Erica and Mark Wedding Video - Woodwinds Branford, CT

If you have perused my site at all the bride in this video might look familiar. Erica is the face of the Gorilla Grip brand that I do a ton of work for. Which brings me back to what I love about this job, the connections you make. If we hadn’t worked together for years and shared a ton of laughs I can guarantee you I wouldn’t have shot her wedding. It’s also important not to take those connections for granted because I was incredibly happy to be there and humbled that she asked me. Now onto these two…they’re just so great. They’re best friends, they share everything about their life with each other and they are excited to be a part of each others interests. You can see it on their faces how much they just wanted to marry each other.

The wedding itself was a quintessential winter wedding. Christmas trees everywhere, indoor night ceremony with plenty of candle light, tree ornaments as party favors, lanterns for cigar smoking etc. Then there was her dress…what a stunner. A custom wedding dress made my Nova McLaren that was one of the most incredible dresses in the almost decade I’ve been shooting weddings. Erica even commissioned me to make a video just highlighting the dress on the day which is featured underneath their wedding film.

BMPCC at night.

Filming wise this was the first wedding I ever shot using the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and let me tell you it was a treat. Considering it was winter and it was just gray bright skies that is usually the perfect storm for ugly blown out backgrounds everywhere. The dynamic range the camera has captured everything beautifully and the tonal capabilities with colors were just dreamy. Even at night the BMPCC was incredible. I heard mixed reviews about the low light capabilities of the camera and I ended up loving the look of the night time footage. Keeping my ISO to a max of 3200 the color space was still beautiful and hardly any noise in the footage. Even low light kings such as Sony cameras produce noise in situations like the sparkler send off where there is a heavy contrast of darks and lights but I didn’t find there to be a noticeable amount of that at all with this camera.

I can’t thank Erica and Mark enough for having me, I wish them all the best!

Cheers - Will

Will Talamelli - Cinematographer Director DP

Founder/Owner Will Talamelli Films

JANA AND ANDREW'S DOWNTOWN HARTFORD WEDDING AT THE GERSHON BALLROOM

I remember Jana coming into the restaurant we both worked at almost 12 years ago and telling me about this guy Andrew she started dating. Jana and I stayed friends and I've had the pleasure of seeing their entire relationship develop. The firsts, the trips, the milestones etc. I had the privilege to know about all of them! Needless to say I was beyond honored to not only witness their wedding but to capture Jana and Andrew's gorgeous wedding at the Gershon Ballroom!

Cheers you two crazy kids! 

-Will 

JACQUELINE AND JONATHAN'S LONGSHORE WEDDING

For the people that check out my blog who are not in the wedding industry one thing you may not know is the relationship between client and vendor really does vary from couple to couple. Sometimes you know everything about them, sometimes you barely know anything other than the formal interactions over the phone and the rest unfolds on the wedding day. While Jacqueline and I conversed over e-mails and had a couple phone conversations I had no idea that her and Jonathan have a beautiful story of rekindled love over the course of many years. Best friends that lost touch for a moment and then found each other as their partner in love.

Aside from their beautiful story the wedding itself was gorgeous. Stunning flowers everywhere, subtle nautical details, including the "Jacs and Jonathan" glass as a gift. Also, Jacqueline was the star of the show but a very close second was a good boy named "Tank" who let everyone know when the bride was coming! 

Another great wedding in the books at one of my favorite venues in Connecticut. We were honored to be there and wish Jacs and Jonathan a lifetime of good memories. Cheers!

- Will 

ANGELA AND MAX'S BACKYARD WEDDING

I'm not one to pick favorites but I do love a backyard wedding. The videos always have such a personal touch because there has never been a wedding there before and there probably won't be one after. It's a one of kind thing (much like a marriage) and this wedding truly was one of a kind. A beautiful celebration of cultures and traditions from the vows to the food, they both put everything they love about each other into their wedding day. Also, these two couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day and a better team to work with. The wedding was designed by the ladies at Double G Events and they did an incredible job. Aside from making a ceremony site and reception hall in limited space happen the design itself was stunning. I particularly loved the custom napkins from Minted. 

Angela and Max were adorable together all day, sneaking in dance moves wherever they could and they both showed a charming display of affection by speaking in each others first language for the ceremony. Cheers to Angela and Max!

