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
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!
A R Rahman for Asian weddings! Probably one of the hardest and relentless professionals working in the film industry today: A R Rahman is now getting recognition for his work here in the west!
After watching the BAFTAS I began reflecting on how relevant and widespread his work is, particularly in the field of Asian Wedding videos.
We always ask our clients to supply some choices for the music they want for their wedding video and they tend to choose popular, romantic songs from recent Bollywood films. These very frequently are songs composed by the man himself and we have found his work to be brilliant for enhancing the emotion in our films making them engaging even to viewers who did not attend the wedding!
It really adds that “Bollywood Love Story” element to the work we make here at Bloomsbury Films. Another huge plus is the sheer range of the music he puts out, music that goes well with dancing, the actual marriage ceremony, people socializing and the wide variety of special performances young people put on for Asian Weddings.
The other great thing is that many of the most popular movies have weddings in the story and so in turn the songs contain well suited lyrics that are relevant to work. Recently the most popular requests have been songs from the soundtracks of: Guru, Jodhaa Akbar, Rang De Basanti & of course Slumdog Millionaire… all composed by A R Rahman.
This allows us to give every Asian couple the Bollywood movie experience for their wedding video!
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:
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 was reminded of the importance of wedding video music this week whilst finalising the edit for several different clients. Last year ago I remember Bobby enthusing over the director Mira Nair whose film Monsoon Wedding contains some wonderful music for wedding videos. I enjoy her work too and went to the cinema to see The Namesake as soon as it came out in 2007. What impresses me about much Indian music is the way that films are such a driving force behind the creation of it. Unlike a lot of Western music, from the outset many Indian artists aim to tell a story with their music as part of a film. My perception is their music is less abstract and chart driven than the UK & US with the lyrics possessing a much greater significance (although anyone reading this is welcome to correct me!).
Consequently whilst many ‘western’ wedding video clients might be happy with music that simply suits the ‘mood’ of their spectacle, many Indian wedding video clients will be more sensitive to its lyrics. This happened with Bobby & Sejal who provided many music suggestions for their film including ‘Aaj Mera Jee Karda’ (Today My Heart Desires) from Monsoon Wedding. Another track they suggested was ‘Tera Bina’ (Without You) from Guru which I think is beautiful. I often find myself scanning the search engines for translations of lyrics both out of curiosity and a fearful wish to avoid embarrassment!
Probably no job was more challenging to me in the last year than Amrita and Benji’s film – see my previous blog Epic Sikh Wedding Video. This is because it contains not less than 33 tracks, which proved a real challenge for a non-Indian language speaker like myself! Fortunately Amrita and Benji like a lot of Western music too, so it contains a bit of both. However I am very proud of the film not just because of the music, but also because of its epic proportions! One thing is for sure, I will think twice next time before agreeing to take on a 5 day wedding in the middle of the peak season! Nevertheless putting together the film score for Amrita and Benji was a useful experience for me, it made me appreciate Bollywood films a lot more than I did and greatly increased my awareness of good Indian music.
Nothing however quite scared me recently as much as Chloe & Martin’s wedding video. Yes they are an English couple, but Chloe is a music lawyer and her father owns a well-known record label! As part of their wedding celebrations they had Gospel singers, a performance by native Indian tribesmen and a live gig by a newly signed artist. With such a strong musical heritage, you can imagine how concerned I was about hitting the right note (okay, pun intended). Like the others, they did provide a few hints and I also paid attention to music used on the day to garner more suggestions. Fingers crossed they will like what we’ve done!
As part of the development of our new website we’ve recently added some help and advice pages. We hope it will prompt clients who are less confident about commissioning a wedding video to contribute to their music score. I strongly believe that the films we make for our clients should feel personal and relevant. Music in my opinion is one of the strongest ways of making this connection!
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:
One of the privileges of creating wedding videos, is getting to know a couple at one of the most intimate moments in their lives. Whether the videographer on the day or the editor looking at footage in a darkened room weeks later, you can’t help but get involved in the couple’s story. At Bloomsbury we feel a huge responsibility for creating a film that captures our clients personality as well as the people and events surrounding them on their wedding day. It is no exaggeration to say a lot of heart goes into making each film – wedding videography just isn’t something you can do dispassionately! Although we run a studio style operation with many people involved in every film we make, each person is fully invested in each frame of the finished film.
Consequently when a film is completed, the response from our clients is very important to us! A recent example was Helen and Michael whose wedding at Easthampstead Park we filmed back in July. As you can tell from the wedding video, the couple are very popular with family and friends and this warmth was something we wanted to get across. When Helen saw the trailer she was thrilled and made us happy by showing her gratitude. It also made us smile when a week or so later she even commented on her own YouTube video expressing how proud she was; “This is our wedding and we were totally amazed by the fantastic job Bloomsbury did it was amazing!” Believe it or not, these few words meant a great deal to us and it is why we enjoy making really special films for our clients. Please have a look at the trailer for Helen & Michael’s wedding video for yourself below:
Autumn is lovely season and as someone getting married myself in Autumn (next week!!), I was looking back at some wedding videos we did last Autumn. One of these was Dave & Nicola’s wedding, filmed at Hampton Court Golf Club in Surrey. What I liked about their wedding video was the footage of photos taken outdoors amid the autumn trees. In this video we used a mixture of de-saturated and black and white effects to enhance the imagery. I always feel that the outdoors provides a more interesting backdrop to any filming and photography and they were lucky the weather allowed them to make full use of this.
The thing I like about Autumn is the light can be more interesting – longer shadows, touch more orangey, It also tends to be more even than the sharp angles you sometimes get with summer sun. People often make the mistake of thinking that sunlight equals good filming conditions, but what you really need is just consistent and even light. Another favourite video of mine is Davina & Kaysen’sIndian wedding video. As you can see from the opening shots they had a lovely crisp day and being next to Kensington Park Gardens were lucky enough to have a fabulous location for photography.
We filmed this wedding with our friends from Pixcellence Photography and we both agreed the colours were just wonderful! We weren’t the only ones to think so as Davina & Kaysen’s wedding was subsequently featured in The London Paper as an example of Autumn weddings! I’m looking forward to my wedding next week, I just hope we get that special Autumn light too!
Davina & Kaysen's Autumn wedding in The London Paper
