How to Save Money on your Wedding (But Risk Ruining It)

There is no doubt about it:

Weddings these days are EXPENSIVE!

According to TheKnot.com, the AVERAGE cost of a wedding in America is a little over $35,000.

Trust me, that is WAY more than I spent on my wedding 17 years ago.

But, a lot of folks do spend that kind of money on their wedding. If, for example, a potential bride goes to their friend’s high-budget wedding and see the sparkle and the glamour, that potential bride (Whose budget may be significantly smaller than her friend’s) will want the same feel and “luxury” at their upcoming wedding.
But, not every bride has the same budget, so naturally, some folks pay for the vendors they CAN afford, and for the rest, they try to cut corners.

But at what cost?

In general (Budget-wise) there are 3 kinds of weddings, all of which have the same awesome, wonderful outcome; A married couple!:

The Low Budget Wedding – $10,000-ish or less. Usually at the church of the bride or groom, and a reception is generally on the property of the church. My wife and I fell into this category 🙂 so there is nothing wrong with it in my book!

The Middle to Middle-High Budget Wedding – $10,000-ish to $40,000-ish. This is a big range because it’s where most weddings fall and this is where virtually all my clients fall into. Keep in mind that a wedding in Arkansas on average, will be less expensive than a wedding in, say, Manhattan, NY

The Super-Expensive High-End Wedding – $20,000 to even, yes, $100,000+. Nationwide, this is about 5% of all weddings.

So clearly, not every bride can afford “the best” vendors in every category…

…and that’s okay!

Let me just go ahead and say that many brides have a perfectly awesome wedding day when friends and family help make things happen. I did a wedding in 2016 where I was the ONLY wedding vendor that was NOT a family or a friend, unless you count the venue… and things went PERFECTLY… half the guests even stayed late to clean up and put up tables and chairs!
But in most cases, this comes with a great risk.
While you may not be able to afford the BEST florist, photographer, DJ, etc in your town, there are still many great, experienced vendors out there. The risk comes when a bride bypasses the best, AND bypasses the great and more affordable ones, only to end up hiring vendors that have little to virtually zero experience.

The Wedding Day Learning Curve

Brides trying to save a few hundred dollars will inevitably hire a friend or family member (We refer to the family members as “Uncle Bob” in the wedding industry) to do things that the bride assumes can’t possibly be that hard:

Your cousin owns a Canon DSLR camera so you consider her as your photographer.
Your fiance’s roommate from college has an iPod full of awesome tunes so you ask him if he can be your DJ.
A guy at your church runs the camera in the balcony so you ask him to make your wedding video.
Your uncle bought a “really expensive” drone at the hobby shop last week.

These all have the potential of saving you thousands of dollars. And some maybe even have the potential to work perfectly well with your style of wedding. But as someone who has been in the wedding business for almost 10 years I can tell you that these “vendors” often come with a steep price, and sometimes can impede the other vendors.

Of the ones that actually show up, there is a huge learning curve. Weddings are not easy-going events for vendors. Professional, seasoned vendors work very hard to make sure the day goes smoothly for the bride, so she has no idea of how hectic day really is. (Side note: If a bride feels stressed on her wedding day, she has hired the wrong vendors or she chose to not hire a wedding planner or coordinator and decided to be the coordinator herself… BIG mistake unless you thrive on stress.)
A wedding moves fast, there are many moving parts. Knowing how to work well with the other vendors is crucial. Knowing where to be and when to be there is top priority. Do you want YOUR wedding to be the one that someone uses in order to get their sea-legs?

I actually worked with a “DJ” who was a friend of the bride and groom. Some of his songs stopped mid-way during the reception dancing. Everyone would stop dancing, and look around, puzzled. Then he would apologize, saying his data connection ON HIS PHONE kept dropping. He was streaming “YouTube” videos to broadcast those songs. Do you want to risk such a buzz kill on your special day?

What’s in it for Them?

If you hire a friend or family member to do your photos or video and you’ve paid them next to nothing, what’s their incentive to get your photos or videos out to you in less than a year? I did a video for a couple 7 years ago. They hired someone they knew for a low price to be their photographer. 7 years later they still don’t have a single photo from their wedding. My video is all they have.