JADE AND MALCOLM WADSWORTH WEDDING

Fun back story, my daughter Adylae (Addy) loves watching my wedding videos. I don't know why but I can only assume it's because a wedding often combines her three favorite things, pretty dresses, big parties and cake. With that in mind Jade is my daughters pre-school teacher and Addy adores her. After watching this video I think most will understand her sentiment. Jade is truly a delightful person to be around, always providing a smile and a lighthearted approach to any situation. As I predicted since completion of this video to this moment in time of blogging I have heard Jade and Malcolm's video in the background of our home dozens of times so far! 

The wedding itself was absolutely stunning! An earthy color palette of cream tones, cool greens with natural wood made for gorgeous details throughout the Wadsworth mansion. Their ceremony was a heartfelt exchange of personally crafted vows for one another in Wadsworth's rose garden which is one of my favorite ceremony cites in Connecticut. There was some nervousness from the wedding party about the weather but I swear to you once the ceremony started the clouds broke and the sun came out. It was incredible, it went from feeling rain on our skin to a mild temperature, beautiful sunny evening. I've done enough yapping, hit play and enjoy Jade and Malcolm's beautiful, rain free wedding at the Wadsworth Mansion! 

Cheers,
Will 

LISA AND SHAWN SOUTH FARMS WEDDING

There are two things you can never control on a wedding day; time and weather. Weather is the tricky one, when the cards are laid out for you it’s easy to plan accordingly. For example, if it is raining, I can mentally prepare for what type of shots I can capture indoors. Or if it is blazing heat I can bring reflectors and diffusors to fend off some of that direct sunlight. Where it gets tricky is that in between, the “is it going to rain.” Nothing is more terrifying than having your cameras set up for an outdoor ceremony and hearing an impending storm in the distance; mentally preparing for what you would do if it started raining.  Needless to say, it didn’t rain but it wasn’t far away. What did happen was some particularly beautiful moody atmosphere for a gorgeous backdrop for an amazing wedding at South Farms in Morris, Connecticut designed by the incomparable Amy Jones of Amy Champagne events.

I had never worked a wedding at South Farms before and I was surely spoiled with this as my first experience. For starters I was working with all my friends, Brooke Allison was the photographer, Amy Jones was the planner, On the Marc was the caterer, Jenn Kinford did the makeup, Carrie Wilcox did the flowers and my favorite New Yorker Kristen Kiraly came through as my second shooter. Big shout out to her for traveling almost three hours to help me out. As mentioned before I think Amy is talented but she outdid herself with this wedding. Everything was so expertly designed it just seemed to flow as an extension of the farm and it’s space.

So the weather held out and was on our side, I had nothing but friends working with me and to top it off I had an adorable story since Lisa and Shawn have two adorable children that they were able to feature in their wedding. Which leads me to my favorite part of this wedding; they did this for themselves on their own terms. They didn’t abide to any traditions of time or order, they did it the way they wanted to when they wanted to. I love that.

So hit play and enjoy the highlight reel of Lisa and Shawn’s South Farm wedding!

Cheers,

Will

Also shout out to The Plumed Serpent for providing her stunning wedding dress by Bliss Monique Lhuillier

B FOR BETTER! A COUPLE TIPS TO CAPTURE BETTER WEDDING B-ROLL

So what is B- Roll exactly? It is all the alternative footage that isn't the main shot. Lets break down some moments from my latest wedding video to show you some b-roll examples and tips to improve your story telling with b-roll. I mean when you deconstruct a modern wedding video they are all basically meditations in b-roll. Even those key moments of the day, like the bride and groom preps are basically b-roll since the ceremony is usually the background audio source making the imagery the main focus but the message secondary. So lets begin.

So in the case of Lauren and Marshal I almost immediately introduce the actual wedding ceremony. So this becomes the main shot, it is the only moment that incorporates the audio with the visuals so by default, no matter how significant other imagery is, until we as viewers leave the ceremony, everything else is b-roll. 

Now this is what we are using to tell our story in a literal sense, this is where they will talk about their history, their love, their future etc. That's our paint and canvas but we need to start painting over here so lets start painting with our b-roll baby!

So in almost every ceremony they discuss the idea of "before." Before the ceremony, the dress, the reception there were two people that fell in love. So we take our viewer back to the before, but in our case its the beginning of the day. Now we introduce some b-roll of everyone getting ready. This is how we really tell the story of the day and display the emotions leading up to our main event, the ceremony. Below are two images only seconds apart but one immediately tells a better story.

Both are flattering shots of our bride, but notice the dress in the bottom one. It's not a huge difference image wise but the story it tells is infinitely better.  So...

