Caleb and Lindley’s wedding was amazing. I knew the family from back in the day, so it was a pleasure to be part of it. Their wedding film at Stables on the Hills was one of the first wedding videos I shot and the first time I had been at that venue, so it was special to me.
Wedding Film at Stables on the Hills: Caleb and Lindley
If you’ve never been to the Stables on the Hills, you need to check it out. The venue is located out away from everything on a big plot of land. In the center, you have the stables where the receptions usually take place, and then around that, you have land and areas for horses. It’s a very pretty location.
The thing that sticks out the most for me from this wedding was the personalities. There were so many strong and interesting personalities there. Lindley and the girls were very upbeat and happy, and the guys were just crazy. Lindley’s two brothers were just making me laugh all night long. They were almost like performers for the night. They made jokes and were on the dance floor the entire night. I was entertained the entire time.
Since then, I’ve shot at least one other wedding film at Stables on the Hills, Lauren’s. It’s been several years since Caleb and Lindley’s but I still can remember how crazy and fun that day was.
Oh man, this wedding brings back memories. This was one of the very first wedding films I ever shot, and it had some great personality to it. This was a Star Wars Themed wedding film! Nathan and Sarah were all into those type things, and they showed it in every aspect of the wedding.
Star Wars Themed Wedding Film: Nathan and Sarah
Some of the details have escaped me because it’s been over three years since I shot this video, but I still remember the overall feeling of the day. The wedding was a small one, up at Devil’s Den state park. Up on the mountain, there’s this little pavilion that they rented out. It’s where everything took place. They decorated it with all types of memorabilia and it fit them. There were even Star Wars cookies. This was a laid back day, and the couple was really sweet.
The ceremony had an amazing backdrop. They had the ceremony right at the edge of the drop off, so you could see for miles. The weather was lovely as well, so it all mixed together perfectly.
After the ceremony, everyone just got together and hung out at the pavilion. It was relaxed like the rest of the day. They the Star Wars themed wedding film with nothing less than a lightsaber exit. A perfect way to end the day.
Heather is amazing. That’s about as close as I can come to describing her. I met her several years back when I was shooting her friend’s wedding. She told us that day that we’d be shooting her wedding. I’m so glad I did. Heather’s Wedding Film at Creekwood Gardens is one of my favorites, and she has done so much for me since. It seems like every few months I’m shooting for someone she knows. She has been such a big help!
Heather’s Wedding Film at Creekwood Gardens
The day started out with one of my favorite things, a first look. We had just set up facing the creek and Heather came out and snuck up on him. After that, we spent the next hour of so doing portraits. This was fun because it was my first interaction with the groomsmen. Josh is a bit goofy, and his friends are exactly the same. They would end up being the stars of the show that day.
The ceremony took place on the front lawn by a big tree and by the arbor. It was a hot day. I remember just sweeting constantly, but it was well worth it. It was awesome seeing Heather walk down the aisle and seeing the whole ceremony.
After the ceremony is when things really got going. Heather’s crew knows how to have a good time. There was plenty of partying and dancing the whole night. I was never bored. One really cool thing was that Heather had an ice cream truck show up. That was a first for me. They ended the night in fashion with a glow stick exit and a lantern release.
Since Heather’s Wedding Film at Creekwood Gardens, I have been involved in at least two other weddings that she was connected to and I have another coming up in May. She is an amazing person, and I’m so glad I met her.
We’ve been shooting wedding videos for about 3 years now, and we have shot at several different locations in Northwest Arkansas. Just like with photography, different venues affect the way we shoot. Video is probably affected more by the venue than photography is. For Josh and Misha’s Garden Room wedding video, this was our first time shooting video at that venue, so we had to figure things out.
Josh and Misha’s Garden Room Wedding Video
For the majority of the day, shooting a wedding video isn’t that difficult. We mainly use a camera on a monopod and just move around. It’s good to know the location and the lighting, but that part of the day isn’t really that hard. The real struggle comes in during the ceremony. The ceremony is the more involved situation.
The big issue is finding places to put all of our cameras. During the ceremony we like to have at least 3 cameras go, preferably 4. We like to have to side angle cameras and one shooting down the middle. The side angle ones are usually the ones we have issues with. Some venues have a ton of space on the side, so it’s easy to park two cameras, but some are really tight. The Garden Room’s outside space isn’t really symmetrical, so we had to come up with a unique solution. On the left side, the seats went all the way up to the wall. We ended up just moving a chair and plopping our camera down in about the 3rd row. On the right side, you have a little water area and then another spot. We placed our other camera over on the side. The down the middle camera was pretty easy because there’s a raised porch like area at the back where the DJ was.
