Yane was tucked away in the Chesterfield Hotel where she could have some space and quiet to prepare for her church wedding to Tim. With a little help from her friends, she was soon ready to go and posing for a few photographs in her stunning dress. As she was putting on her finishing touches, the guests were starting to arrive nearby in Hanover Square in the heart of London at St George’s Church where Tim was waiting to catch a glimpse of his bride. Yane arrived in a spectacular white Rolls Royce before being walked up the aisle. It’s a nice bit of editing there where the film changes from black & white to colour when they share their first married kiss – you can do amazing things in post-production. While the bride & groom had a vintage car to travel to the reception in, the remaining wedding party were ushered over in rickshaws – a nice eco-friendly touch.

Once they all safely arrived at Dartmouth House there was drink waiting to welcome them. The group posed for a bunch of wedding photos – the highlight of which had to be when all the blokes hoisted up Yane for a photo in their arms. Good thing they didn’t drop her. After dinner the dancing began. With a large contingent of Brazilians it wasn’t hard differentiating between the English and the Brazilians on the dance floor – they are a nation of people with rhythm and they didn’t disappoint. We wish a rosy future for this dancing couple.

St Mary Brookfield Church, an imposing red-brick London church, was the setting for Lucy & Nick’s church wedding. The high vaulted ceiling of the church drew the eye upwards past the stained glass windows and allowed bountiful daylight to stream in which were optimal conditions for filming. The elegant groomsmen in their morning suits made sure that everyone was seated, comfortably ready for Lucy’s grand arrival to the church (in a gorgeous vintage Rolls Royce). Lucy was a beautiful bride and all eyes were on her as she walked down the aisle where Nick stood ready to give her a quick kiss.

When the ceremony was complete, our beaming happy couple walked hand in hand out of the church where they were showered with confetti and posed for photographs. Throughout, they kissed each other and glowed with happiness. The reception took place at Kenwood House where the champagne stood ready to greet the wedding party. To the music of the fiddle and guitar duo, they enjoyed some time to visit with all of their guests. The bucolic lawns of Kenwood House made a suitable backdrop for wedding photos and the August sunshine meant that guests lingered outside as long as they could. They were drawn inside by the promise of a wonderful meal – a promise which was definitely fulfilled. Lucy & Nick, we wish you all the best!

A few months ago we decided to launch our own Facebook Page as a way of interacting with past, present and future clients. We now upload highlights of different jobs to the page as they are completed, so visitors can see our range of work and make comments in an easy, friendly environment. I am pleased to say it is very popular, with clients taking a keen interest in the videos and newcomers watching these as a source of inspiration. Indeed our videos seem to not only serve as an example of good videography, but provide an excellent source of ideas for planning their wedding or event!

We heartily welcome comments from prospective clients, whether they are wondering about how to achieve the best videography, which photographers we recommend or what venues to book. As film-makers we know a lot about making things look good, so our advice is sought after on many subjects. Meanwhile the ‘Discussions‘ section of our Facebook page has a number of topics that are being widely shared. We’ve also included some general tips and advice which we hope our clients enjoy.

If you haven’t already subscribed to our Facebook page or know a friend who might like to check it out, please don’t hesitate to look it up at The Bloomsbury Films’ Facebook Page

The wedding season is well and truly upon us once again! Despite some initial uncertainty about how the credit crunch would affect wedding & event filming, we are set for another bumper year with bookings on the rise. Perhaps a notable trend however amongst clients has been a tendency to increasingly leave bookings to the last minute. Of course you might expect this amongst businesses who are driven by a reactive market-orientated agenda. [We keep a tally of the most extreme 'last minute' bookings - the current record holder is Citibank who wanted an event filmed in central London in 45 minutes time. And yes, we made it!]

However it is also increasingly common to receive bookings for weddings only a week, and in some cases, only a day beforehand! Why on earth would someone leave it so late you might ask? Have we reached the inevitable outcome for our lastminute.com lifestyles? Well no, not entirely. The answer lies in an inherent issue in the wedding filming market – that the value of a wedding video is only appreciated after the event. Before their nuptials couples are busy focussing on plans for the big day and often don’t think so much about what happens afterwards (apart from being married of course!). Wedding videos are frequently overshadowed by photography, which as an established convention, tends to be booked earlier – to the detriment of their videography budget.

A combination of oversight and financial constraints means that wedding videos get put off to the last minute. Panic sets in just a week or two before the wedding as the couple suddenly realise how much they’d like it captured and the value of what is essential a family documentary will have in the future. The result can be a reluctant parent digging even deeper into their pockets and a last minute scrabble to find someone available.

