Channi Singh is the godfather of Bhangra music in the English-speaking world, so it was a particular thrill to have him sing live at this wedding at the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel (London). For us, it was exciting to capture his live event performance on video. The response from the audience as soon as he was announced was incredible – the cheers immediately started and the hands started to clap above their heads. As founder, lead singer, producer and director of Alaap, he has performed around the world in places like Madison Square Gardens and The Royal Albert Hall, so to be up close and personal with him at the Intercontinental was a great treat for these wedding guests.
When Channi Singh sings, he has a perpetual smile on his face. His delight in making music is palpable. Channi is not one to separate himself from his fans too as he wades out into the dancing crowd to embrace some of the guests – many of whom appear absolutely thrilled. Clearly everyone is hoping for a slice of the limelight because as Channi sings various wedding guests pop up on stage with him to be near him! He takes it all in his stride – what a pro.
This time last year I remember spending the first days of January reviewing the edit on our first major Sikh wedding video. Created for Amrita & Benji, it covered a five day extravaganza which we had filmed the previous August. This epic project started with the bride’s Mehndi party & Sangeet in London on 1st August, followed by the groom’s Maiya and Jago party in Brighton on 2nd August. On 3rd August, their main day, we had crew in both places from 6am filming the families preparing for the big day and making their journeys to Southall Gurdwara. Its was a very visual wedding day with a baraat and milni outside the steps of one the biggest temples outside India. The main wedding day was followed on 4th August by a grand open-air banquet at Bearwood College in Wokingham and a gala dinner a week later on 11th August in Mayfair.
As you can imagine the film was quite an epic – the first cut weighed in at a hefty 3hrs 30! Since I always meticulously review all our editing work personally, it took quite a while to complete this. My main focus at that stage was to ensure there a clear story arc to their Sikh wedding video. This meant ensuring that individual chapters were coherent and made sense to viewers (a wedding film usually has to make sense of random events!). As always I went through the cuts with fine tooth comb looking at the quality of the shots and editing choices. Indeed, before the raw footage even went to the editor I had already reviewed it and provided notes on dialogue editing and music score. However it is only when you look at a first cut, can one be sure decisions previously made fit the intention. Occasionally I decide to change background music or trim dialogue. Of course, with a wedding film of this length, there is a big music score to decide upon! Clients usually request some tracks and where they fit, I include these, however I often specify around 2/3rds of the music myself, which can involve spending hours listening to Bollywood, Bhangra, Shenai & other Indian music!
We had Amrita & Benji’s Sikh wedding film completed by the end of January and no sooner was it shown online we were inundated with enquiries from other Sikh clients! I must say, looking back at the video, the open-air wedding banquet section looks especially good and I am always a big fan of filming outdoors rather than indoors – the light and sense of spectacle are always much greater! On this job we used a Glidecam 200 jib crane to capture the sense of scale – imagine 500 people sat around tables on a manicured lawn with cedar trees and a Jacobean style mansion providing the backdrop, plus the most wonderful weather anyone could hope for!
Having since made over a dozen more Sikh wedding films, I can honestly say I enjoy making them very much and have had the pleasure of creating some wonderful films. After making Amrita and Benji’s film I no longer find a three and a half hour film quite so daunting!
At the start of May we filmed Toby and Bhupinders Sikh wedding celebrations over 3 days including the family’s Mendhi and Ladies Sangeet events. It was our first job with the newly released Sony Z7 camera and Dan & Dusan had the honour of christening (or should I say Sikhisming?) the new cameras. I came and supervised the filming of the ceremony on the Sunday morning which was at Hounslow Gurdwara. What is unusual about this Sikh wedding is that Toby is a non-Sikh American guy who lives and works in the UK. He and Bhupinder were a really nice couple, representing a cross cultural marriage with a real sense of openness. Both families were very warm and friendly and Toby and his father grew the customary beards for the occasion. The Sikh wedding reception was held afterwards in the secret garden at Syon Park this proved a lovely setting for enjoyable event. To see highlights from their Sikh wedding video, click on the video below:
Whilst Dan & David were filming in Oxfordshire (see this post), I was accompanying Dishad and Eva filming Manjit & Anju’s wedding at Coventry Gurdwara. The day started for Eva and I in Barking, Essex capturing Manjit getting ready before the whole entourage left for Coventry. One thing I always like to do when I am on a shoot to is film the baraat en route. This can be more difficult than you imagine because you not only have to speed after them and cut through traffic, but you then need to keep the camera steady long enough to capture footage from a moving vehicle. For this particular Sikh wedding video we decided to go one step further that we did in Amrita & Benji’s Sikh wedding video and stop at a service station along the M1 and film from a foot bridge. We’d hardly been in position for more than a minute when the bus carrying all of Manjit’s family went past. Although only one shot, it gave a lift to the film which I believe makes it feel like a TV documentary. Thanks to our sat nav we arrived in Coventry just ahead of the bus and was ready to film the arrival of the baraat and milni before the ceremony commenced. The reception was a bit hectic, not helped by traffic diversions on the two centre, but I am proud of the film we managed to pull off for Manjit & Anju. You can see highlights of their Sikh wedding video below:
