So we’ve recieved so many questions about this film, and since we spread a lot of love about our couples via all forms of social media we thought fuck it – for this blog post let’s talk about our craft and pay a bit of tribute to the behind the scenes madness that goes into turning out a film.

 

Behind The Edit //

How epic are Jacqueline & Liam? From the first moment we met them we knew whatever we created for them had to have some swag to it, if only to keep up with how out-there and utterly alive these two are. So here’s a bit of insight to how we go about creating a film for each couple.

Colour // 

Colour is a big deal in film, much like the colouring that goes into your wedding photos it’s a whole individual part of the process and plays a massive roll in how we tell your story. You would rarely have seen a film where the colours weren’t enhanced or changed in post, and for us we spend a full day colour grading any given wedding film.

In particular I wanted this film to look like one giant retro neon sign because to me Jacqueline + Liam are the human version of what a neon sign would look like, so inspiration for the cuts and colouring literally were based off this neon signage they had at their reception (along with the colour palette of their wedding – purple, blue, yellow). I added a lot of blues into the blacks to again enhance that retro feel of the wedding reception and you’ll notice a lot of contrasting colours in shots of Jacqueline and the girls strutting towards camera (the hotel background lighting is bright yellow so enhancing the blue tones gives it that extra punch). 

You might have noticed we black & white shots here and there throughout our films – initially I black & whited a few shots of Jac + Liam’s first dance and realised instead of it looking edgy and rock & roll it just ended up looking too bland compared to the rest of the film, so I decided to go super retro and tint some shots that matched their colour palette and was super stoked to find it looked pretty great (you’ll see the tints fluctuate between blue, magenta, orange and green – the green a little nod to the Irish folk shredding the dance floor). So simply put colour is a great way to translate the couples personality across the screen, so we try new things with colour in each film as much as we can so it really reflects your personality and styling of the day.

Music //

So this last season we’ve decided to hand pick every song ourselves, and it’s been so wonderful with pretty much every bride and groom completely trusting us to pick a killer track for their film (and may I say sourcing music is damn near my favourite part of the process). We source all of our music from The Music Bed and the reasoning behind choosing this particular track was because:
1// I wanted something super alternative with a lot of swagger
2// I wanted a sound we hadn’t used before because this wedding was just so beautifully unique in the colouring the planners had chosen.
3// Jacqueline and Liam have so much personality – so a timid, romantic song was not going to cut the mustard (they themselves mentioned they weren’t typically sappy people and didn’t want anything overly romanticised).

Why this song specifically? We have our couples fill out a music section on a pre-wedding form we give them, asking what music they love / hate / their favourite artists / genres – whatever! These guys had mentioned they loved ‘Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats”. Hadn’t heard of them – looked them up – first song I watched on YouTube by them blew my mind – very gritty, rock/blues sound. I’d already tagged their wedding film song before hearing Nathaniel Ratefliff and was tossing up if they’d be into it, so when I heard Rateliff play I couldn’t believe it was essentially the same sound as the song I’d tagged for them. Awesome. Totally on the same wave length and cemented the song choice in and that was that. The song itself had clapping in it which gave me the inspiration to have actual clapping + tapping on those beats throughout the edit – which I’ve done before but never to that degree, so to say it was fun to create would be an understatement.

For myself nothing is more important than telling a couples story as honestly as possible, and to tell a great story all these elements have to be in sync – the right speeches with the right music, well paced and timed cuts to that music, clear audio and a colour grade that brings together the whole energy and vibe of what that wedding day was, not what we wanted or needed it to be.

So there’s a little insight into how our minds work and hopefully you’ve gathered up some extra knowledge about us!
Xx Grace