However like the websites that specialise in finding you ‘last minute bargains’, leaving it to the last minute doesn’t necessary provide the best choice or opportunity to get what you really want. Unfortunately we can’t change this pitfall, but at Bloomsbury Films we do our best to help by ensuring that every client who books with us, last minute or otherwise, never regrets their choice.

At the start of this month Bloomsbury Films was neatly packed up into boxes and moved across town to a new studio location in London’s trendy East End. Taking advantage of the hard hit property market on the periphery of London’s financial district, we were lucky to find a 1500 sqft unit in a converted warehouse that would suit our needs now and in the foreseeable future.

New Bloomsbury Films Office

A stone’s throw from Brick Lane, it is conveniently close to Aldgate & Aldgate East tube stations as well as Tower Gateway DLR. From these new offices we continue to operate our sales & administration, video kit storage and maintenance, production planning where our director’s overseeing all our projects. Over the coming months we shall also be introducing additional in-house studio facilities that will enable us to extend our range of services.

We’re very excited about the move, especially as we continue to expand the range of services provided by Bloomsbury Films. Although wedding videos are still currently our biggest market, we are beginning to attract more types of live event filming including interest from businesses for conference filming. We hope you will be able to pay us a visit sometime!

Ever since creating our first wedding films, I have wanted to bring elements of my interests in feature film production to the table. One of these elements is trailers – I love watching them at the cinema as they don’t just advertise, but build the sense of expectation and excitement around a film release. Similarly after months of work in the production and editing of a client’s wedding film, we create a short wedding video trailer for them.

These are extremely popular and get watched hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of times. The trailers are presented in a unique website created for our client. Some examples include:

Chloe & Martin’s Wedding Video
Amrita & Benji’s Wedding Video
Dawn & Jasons Wedding Video
Emma & Gavin’s Wedding Video
Bobby & Sejal’s Wedding Video

Our trailers are uploaded about 7-10 days before the wedding DVD is delivered. To give you an idea of their popularity, the least any of these has been watched is 50 times and the most is over 1000 times! I consider this to be a very significant because the full length wedding video is unlikely to achieve such audience figures ever!

Many of our older trailers have attracted even bigger viewing figures as clients pass on their site to family, friends and work colleagues. For example we have a Sikh wedding video that has attracted 5000 hits over the last 6 months and we have one Bengali wedding video reaching over 20000! Surely that must make these box office hits within the wedding video world? Of course, not all our wedding videos appear on our You Tube channel (a few clients anxiously avoid it) but those that do are very glad of the opportunity to share a small part of their video with so many others. At around 3 minutes in length it is digestible enough for everyone and saves either lending DVDs or imposing on less enthusiastic family and friends.

I’m currently reviewing raw footage from from several wedding videos we filmed last Autumn – Dawn & Jason who were married at Bickley Manor, Kent and Nikki & Steve who married at Frimley Hall, Surrey. Both were on the same day, a day when we also filmed our first civil partnership (so called “gay wedding video“) at Goodwood House, in West Sussex. I have to admit that purely from an editing perspective I prefer civil weddings; the ceremonies are much shorter and are more digestible to watch. Nevertheless, I’ve always believed a good wedding video is not about coverage of a ceremony, but a documentary capturing all the events of the day. Whatever religious or non-religious values prevail over the proceedings, I believe people are the most important part of our couple’s wedding day, and for this reason I ensure Bloomsbury Films’ work has an engaging and personal quality.

When Dawn & Jason booked us, I remember Dawn saying that one of the main reasons she wanted a wedding video was for her children. She and Jason have three youngsters and so had saved up for some years to get married. I can tell from the raw footage how much the children were an important part of their day and I am sure that the finished film will as much family documentary as wedding video. I think this is exactly what distinguishes wedding videography from wedding photography – the ability to capture people’s character and not just their smiles. At one point, Dawn & Jason’s son Bradley picked up the DJ’s microphone and began to give a gurgling speech – it took everyone by surprise and was a priceless moment!

As a wedding video director, I often wonder what will people think when they see their wedding video in 10 years, 25 years or 50 years. A good wedding film will not only entertain us in the present, but will also shape the way we remember things later. Consequently, I make an effort to produce work that has an enduring and truthful quality, that captures the rich tapestry of the day and the beauty of people’s spirit. It is partly for this reason, I do not favour over use of visual effects – these may dazzle viewers, but in the long run leave us empty of what is really precious.

It is often said that movies are made in the editing suite. I agree, the time and skill involved in editing a film has the single greatest impact on whether the film will be good or not. Sure, the planning and filming are essential, but with the editing you have the opportunity to turn mediocre footage into something great (or if you aren’t careful great footage into something mediocre!). I also think the industry adage that films are made or broken in the edit suite, couldn’t be more true for the wedding video industry.