TIP 1. USE YOUR ENVIRONMENT TO TELL A BETTER STORY WITH YOUR B-ROLL

The story went from "a woman getting her makeup done" to a "bride getting her makeup done anticipating walking down the isle in her dress."  Be aware of your surroundings, use the architecture, the lines, the symmetry, the "props" (I don't mean to call a wedding dress a prop but it's working as one here). Move stuff around, make the environment the way you want it to look. Clean the room if you have to, It's easy to feel like you are being intrusive when you are starting out but just politely explain that bottles of water everywhere, plastic cups, Starbucks coffee cups all over the place looks terrible. Which leads us to tip 2...

TIP 2. DON'T BE AFRAID TO STAGE SITUATIONS

Who cares if it didn't happen in real time? Don't get caught up with the idea that something is fake if the imagery is believable. You are telling a story, not making a documentary, it's different. Check this out.. 

When the hell would this many grown women sit on a bed smushed in together? Never, thats when. But with a left to right camera movement, a tight lens and a bunch of girls laughing (which I had them do) you have this adorable moment with the bride and her bridesmaids sharing a drink and a laugh...I'm not even sure if anything was in the cups. It's ok to bullshit if the story is good!

or this...

sorry for the blur these are freeze-frames from the video not still images

Cocktail hour isn't very exciting to cover since its mostly people standing, drinking, eating and not wanting to be bothered with a camera since there is probably food in their mouth. I wanted to showcase the food without bothering anybody at the party or do the typical move of waiting until someone grabs something off a tray. So I pulled a server aside and asked if I could follow her into the room but my camera will just focus on the food. It was a great way to showcase the food, the service and to have the video enter the cocktail hour. All planned, all staged, great results. You know whats next folks...third and final tip

TIP 3. SHOOT WITH INTENTION/KNOW WHY YOU ARE HITTING RECORD

This seems simple but it actually takes a good bit of practice to acquire this skill, especially with wedding cinematography.  If someone asked you while you were shooting why you shot something you should always be able to answer them; otherwise you are just wasting hard drive storage. It is so important to collect b-roll with purpose to save storage and the most valuable of all things, time. Why spend hours scrubbing through footage when you can have confidence in the footage acquired because you shot with intention. If you can't picture yourself using it, don't shoot it. I can't tell you how many times a second shooter has given me GB after GB of meaningless garbage that I would never use. Usually all pretty clean, good looking footage but content wise it was useless. Eg. A closeup of a champagne glass or a flower somewhere in the building. Does that tell a story? How does that relate to the couple? It doesn't, so ditch it.  

Alright folks there it is, a couple of tips that hopefully will help spice up your b-roll. Also, I didn't give all my secrets away, within the next month I am doing a workshop based around the idea of creating b-roll to tell a story. Until next time!

-Will 

Also check it out again and keep an eye on the b-roll!

Where should I get married? How about the back yard!

*Disclaimer: I'm an image maker, not a planner. I like making things looks beautiful and telling stories with my camera so take that into consideration when reading anything I write. 

Let's just start with the obvious, not all back yards are created equal, I know, I know. I am being pretty specific here but I think it is worth discussing because a backyard wedding can be something quite spectacular. As an image maker and story teller I love the idea of a backyard wedding, there is just so much history that can be translated by the imagery making for a beautiful wedding day and a gorgeous video. 

Look at this moment... the bride is getting ready in an upstairs room that contains clothing from her childhood years and even her prom dresses. You don't need to know that but you can just sense there is a familiarity in the room. For the viewer it's intimate, it's personal, there is a sense of privilege to be in the room. 

Or this moment, I remember filming this and thinking to myself "I wonder how many times Leslie has looked out that window and how different it is today." 

Which really is one of the greatest attributes to a backyard wedding. That transformation of perspective on an area with so much familiarity. An area that has so many memories gets to add a few more to the list and the normalcy of the location gets a beautiful make over. 

The dress in all its glory!

This is where the imagery does all the talking. I don't need to say anything, look how much story is in that brief moment. 

By no means do I recommend this if you are trying to save money. Hardly, anything that may have been built into the cost of doing business with a venue is lone gone. Everything is now on you and your style but like I've implied before, that is the beauty of it. A backyard wedding can be exactly what you want it to be and is one of the few times I have seen supreme elegance mixed with beach like relaxation. 

You know what? Why don't I stop yapping and showing pictures and just post the video and you can see for yourself. But don't stop there I have one more subject I'd like to discuss. 

Alright so I know what you are thinking? But I don't have a backyard like that and I don't have access to a backyard like that. That's cool, I don't either but if you like the backyard feel check out this next wedding film at Candlelight Farms. It's a gorgeous location thats remote, its intimate its indoor/outdoor and just has that great backyard, feel good. vibe to it.