Now that I’m not teaching, I’ve had more time to expand and look for new projects. One thing I’ve been doing more is charity events. I’ve been reaching out to organizations and trying to get involved. One group that I’ve been working with a lot lately is Souls Harbor. They are a men’s transitional home in Rogers. They help me with addictions get themselves together and get back out into the world. In the past two months, I’ve done photos for a brochure and photos at their gala, but one really cool thing we did is a Souls Harbor Promotional Video.

Souls Harbor Promotional Video

Souls Harbor had a promotional video on their website, but it was kind of outdated. The men can stay for up to a year, but then new people come in. We thought it would be good to capture some of the newer stories.

I shot the video on two different occasions. The first was for interviews. We had 5 guys that agreed to talk to me. I basically asked them about their past, and let them tell their story. There were a wide variety of backgrounds and situations, and it was extremely interesting to listen to. A few weeks later I came back to get footage of the men working and interacting. They are involved in a lot of things such as playing with their kids, working the garden, selling the produce at the market, talking to counselors, and having meetings.

For the video, I mixed the interviews and footage together. I basically had a little bit of video from the interview, but I mainly used the audio from it to narrate the other video. We were aiming to make it short, so I wasn’t able to put everything they said in there. In the future, I think I might make individual videos for each person, and get their whole story out there.

souls harbor promo from Bryan Striegler on Vimeo.

This group has really grown on me, and I’m glad I could make a Souls Harbor Promotional Video. In the future, I’m going to keep finding ways to help out and be a part of their program. They are changing lives and making the world better, and I love that.

I am always looking for new ways to make our wedding films more epic and interesting. In the past few years we’ve added sliders and a flyer, and they’ve added some nice touches to our films. Now I’m looking at taking it to the next level and I’m looking at the DJI Phantom 4 for wedding films. 

DJI Phantom 4 for Wedding Films

If you watch most commercials or any big budget film, you will see some kind of wide high flying shot. This are great for setting the scene and showing off the entire environment. If we purchased a drone, we could use it to capture a high shot of the venue, the ceremony, or the couple interacting. These shots are really impossible without a drone and will separate us from the rest.

The DJI Phantom 4 has some other features that are really interesting. One, it shoots 4k. That’s higher resolution than all of my other cameras, so the quality would be amazing. It also has a feature where it can follow or do circles around something. This would be really cool for a first look or the bride coming down the aisle. Besides that it comes with a remote and you can see what the video looks like on your phone as you go. It also has some built in features that keep it from crashing, which I would need since I’m not an expert.

This would be a pretty big expense if I was only using it for wedding films, but it could also be used in other areas. I know this would take my real estate game up a notch, but I think I could also use this for portraits. Imagine an engagement photo from that high above; that would be awesome. If I can figure out enough ways to use the DJI Phantom 4 for wedding films and other areas, I might pull the trigger and get one. For now, I’m just going to wait and think about it.

Today I got a new toy (piece of equipment) in, and I started thinking back to the first wedding films I created. When I first started off, I had one DSLR, my father’s camcorder, and his not so great microphones. Things have changed a lot since then, but I’m still amazed at how good these early films turned out. Erin and Austin’s Fayetteville wedding at Center Street Church of Christ was one of my first films, and I’m still proud of it.

Fayetteville wedding at Center Street Church of Christ

It’s been over three years since this wedding, and I can still remember many things about it. One thing was how nervous I was. I had played around with my camera and doing video and practiced, but the thought of doing a real wedding scared me a bit.

I was lucky to have a lot of things go right that day and no major, major issues. That might have scared me away from wedding films forever. There were some definite things I should have done differently, but that’s the learning process. You never start off perfect. You keep going and making mistakes and adjusting. I still find myself doing stuff differently at wedding today.

There are a few things that pop out in my mind from this wedding. One, Erin and Austin were extremely nice, just kind people. They were easy to work with and you could tell they were loved. Two, they had some interesting details in their wedding. Austin was a coach, so for the garter toss, he tied it to a basketball and threw it. That was neat. I also loved his cake. It had a superhero person on it. I want to say it was He-Man.

Shooting wedding films is different than doing photography, and I’m glad that it’s come into my world. Erin and Austin’s Fayetteville wedding at Center Street Church of Christ was the beginning of this journey, and it has been a blast since.

Wow, this brings back memories. Unless I am mistaken, this was the first ever Fayetteville wedding video I made. I was really just a wedding photographer at the time, but I was toying around with the idea of doing video. A photographer friend had a couple that was interested and that’s how I got my first wedding video.

Fayetteville Wedding Video: Dorothy and Travis

The fun part of this story is that I actually knew the bride. I grew up going to the same church as her family and our families were pretty close. I didn’t really know Dorothy that well because she was a few years younger, but it was great seeing all of her family there.

We all have to start somewhere and this wedding was definitely a starting point for me. I didn’t have much equipment or experience with doing any of this. I wouldn’t say I was winging it because I had done a bunch of research on everything, but this is for sure not how we do things these days. For what it was, I still think this video turned out great.

I sometimes wonder if I would have continued with video if my first experience had been a bad one. Lucky for me, I was surrounded by great people that day, and they made everything extremely easy and comfortable for me. I’m so glad they helped me our with my first Fayetteville wedding video. Video has become a second love of mine, and they really are to thank for that. Feel free to watch their wedding film, but please remember, this was my first attempt. Thanks!

