Putting story first. (part two)

In sim­plest terms, a sto­ry is com­posed of a begin­ning, a mid­dle, and an end. By this def­i­n­i­tion, open­ing a gift is a sto­ry­line, just like get­ting into a dress, or a first look can be one as well. The key is to iden­ti­fy which sto­ry­lines are impor­tant to fol­low and which ones say some­thing about the peo­ple we’re film­ing. We could spend a whole wed­ding day run­ning around, try­ing to cap­ture every sin­gle thing, rel­e­vant or not, and get a lot of mediocre shots of every sin­gle thing that’s hap­pen­ing — or we can get to know our cou­ple, iden­ti­fy what’s impor­tant for them to relive and what parts of their day will tell their sto­ry best, plan ahead of time, and get some beau­ti­ful, mean­ing­ful imagery.

We whole­heart­ed­ly believe in the lat­ter approach, and know that all our cou­ples will back us up when we say that the result is a beau­ti­ful film with a strong nar­ra­tive and tight­ly inte­grat­ed storylines.

So, What Does This Approach Look Like?

The way a final film comes togeth­er is the result of a process that starts from the very first e‑mail cor­re­spon­dence and con­tin­ues until the bride and groom hit the dance floor on the night of their wed­ding. Every­thing a cou­ple shares with us with­in that time-frame shapes our process and, in turn, the sto­ry­lines we fol­low on their day.

So, what does this look like? Let’s dis­sect the slice of beau­ty that is Nicole and Lee’s wed­ding film. Theirs is anoth­er exam­ple of all the dif­fer­ent types of one things inter­weav­ing togeth­er to tell an amaz­ing story.

It was­n’t until a week before the wed­ding day, when we grabbed break­fast with Nicole and Lee, that Nicole told us (after Lee had to rush off to work) of their desire to doc­u­ment their love sto­ry togeth­er. She had com­piled every sin­gle cor­re­spon­dence they had shared — from their first text mes­sages, to e‑mails, to face­book mes­sages — and writ­ten them into a jour­nal. This was to be a gift for Lee, and she told us she had an inkling that he would do the same. Have we men­tioned that they’re per­fect for each other?

Nicole and Lee’s sto­ry was, well, their sto­ry! We decid­ed that, going into their day, this would be the prin­ci­pal nar­ra­tive. But we actu­al­ly had anoth­er sto­ry to focus on. The cou­ple had metic­u­lous­ly designed and built every detail that dec­o­rat­ed their recep­tion. We were in awe when we first arrived at the Bauer Kitchen and got a glimpse at what Nicole and Lee had humbly under­played when talk­ing to us- wood­en coast­ers that Lee had cut and fin­ished him­self, wire table num­bers beau­ti­ful­ly hand­craft­ed by Nicole, signs, chalk­boards and box­es all picked out or assem­bled by the cou­ple. The highly-personal touch­es were some­thing we want­ed to fol­low, so after the cer­e­mo­ny, we head­ed to the restau­rant to film the brides­maids arrang­ing and lay­ing out all of these hand­craft­ed pieces. We want­ed a way to com­bine, or at least tran­si­tion between, these two nar­ra­tives. That was the last piece of the puz­zle to come togeth­er, so we’ll come back to that in a second.

Not every detail a cou­ple shares with us war­rants a sto­ry­line, some­times it affects how we decide to shoot a part of the day. Nicole and Lee told us they want­ed to avoid a first look to make the walk down the aisle all the more spe­cial. We liked the tra­di­tion­al approach and thought that, just like a first look calls for plan­ning and shot-listing, so should this. We decid­ed that we did­n’t want to fully-reveal Nicole in her dress until she had walked down the aisle. The audi­ence sees close-up shots as she gets ready, a mid-profile from behind, maybe a glimpse through the brides­maids or her feet walk­ing into the church, but we nev­er reveal a full pro­file until she has walked down the aisle, which we cut togeth­er with her com­ing down the stairs to see her grand­ma (whose own love sto­ry inspired Nicole and Lee’s desire to chron­i­cle their own).

This is the part we love: when all the sto­ry­lines start com­ing togeth­er, shap­ing one anoth­er, and tran­si­tion­ing seam­less­ly between themes and ideas.

Remem­ber when we said we want­ed a way to com­bine the sto­ry­book theme with the brides­maids set­ting up the pieces Nicole and Lee had put togeth­er for their recep­tion? Well, close to the end of the night, the maids of hon­our gave their speech, and it was per­fect. It spoke of the cou­ples’ desire to tell the great­est sto­ry ever told to their grand­chil­dren, and was filled with sto­ry­book themes and metaphors. We knew as we were film­ing it, we had the per­fect nar­ra­tive back­drop for their film.

Watch the fin­ished prod­uct below!

We do this because we love it.

It’s as sim­ple as that. We come from a film­mak­ing back­ground — long and short-form works of fic­tion have always been a pas­sion of ours. If we made wed­ding films that fol­lowed a more con­ven­tion­al approach, we would not only be dis­ap­point­ed by our work, but we just would­n’t enjoy what we do.

Instead, our story-driven approach keeps us on our feet — it keeps us engaged with each sto­ry we’re telling and con­stant­ly push­es us to find new ways to tell them cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly. We’re build­ing long-lasting friend­ships with some pret­ty amaz­ing peo­ple, all while mak­ing a film about the most impor­tant day of their lives. It’s a thought that con­stant­ly inspires us. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and to not tell the sto­ry right is to let down our­selves, and our friends.