But what happens more often than not is that these fly-by-night vendors just decide not to show up. I get planners and other vendors frantically calling and texting me to see if I am available to fill in for a videographer who didn’t show up, or they ask me if I know any DJs who are available. It’s really kind of sad.

And what’s the real risk for them? They aren’t risking their reputation because they don’t have a business. They aren’t risking losing money because they’ve charged you very little or even nothing at all. Just this week I had a venue owner contact me desperately asking for some vendor recommendations for her bride that is getting married in 3 weeks. One of the friend-vendors bailed. One story I heard was the friend/family member was invited to go to Florida the weekend of a wedding they were asked to work. They chose to go to the beach and left the couple without a videographer.

When these people bail out, you are left scrambling at the last minute to find any available vendor. And trust me; all of the good ones were booked a year ago and you will be left with the scraps, IF you are able to get anyone at all. By trying to save money you have potentially forgone any opportunity to have nice photos/videos taken of your most important day. Or that big party reception you always dreamed about now turns into just a nice, quiet dinner with family and friends. Or, people realize something is missing from your wedding photos. Oh yeah; flowers!

Is the risk of this stress worth it?

Keep some things in mind when budgeting for your wedding:
This day is more than a party. It is truly a ceremony of two families joining together to form a brand-new branch on a family tree. It IS worth capturing, and it IS worth remembering. It IS worth “passing down” to the next generation. Your venue will not allow your children and grandchildren to visit their property to “remember” your wedding day. Your caterer will not prepare another meal for you on your 50th wedding anniversary for free. Your cake will lose it’s taste in a few weeks. Your flowers will be dead in a week. Your photos, video, dress, and wedding ring are honestly the only items you get to keep forever and pass down to countless generations from this day forward after your wedding day.
“Going cheap” is never a good idea with any wedding vendor, but some provide a product that outlasts the others and hiring those vendors and being assured they WILL show up (Because their contract says they will), is important.

Hiring a friend or family member as a wedding vendor isn’t the problem. The problem is hiring a friend or family member who aren’t professionals in their field.

Raw Footage – Why you don’t want it

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.

5 Signs That Your Wedding Videographer Isn’t The Right One

More and more brides today are wanting to have their special day encapsulated in video form.
Naturally, all brides hire a photographer to capture those moments that kids, grand-kids, and great grandchildren will be able to look back on. Photography is a well established industry in the wedding world and brides know what to look for, and what to expect. But wedding films, while truly a treasure and an heirloom, have not fully established themselves in the wedding niche and therefore, brides can be confused about what to expect and what is considered reputable business practices.

Today I want to look at 5 things all brides need to look for and be aware of when considering hiring a wedding filmmaker. These could be the red flags that could save you stress, headache, heartache, and possibly money:

1. Music Choice.

This seems like a strange topic to start out with, but it will make sense.
All wedding films have music in them. But not all wedding films are using that music legally.
Without getting into the legalities of it too deeply, the basics are this: If someone makes a film (whether for profit or not), and they want to use music in the film, they need permission to put that music in the film from the musician, (unless the filmmaker wrote and performed the music themselves). The musician made the music, wrote the music, paid for the studio time, paid for the promotion, etc… and so they deserve to be paid.

For us film makers, we have 3 options;

Use a resource like musicbed.com to find the PERFECT song to match our films, and pay the licensing fee of $49 to $99 per song to use once (This is what I do).
Pay thousands of dollars (even tens of thousands) to license a song that is very popular that is often heard in movies or on the radio (Not a viable option for most of us).
Download a song for 99 cents that we like (Or that the client has chosen), and put it in the film without paying for the rights to the song (Very, very illegal).

If your videographer says “YES!” when you ask them if you can choose the song, beware; they are likely agreeing to use a song that can get them sued, and your film pulled down off any publicly shared social media or video site. I sometimes send my brides to musicbed.com and show them options. In the end, ALL of my brides for almost 10 years have let ME choose the song, and every bride has been over the moon of my choice. Not all songs fit every story or every couple. A professional videographer can find the song that is the perfect fit. An unprofessional videographer finds a song on iTunes, pays 99 cents for it, and uses it in your film.
Your love is precious, and is to be passed down from generation to generation. If your videographers takes shortcuts to save $49 by breaking the law, what other shortcuts will they take with your story? To me, committing a federal crime to tell a love story is the ultimate irony.
More information can be found here on this topic.

