I’ve had the current president and two prior ones attend the same wedding ceremony we were shooting. I’ve had one of the most (if not the most) famous young actress in the country as a bride. We’ve also had our share of the sons of Taipans and future Taipans as well.

But perhaps the single most recognizable personality worldwide who has attended a wedding we shot would be internationally famous chef and TV personality Mario Batali.

I know, I know some of you may not even know him or argue that he’s not a real celebrity, but still.

Mr. Batali happened to be the best man of the groom and showed up spiffy in a barong and his renowned orange shoes.

More than the fact the he actually flew in to attend the wedding, it was how the wait staff of the Makati Shangri-la reacted to his attendance.

Parang mga hilong talilong.

Everybody was running around, making everything perfect. There were several head waiters and lesser drones who couldn’t care less if they spilled the soup onto a guest. I’ve never seen so much precision in aligning cutlery. The setup crew simulated land surveyors, checking if everything is straight and parallel. (It didn’t hurt that the groom was the former GM of the Mandarin). Wasn’t able to taste the food that night of course. We had adobo.

You could feel the tension in the air. Our president didn’t deserve this much attention, Mario Batali did. It was like the entire personnell from the GM down to the waiters were under scrutiny on the finals of Iron Chef, waiting for Mario’s verdict.

My biggest regret? Not having the guts enough to approach him and ask for a picture together. He soon slid away and didn’t stay for the dancing. Perhaps to check out what else Manila has to offer besides the usual (pedestrian?) stuff a five star hotel has to?

Here’s the MTV from two years ago.

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And they said it couldn’t be done. So-not-cool profession gets featured in a fasion mag. Who woud’ve thunk it?

The May 2006 issue of Mega Magazine devotes a page to your humble pinoyvideomaker. I think it’s my favorite interview to date. No bull - “Wedding videography is not a stepping stone (to other forms of videomaking ), It’s an end-all and be-all for me.”

Here’s the full article.

Enjoy my fifteen minutes.

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I make a living by being behind a camera all day long.
I spend my vacation behind a different kind of camera all day long.

Pathetic but fulfilling :-).

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Okay so the photographers charge more than us, clients almost always book us last and the general public still think that the “wonder woman” shot is still part of our repertoire. Makes you just want to become a makeup artist eh? But there is hope…

First, we better be good at what we do. Not just good - good, but crazy-a** m*ther-frackin’ GOOD! We gotta show the photogs, the clients and the rest of the country that we’re no pushovers. We got to spread the word that wedding videos have evolved and in no way resembles our parents’ videos. That it is no longer “baduy” or cheesy to get a wedding videographer. That video is a totally separate creative medium by which to preserve memories.

It’s the best time to create and deliver beautiful wedding videos if you want your videography business to last. The same couples we are delivering to right now will be the same parents who will have kids getting married the next time around. If they had a spectacular video now, they would insist the same for their kids when the time comes - guaranteed. I don’t know about you but what I do is no hobby nor past time. I would want this business to run far longer than my lifetime.

Next, we have to learn how to value our time. Plain and simple math - no. of hours shooting + no. of hours capturing + no. of hours editing and dvd authoring divided by how much you charge equals the rate you pay yourself per hour. So, is it worth it? Equipment and overhead costs aren’t even included yet. The easiest advice to give is raise your prices. But I can understand the apprehension in making such a “bold” move. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. It’s scary yes, but if you have a product born out of passion and you know in your gut deserves more than what you’re charging, it’s time.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to go head to head with the big studios. If they are charging X amount for their wedding videos. Don’t be afraid to charge higher for a much better product. The substandard quality and low price range was the norm before. It shouldn’t be the case now.

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It’s always been part of shop talk when the videoguys get together - why do videographers charge so low vis a vis our photographer bretheren?

The equipment costs are as much if not much more than still camera equipment. The skill level to produce a great video is tremendous. But my main beef is that it takes so much more TIME to conceptualize, shoot and edit a wedding video than to create a wedding album. As professionals who render services, don’t we all charge based on the amount of time we spend on a project? Since we charge significantly less than photographers does that mean we value our time less than them? I’d like to think otherwise but the current state of affairs proves so.

One thing going against wedding videographers is history. Photography has been around for so long that people have come to respect it as an artform and the accepted standard for preserving memories of the wedding day. Compare that to the very young medium of digital video which was spawned a mere decade ago.

And thanks to our early analog forefathers, the perception of a wedding video as cheesy, amateurish and ultimately unnecessary still lingers. Admit it - how many times has a bride told you she doesn’t want a video resembling that of her parents? How’s that for a stigma passed on to the next generation?

Of no help too are the “studios” who consistently package wedding videos at a ridiculously low price point so that clients will take their pitch for their photo packages hook line and sinker.

That said, what does the hapless wedding videographer do? Stay tuned.

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