At Bloomsbury Films, we film nearly 70 weddings and events a year. Despite the considerable preparations we make, filming any live event is very difficult indeed. You have virtually no control over the action and yet must creatively capture footage that is better that most TV documentaries whilst being very discrete. Our crew at Bloomsbury Films are amongst the best in the industry, but the unpredictability of weddings and live events can leave us with plenty to sort out in the editing suite! When we started, I remember being asked by a client if we would provide a copy of the raw footage as an extra. I privately thought ‘absolutely not!’, we’ve just spend weeks editing the film, why do you want that? I was persuaded to grant the request however, but I must admit one motive was so the client could see what an amazing puzzle converting their raw footage to a polished film actually is!

One of my rules for editing our wedding films is that nothing should betray the effort needed to capture the material. Shots are precisely cut so that not even one frame of camera shake, re-focussing or light adjustment appears in the film. The sound is so meticulously edited that clients genuinely believe their epic wedding ceremony really only lasted 20 minutes! They say the best editing, is the editing you don’t notice. This is certainly true for us as we go to great lengths in our wedding films to carry our audience through the story of their day in a way that makes them forget it is actually edited. In short, good editing appears effortless – the truth however is that it is anything but!

At Bloomsbury Films we take a minimum of three months to edit each client’s wedding film. Whilst this may seem slow compared to some other event videographers, we know that editing a film, like any piece of art, is a process of careful refinement. At any one time, we have at least six films being edited, each of these are personally reviewed by me at various stages. Like most of the film and TV industry, we believe creating a professional video project shouldn’t be a one man enterprise. Directors like me exist to provide guidance, feedback and a fresh point of view. That’s why we don’t simply hand clients tapes over to editors after a shoot and let them see what they make of it. The rushes from every wedding are reviewed by me before they are handed over to the editor. This is because before starting the edit, I need to decide how we are going to tell the story. A wedding isn’t just a lot of stuff happening, it is a personal story affecting the lives of many people (not just the couple!) that over time will become a significant piece of family history. Therefore the wedding video needs to be properly structured and the storytelling must have the insights necessary to make it interesting to watch time and again. Once the raw footage goes to the editor it usually takes a few weeks to get the first cut done, this goes to me for comment and then subsequently goes through a series of cuts, before it is finally complete.

When clients receive their finished wedding video, they no doubt hungrily devour after excitedly awaiting its arrival. On seeing the quality of the finished video, many subsequently ask is there any more? At this point I feel like Gordon Ramsay after toiling in the kitchen to distill the finest tasting experience. Its a bit like hearing the diner say “I’m still hungry, is there anything else left?” I’m genuinely flattered that clients want more, I’m only sorry the film can’t make itself!

One of the things we’ve noticed at Bloomsbury Films is the number of mixed cultural marriages we film. Recent projects have included an Anglo-Persian wedding, an Anglo-Greek wedding, an Anglo-Asian wedding, an Anglo-Jewish wedding, an American-Sikh wedding, an Italian-Persian wedding.. I could go on!

Perhaps this a reflection of being based in London, but perhaps also it shows the growing acceptance in our society for marriage based on love and like-mindedness, rather than seeking a cultural safety net. A particularly good example of this is Shahara & Christophers wedding which we filmed at York House, Richmond in early August. Shahara is from a Muslim Bengali family and Christopher from a traditional English one. In marrying Shahara, Christopher not only adopted a new family, but a new (Muslim) name. When I met them both months prior to their wedding, it was clear they were both very much in love and that whilst Christopher may not have have grown up in a Muslim/Bengali lifestyle, he was more than willing to adopt one.

I like their video very much, and the trailer shows their coming together well. They had splendid weather on the day and I am glad that there was a lot of opportunities for filming outdoors – which I always believe looks so much better than filming indoors! We have done several Bengali wedding videos of late including a stunning Bengali wedding in Newcastle, but this is the first mixed Anglo-Bengali marriage I am aware of filming. I therefore wish Christopher and Shahara all the very best in the future! Below are highlights from their day:

We recently finished editing an Asian wedding video for Vivek & Anneka, who got married in a civil ceremony at Ealing Town Hall in September 2007 before going to Goa for their proper Asian wedding. Afterwards they held a reception back in the UK just before Christmas at Addington Palace in Croydon. The wedding reception was well attended by over 500 guests and both the bride and grooms families were absolutely wonderful! Dan and Simon filmed the wedding with me directing, we trialled the new EX-1 camera because of its low light capabilities – very wise considering it was the shortest day of the year! The shoot went well and everybody was in great spirits, I particularly liked the speeches, bollywood dancers (with uncle joining in) and the partying! Highlights of their Asian wedding video can be seen below.