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03 Jun

Posted on June 03, 2013 at 6:47pm in Blog, Tutorials by

In the past few months, I have spent a lot of time talking to many editors. I've noticed that there are many workflows that wedding videographers and cinematographers use while editing their wedding films. One thing that I found shocking was that many editors are prone to a disaster. A disaster where they lose ALL their files. All the footage from a wedding and all their hard work that they put into a film. How many times have you heard "my hard drive crashed?" I've heard it plenty of times. I have even had to say that myself a few times. Here is a typical scenario that I see with many editors. They have one hard drive that they store all the footage on and they simply start editing and hope that their hard drive doesn't crash. Once they are finished with the project, they simply erase all the files and they are done. There are so many risks involved with this scenario and I humbly want to teach you how to keep your wedding footage and project files safe and secure. I use a combination of Hard Drives, RIAD systems and cloud storage. Here is my workflow...

20 May

Posted on May 20, 2013 at 9:45pm in Blog, Same Day Edit, Wedding Videography by

Carlos and Victoria initially did not want to have video for their wedding. All wedding videos they saw before made them not want one for their wedding, but seeing a Same Day Edit on a friends wedding, they realized that they wanted a wedding video for themselves. So they booked the best wedding videography team (humble brag) 4 weeks before the wedding with a Same Day Edit. I was excited to do a Same Day Edit for them - but also nervous. I met up with the lovely couple at Starbucks where we talked a little and got to know each other. Listening to their funny story, I realized that their wedding is simply going to be fun and energetic. It was exactly that. I love doing Same Day Edits. They are stressful, they are hard, you get headaches, you barely eat, but best of all - the reactions from the bride, groom and the guests are totally worth it. Because the the morning prep, ceremony and reception were in different location, I was worried that I might not have enough time to edit. I left in the middle of the ceremony to the reception venue - copying cards to my MacBook on my way to Grand Island Mansion. Arriving at the beautiful Venue, I got straight to work. I knew that show time was at 9pm and I had less than 4 hours to edit. I simply spent the first 45 min. organizing all the footage. I usually get straight to editing, but I knew that organization will allow me to find shots 4x faster. I was editing away in Final Cut Pro X ( I love FCP X - It did not crash once!). At 8:15, my edit was completed. I set the Same Day Edit to Export, grabbed a camera and helped my team film fire dancers and fireworks at the back of the Grand Island Mansion. I was excited for show time! At 9:00pm, everyone moved inside into the mansion, we dimmed the lights and pressed play! A few seconds into the film, I knew everyone loved it. Especially the bride and groom. The Grand Island Mansion wedding...

09 Apr

Posted on April 09, 2013 at 3:38pm in Blog, Short Wedding Film, Wedding Videography by
Many times, I want to share my edits right away. I get so excited that I want everyone to see it hot off the press! However with this film, I held off for a few days before posting it. To me, the video felt like it was still a rough draft even though everyone in our office agreed it was perfect and ready to post. Sometimes when I create a film, I like to think of it as if I'm writing an essay. I would never turn something in, knowing that its worth a B-, but expect to get an A+. There are people that would do that, but not me. I'm a perfectionist. And when it comes to my films, they always have to be an A+. So I spent a few more days tweaking and (re)editing this film until I reached my standard of perfection. I let my wife heavily critique it and help me fix all the little thing that bothered me (and her). And after a few days of re-watching the film for what it seems like a thousand times,  I can confidently post it knowing that it's an A+. I love how amazing Sergey and Lena's short wedding film turned out! All this taught me that in order to be the best Sacramento Wedding Videography Company out there, my team and I have to consistently make these A+ films. That's a MUST in our company and we wouldn't settle for less. We traveled to Seattle, Washington to film this wedding. Sergey and Lena trusted the best Sacramento Wedding Videography company to tell their wedding story and we enjoyed doing just that. Enjoy this short wedding film of this beautiful couple.

02 Feb

Posted on February 02, 2013 at 9:49pm in Blog, Projects by
A week after coming back from filming a documentary in Russia and Ukraine, my brother Paul surprised me with this project  We came a day before the event to "scout the area" and realized that we have a bigger event on hand than thought -  we are going to need a bit more than just 2 cameras. Many times we run into issues where we film a project and then later wish while editing that we had way more camera angels and more creative shots. We didn't want to run into this issue here. So we brought 4 x Canon 5DMIIIs and started filming. We knew we had to make a short 2-4 minute clip out of all the filming, but we also keept in mind that we don't exactly know what we're going to be putting into the film - so we filmed a lot.

