We just put together a trailer for Breakups With Guns in the “media”:?s=media section. Check it out!

My wife (Bich) and I drove down to meet Dakota and his wife (Tracie) at their home yesterday. We talked a lot of business. The biggest news is that he and Tracie cut Breakups down from 30 minutes to 10. Unfortunately, the original cut wasn’t really working. A little too slow, especially in the beginning.

As Dakota was both the writer and director for Breakups With Guns, I have to hand it to him — it’s tough to cut your work. Along with the things that didn’t work, there were some good shots/scenes/lines that also had to be cut. When you put that much time into something, it’s hard to not keep everything. But if cutting something out makes the movie more watchable, then you have to do it. I know it hurt, but by the end of it all they knew they made that movie 10 times better.

That’s why it is *so important* to be open to feedback on your work. You know that uncomfortable experience: Somebody shows you something they’ve done, you can see a number of problems with it, but they think it’s just fine the way it is and brush off your suggestions. If you want to be a good filmmaker, you *can’t* be that person. You have to listen to criticism, weigh the good and the bad, and face the harsh reality that maybe what you’ve poured your heart and soul into over the last several hours/months/years still needs work. It becomes so personal that it’s hard to step away and become objective.

How else do you think so much dreck makes it into video stores? When you’re watching the credits and you think, “How could so many people make something so bad?” I’ll tell you why. Either (a) they were all so busy making the movie that they couldn’t step out and be objective, or (b) they had already sunk so much money into it that they couldn’t afford to trash it all.

So kudos to Dakota: If you can get it perfect the first time, you’re one of the few.

Breakups w/ Guns trailer now available!

Tonight I attended a rehearsal for a wedding I am shooting tomorrow. I usually do a 2-camera shoot — handheld Canon XL1s and tripod-mounted Canon Optura. My main goals during rehearsal include (1) finding a good place to sit/stand where I can get most of the action and (2) finding a good place to set up the stationary camera.

The stationary camera usually goes at the front of the church, near or behind the altar, facing out toward the crowd. While the bride and groom practice their positions, I frame the picture so that I can get a good angle on one of their faces — usually the groom’s. Then I sit in the pew on the opposite side and shoot toward the altar so I can get the bride’s face. This works well if they are facing each other during most of the ceremony.

Sometimes a bride and groom will face the altar, which makes it difficult to get their faces during the ceremony. In one wedding, I got great shots by actually sitting up behind the altar and shooting out toward the audience. They didn’t mind my presence up there — actually, it’s the best overall view during a wedding, which is ironic since the crowd is facing the complete opposite way — but seeing a guy up front behind the couple, pointing a video camera in your direction, is distracting for some people. A wedding is a very personal thing and different folks have different tastes.

So my first and foremost goal in shooting a wedding is to be as invisible as possible. Which isn’t always easy, by the way. But in my experience, the still photographer — who has a MUCH more stressful job — is usually running the show already, so I can’t possibly be more intrusive than he/she.

By attending the rehearsal to work out details like this and get an overall idea for how the wedding is going to flow, the actual wedding day goes a lot smoother. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll visit the salon while Debra and her bridesmaids are getting their hair made. Always makes for good video. The wedding starts in the evening, with a cake reception afterwards. This will be one of the shorter weddings I’ve shot.