I love shooting at different venues and figuring things out. Next time we shoot at the Garden Room we’ll already have an idea of what to do. There are some other ways we could have shot Josh and Misha’s Garden Room Wedding Video, but most likely, we’ll stay with the same set up. Make sure to check out the film.
Being involved in weddings is a big deal. You are there on an extremely special day, and people are expecting you to do certain things. I’ve always taken weddings very seriously, and I there’s even an extra level of pressure when the bride and groom are someone you know. Lauren Floyd and her family are friends with my parents, so I was thrilled to create their wedding film at St. Anthony’s on the creek.
Lauren’s Wedding Film at St. Anthony’s on the Creek
We shot photos and videos for Lauren, so it was quite the crowd. There were two photographers, one videographer, and all of our equipment. I think we might have taken up an entire row by ourselves. The biggest challenge we ran into was the ceremony, which is normal because it requires the most gear. The chapel at St. Anthony’s is beautiful but not very wide. This can make placing side cameras a bit of a struggle. Luckily, there’s a small gap near the wall on the front pews where we could fit a tripod.
This was quite the day. There were lots of emotions, a surprise dance, and some funny speeches. The groom, Chris, was especially emotional as Lauren walked down the aisle. I was able to capture some really great shots of him over the father’s shoulder. The father/daughter dance was also great. In the middle of the dance, the music changed to something new and upbeat and the father of the bride started breaking out his best dance move. One other thing that stuck out was a speech made by the mother of the groom. The room was divided into University of Arkansas and Ole Miss fans with the mother and groom falling on the Ole Miss side. The mother started talking about how she always dreamed about the girl for her son… then she ended it by saying, but I never thought he’d marry a hog. If you don’t get it, you’re not from Arkansas.
The day was special for a lot of reasons, but one big one is that we were connected to this family. My mom was actually at the ceremony and this was the first time she has ever seen me work. I’m glad I was part of Lauren’s Wedding Film at St. Anthony’s on the Creek. There was some pressure there, but it was all worth it.
Welcome to 2017! I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for around 3 years now. I still remember when I got my first DSLR that did video and trying to figure out everything. We’ve made some big changes over the years, and we are still trying to improve. With that, we do have some changes for our Arkansas wedding films this coming year.
Changes for Our Arkansas Wedding Films
Our biggest changes for 2017 will be what we are offering our clients. In the past we offered 3 different videos: ceremony, movie trailer, and cinematic. I think all three are great options, but the movie trailer and the cinematic were pretty similar. With that, we are now simplifying things by only offering the cinematic and the ceremony videos in our packages. The second thing is how we are delivering our products. Before we were either giving people a DVD or sending them a file. Now most people have a Blu-Ray player, so we will be upgrading to Blu-Rays this year, which is great because it’s a higher quality video than DVD. Instead of sending files, we are now going to deliver custom USB drives to our clients.
Like always, I’m still wanting to improve our videos. One thing that I’d really like to do is create more motion in our videos. It just adds something interesting and special to the videos. There are two ways I plan on doing that: a slider and a glidecam. I’ve been using both of these last year, but not enough. I want this to be a regular thing. To do that, I’ll probably need to prepare more. It takes time to set up these shots, and to get that, I’ll need to communicate with the couple to make sure this happens.
I love shooting Arkansas wedding films. It’s such a nice thing to compliment my photography. I’ve looking forward to 2017, and I hope to be shooting a lot of video this year.
Every year I have an unexpected wedding pop up. Sometimes I find out a few months in advance and other times it might be close to a month. Rick contacted me about a month before his wedding, and I’m glad he did. I did some really brief photography for him, but the major portion of my job was creating his Fayetteville Ceremony Video.
Rick and Sydney Fayetteville Ceremony Video
This was a second wedding for both Rick and Sydney, so they weren’t making it a giant thing. Rick mainly wanted a few quick portraits from me and then a ceremony video.
Things worked out pretty well for the video. The church was wide open, so I was able to put cameras on the sides where I wanted them and one in the back. Then I just went around with another camera getting different angles.
It’s amazing how much I can learn about someone in such a short time. This was the first time I met Rick in person, but we got to have a really nice conversation. I learned about his experiences with photography and his past jobs. I also found out that the flower girl (a grand daughter) has the same name as my son. Pretty cool. This was a fun little wedding, and I’m really glad I got to be part of it and help create their Rick and Sydney Fayetteville Ceremony Video.