22 Dec

Posted on December 22, 2012 at 6:08pm in Blog, Music Videos, Projects by

We got an amazing chance to give back to the community and help create a video to help promote Missionary Gospel Church's Ministry. It was definitely a fun and inspiring video production project. We spent a few hours planning, a bunch of hours filming and then even more hours editing. Learn more. ...

22 Nov

Posted on November 22, 2012 at 1:49am in Blog, Short Wedding Film, Teaser, Wedding Videography by

Driving to a wedding where we see beautiful rolling hills is amazing. We get excited because we know we will have stunning footage. We know we will have fun creating a wedding teaser! And we know that the wedding film will be simply amazing. At the end of the day when we were packing our bags with a flashlight, we knew 100% that we succeeded in filming that stunning footage. We were the best wedding videographers in Livermore, CA that day!

01 Sep

Posted on September 01, 2012 at 12:51pm in Blog, Wedding Videography by

Online dating is possible (as the Groom says). This couple met on Facebook after the grooms Dad went to Anna’s brothers wedding. He saw Anna and thought that she was pretty enough for his son. So he told Ilya to find Anna online. He did, so he sent her a Facebook friend request. After a small waiting period in Anna’s friend request queue, Ilya was accepted as a friend. Anna noticed a little thing that she liked in Ilya’s photos – Ilya cooking. That was enough for Anna to say yes to a date with Ilya. As you can tell, Ilya got many more dates and of course a YES on his marriage proposal to Anna....

26 Jun

Posted on June 26, 2012 at 12:49am in Blog by

My video career mostly consists of filming weddings but sometimes I get very interesting and spontaneous assignments. In February of this year I got a call from my buddy Vadim who asked me to film a video production (music video) for him and his band called Half Set. The tricky situation was that it had to be filmed and edited within a couple of days. Coca Cola was having a competition for a theme song and Vadim wrote a song to submit into the competition but they required a video so he turned to me for help. I obviously love spontaneous challenges so I accepted the job with no hesitation (even though it sounded unrealistic at the time). I usually film with our team but none of the other guys could help me those days because we had other projects going on so I had a big task ahead of me that I had to do solo...

09 Nov

Posted on November 09, 2011 at 9:56pm in Blog, Wedding Videography by
Our team always tries to guide the couple through their wedding day so that we can get as much footage as we can to create a rich film full with a variety of content. Fortunately, with Vitaliy and Svetlana, this was very easy for us to do. They put their full trust into us and listened to the advice we gave them when we met up with them a few days before the wedding. They told us how they met, their favorite moments together, their experience being engaged and so on. This helped us to get to know them better as a couple and gave us some time to think about what ideas and story line we want to bring out while filming so we'd be able to make the best film possible.

25 Oct

Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:51am in Blog, Teaser, Wedding Videography by
Roman and Natalie's long distance relationship finally ended, and a new, more amazing life together began. Their love for one another was seen throughout the day and there was no mistake that they were meant for each other. Even though they just saw each other only 6 times before their wedding, it felt like they have known each other for forever. Talking to Natalie before the wedding about the video and hearing their story, I got excited and really wanted to film their wedding. And honestly, the excitement didn't fade away. The wedding went smoothly and I saw their story in many aspects of the wedding. I loved that. I believe that every wedding should be portray the love story of the couple that is getting married. And their's was a perfect example. Roman is a Pastor of a young church in New Jersey. Knowing that, I realized that it would be great to start off the video with a Bible verse; a Bible verse that was very special to both Roman and Natalie.

21 Oct

Posted on October 21, 2011 at 5:37pm in Blog, Teaser, Wedding Videography by

This is Nik and Inna. Happy. And this is their wedding teaser.

Well of course, but what's cool is that we love filming weddings! Including this one. When I edited the first version of this teaser, I wasn't to happy. I didn't even want to post it online. So I waited couple days, and pulled off something I love. Totally starting from scratch, choosing a new song, and bringing couple new shots. After completing the teaser version 2, I was satisfied and here it is for you to enjoy. Enjoy and share!