2. The no-meeting contract
We do weddings for people all over the country but mostly in East TN, West NC, and North GA. Sometimes I CAN’T meet with the bride due to distance. In cases like this, I either have a lengthy phone meeting (With BOTH the bride and groom) or we try to meet halfway sometime before signing a contract. I do this for several reasons:

To get to know you. I can’t tell your love story that is unique to you without knowing you a little first.
To make sure you like me! The last thing you want (And I want) is for you to hire someone that annoys you who ends up following you around for 10 hours on a day that is supposed to be your least stressful and most happy day. If you don’t meet your videographer, how do you know this person is going to be nice, fun, and stress-free?
To make sure my shooting and editing style matches your story.

It’s no secret that I don’t take every wedding that inquires with me. Sometimes personalities do not click, and sometimes a wedding plan isn’t going to mesh with the way I shoot or tell stories. However, if the videographer you wish to hire only speaks to you via email or texts, and never offers to meet with you in person before signing a contract (Even if you live in the same town), consider this a red flag. They may not have the same passion about your story that you want your filmmaker to have. Ask a videographer if you can meet with them sometime. Their excitement to meet you will be a good indication that they are the right pick to tell your story.

3. The over-booker.
Some wedding filmmakers will book LOADS of weddings per year, sometimes multiple weddings in one weekend. They will brag that they book 60+ weddings per year. When a weekend comes around and they realize they have double booked, they start asking the local videographers in town if they can cover one of those weddings. If no one can, then one of those bride’s will not have a videographer that day. They choose which wedding to shoot and refund the other one. Don’t be pulled in by the glamour of a videographer who claims they are booked every weekend because they may double book your weekend and run the risk of not having a video of your special day at all. Ask your videographer “About how many weddings to you do per year?” Anything over 40 and there’s a good risk your wedding day may get double booked.

4. The long edit.
This goes hand in hand with number 3. Some videographers take MONTHS to edit a wedding film (I know one group that takes 6 months to edit a wedding film). This can be due to inexperience, poor time management, or they take weddings every weekend and those edits overlap, causing your film to take 3, 4, and even 6 months to finish. They’ll suddenly get on a kick and try to knock out 3 or 4 weddings in a week. You don’t want to be one of those wedding edits that gets rushed through. This is the reason I limit how many weddings I take per year (less than 20) so I can focus 100% of my editing time on YOUR wedding. Often times I am done with a film in 10 days. I realize that is fast for the industry and I don’t know the “Secret” to me being so quick, but I think one reason is because I don’t overbook. Ask the videographer you are communicating with how long they can expect to wait until their product is finished. 8 weeks or less is pretty standard.

5. The photographer-turned-videographer
For some reason, there are a handful of photographers who look at videography as “Photography 2.0”; They have the cameras, they know lighting, they know composition, so they feel they can make videos too! They offer photo and video packages which is very alluring to a bride (One less vendor to meet and pay). The truth is that a wedding film is nothing like making a photo album. My wedding films tell a story that no photos can ever tell. On the flip side, a videographer really has no business trying to do photography either. While both businesses use similar equipment, if you hire someone offering you both, they are giving you only half of their time and abilities to each aspect.
I’ve found that the majority of photographers who offer video services are fairly new to the industry and that inexperience will ensure you get a very average (at best) video. Your best bet is to find the photographer who’s style you LOVE, and ask them what wedding filmmaker they recommend and have worked with before. Most of my referrals come from photographers I have worked with.

This list comes from being in the wedding industry for almost 10 years. I have heard all the horror stories and seen all the heart-ache because brides didn’t do the research or notice the warning signs and red flags when hiring an inexperienced or fly-by-night wedding videographer. Hopefully this list will help you or someone you know as they begin their wedding planning!