We’ve decided to offer a special video for senior portraits. It’s something that I don’t think any other photography is doing. We are creating what I like to call our Superstar Senior Films. These films are a personalized short that summarizes the session experience and show how awesome they are.

A Special Video for Senior Portraits

So far I’ve only made one of these, and it was sort of a trial experience. When we shot it, we were aiming more to show off what a session with us was like, so I was in the shoot more than normal. The real video will be focusing on the senior and really aim to create a fun experience.

One cool thing about the video is that it can be shared on Instagram. Most kids these days don’t go to other sites, but Instagram is a really quick and easy way to share it with friends. It also is going to have a photos mixed in, so people will be able to see how their photos turned out as well.

Bailey’s film

I’m really hoping these Superstar Senior Films catch on and everyone wants one. I know I personally would have loved to have something like this back when I was a senior. I will be shooting more soon, and I’ll make sure to post about each one.

It’s almost that time again; time for Crossfit 540’s WOD Wars. This year’s event will be coming up October 29th, so I thought I would finally get around to putting together the WOD Wars 2015 Summary Video. We were there mainly for photos, but I randomly switched things up and would shoot some video here and there. It wasn’t the best video job on my part, but it at least shows off the event.

WOD Wars 2015 Summary Video

The 2015 WOD Wars theme was pretty cool. It was Beasts vs. Ninjas, and they even had the wall painted to match it. The events were position around the strong guys (beasts) and the smaller, more endurance based guys (ninjas), so the teams had to choose carefully who did what.

The place was packed. I don’t know how many people were there, but there really wasn’t much room at all. I bet they sold out the event really quickly. The people and teams were really diverse. You had some that you could tell were really serious about competing, and then some that wore funny outfits and were in it more for the camaraderie.

Out of all the events that I can remember, my favorite involved this structure they made outside. They built this obstacle out of big round PVC pipes. Basically you had to climb over one and then go under the next. This was the end part after running a half mile I believe. I think that would have been my event to excel in.

There’s a possibility I will have a wedding on the 29th and miss WOD Wars 4. If not, I will be there for sure. Crossfit is an interesting world, and the events are just as exciting. Hopefully our WOD Wars 2015 Summary Video will give you a slight glimpse into this awesome event. If you have nothing else going on or do Crossfit, you need to be there for WOD Wars 4.

One nice thing about doing photos and videos is that we can offer our clients the total package. Back in April we shot the first ever Metsquerade charity gala. It is an event to raise awareness and funds for stage four breast cancer. When we first talked with them about covering the event, we only mentioned photos. In the end, I wanted to throw in something bonus so we ended up creating a 2016 Metsquerade video.

2016 Metsquerade Video

My goal was to create a short summary video that they could use to promote their event for next year. Photos are awesome, but there’s something about video that really gets people interested. I think they’ll be able to show this next year and the people that went will remember how much fun it is and the others that see it will want to be part of the excitement.

There were lots of good things for us to film. First of all, the decorations were just gorgeous. I loved how they transformed an ordinary room into something special and I loved the all the colors. The theme of the event was also something special. It was a masquerade, so many people wore masks. There were some really interesting ones out there. Probably the most exciting part of the nights was the auctions. They had so many silent auctions and then some extremely interesting live auctions. My favorite was for the puppy. It was so cute.

I hope this 2016 Metsquerade Video is helpful for the organization. After being at the event and listening to everything, I truly am a believer in the cause and want to help out. I hope they bring us back again next year.

Brides very rarely know what all goes into creating a wedding film, they only see the final product. For a few years I’ve really struggled with the delivery formats for wedding videos. There are a lot of options out there, each with benefits and issues.

Delivery Formats for Wedding Videos

I started off giving my clients DVDs, and I still do this on occasion. The quality is good, but it doesn’t use all the quality that my camera delivers. We shoot is 1080, but unknown to most people, DVDs are in 720. Five or six years ago DVDs were the main media for videos. Since then, technology has advanced. Blu-ray is now the media of choice. I don’t currently own a Blu-ray burner, but I have considered it. Most people now own Blu-ray players, so they would be able to view it. These Blu-rays offer a higher quality video. They are 1080 instead of the 720 of a DVD. I honestly don’t know if I will buy a Blu-ray burner at this point. Technology is advancing once again. There are now 4k cameras and 4k TVs, so Blu-ray might soon be a thing of the past.

There are other options besides Blu-ray and DVD. Digital delivery seems like a pretty good option. With digital files, you can deliver the largest file possible. You don’t have to adjust the file to fit on a Blu-ray or DVD. This means a 4k video stays a 4k video. Now, these files could be sent a few different ways. One easy way would be on a USB flash drive. These things are cheap and can hold a ton. I think a 32gb USB might be around $15. Another option that I might use to deliver them is Dropbox. I can put anything in Dropbox and send a link. The downfall to this is that you have wait on uploads and downloads. With big files, this could be 10 hours or so. Now the last option that I have been using with these others is a video service like Youtube or Vimeo. You can post these videos and multiple people can watch them about anywhere at anytime.

There are many Delivery Formats for Wedding Videos like DVD, Blu-ray, or digital files

Wedding season is going strong and I will be shooting several wedding videos in the next month, so this is something I will need to consider. There are a lot of Delivery Formats for Wedding Videos, and I’ve tried several of them. I guess the real question is what do my clients really want and what works best for me.