I love going back and looking at all the wedding films I’ve made over the years. We’ve been doing wedding films for over three years now. When I first started off, I looked for any chance to be involved with a wedding. I was so excited to be able to help out Molly and Scott with their Mount Sequoyah wedding film.
Mount Sequoyah is located at the top of Fayetteville and it’s a retreat center. It has a lovely outside seated area for ceremony, and lucky for us, it was a beautiful day. There are trees over the seated area, so the light filters through the trees instead of being really harsh.
I still remember how fun this group was. There were a lot of people in the bridal party and they were all very energetic. After the ceremony, we spent a lot of time with photographer as they did group photos. It was fun seeing it all and capturing the interactions.
The reception was at the Garden Room off of Dickson Street. I only stayed around for the first dance, and it was beautiful. Thinking back on it, I wish I would have stayed around to capture more of the night. I’m sure things were just as amazing as the rest of the day.
I’m still managing to get caught up blogging about all the past wedding films we’ve created. This website is only a few months old, so it’s kind of hard to cover three years of videos in a short amount of time. I did enjoy going back and looking at Molly and Scott’s Mount Sequoyah Wedding Film, so maybe I’ll be motivated to blog more often in the future.
Caroline and Jerry’s Fayetteville Town Center wedding film was a special one for me. Caroline went to Fayetteville High and was really good friends with my cousin, so it was special to be a part of her big day.
Fayetteville Town Center Wedding Film
The whole day took place at the Fayetteville Town Center, so we really didn’t have to travel very far. Right outside, we had a first look on the Square, and then we proceeded to get ready for the ceremony. The Town Center basically has big plain rooms, but they did an amazing job transforming it. After the ceremony they did it again. Everyone went out into the foyer, and they completely flipped it for the reception. They had created a large dance floor and had each part of the room separated with these big flowing sheets hanging from the ceiling. It was an amazing job. One thing that was really different was they had a live band playing; you hardly ever see that anymore.
This was a fun day. I got to see some people from high school and I got to hang out with a really chill group. Their Fayetteville Town Center wedding film turned out beautifully, and I hope they love it as much as I do.
When we are shooting wedding ceremonies, we will usually have 4 cameras going at once. One of these is shooting down the aisle, one is roaming getting different detail shots, and two are on the side. Besides that being a lot of bodies, it’s really a lot of lenses to have. We never know how close our side shots will be, so we have to own a variety of lengths to cover it. For the past few years, we’ve been using some older, cheaper lenses to get the job done. They’ve worked well, but they aren’t the best option out there. I just recently bought a new lens, and now I’m using the Rokinon 135mm f2 for video.
Rokinon 135mm f2 for Video
Rokinon has been in the lens game for a while now, and they have quickly become a high quality, cheaper option for people. I’ve stayed away from them in the past for a few different reasons, but all the good reviews out there finally got me to go get one.
I decided to start out with the Rokinon 135mm for a few reasons. One, our side shots are usually further away, so we usually need a long lens for it. I own some cheaper long lenses, but I just didn’t like the quality of image I was getting. I also already own some good medium lenses, so I didn’t think I needed to replace those.
Build Quality
This is a heavy duty lens. When you pick it up, you can feel it. It feels like a solid piece of metal. It should be able to take some abuse and still keep up. The aperture ring rotates easily and you can feel a definite click in between each stop. This is good because the aperture ring is the only way to adjust the aperture. The glass is big and thick, like the best professional lenses out there. Overall, it looks and feels like a winner.
Performance
Performance is what matters in the end. Like I said earlier, this lens is heavy, so be prepared to use it on a tripod. I don’t think there’s any real way to use it for video by hand or even on a monopod and get smooth video. It’s a manual focus lens only, so that might scare a small portion of people, but if you’re doing video with a DSLR, you pretty much expect to be manually focusing. The focus ring is tighter than what I am use to with my Nikon lenses. It still works fine, but it might take you longer to get to the right spot. The lens is sharp, and I love the image quality that I’m getting with it.
Overall Feelings
Overall I’m really happy with my purchase, and I’m excited to use the Rokinon 135mm for video in the future. The lens is really cheap compared to the big brand version. The Nikon version is around $1000, but I got my Rokinon version used for around $300 I believe. I honestly believe the end results will be very close to what I would get from the more expensive lens. Now that I’ve finally got into the Rokinon world, I will probably be buying more of their lenses to supplement what I currently have.
