Hey guys! So I have a question about your business.  I run a small videography company in Nashville TN and employee 4 people on a regular basis (4 – 6 weddings a month).  I am in partnership with one of these people but the others are just shooters.  All are friends.  My question is how do you decide how much each person makes from a wedding?  I do all the editing, branding, and find most of the weddings but will send teams out to shoot weddings.  I find myself in awkward conversations often with shooters that think they should get more than $200 for a 9 hour shoot.  We are working our way up in pricing and its working but I still cant afford to pay the bills and pay more for my shooters.  How did you guys start? – Kappel

hey Kappel,

first and foremost your business needs to be profitable, if it isn’t then it won’t grow and can’t be sustainable. profitable means that you are paying for the time involved (including yours), a pro-rated portion for the gear needed, and there is still something left. the challenge with a wedding is that the post involved is often quite lengthy and that can bring a cost that rivals the production. even though you do it in this case, it needs to have a value assigned and that would be something that goes to you with profit again being in addition to all of this.

we can make a basic formula to give you a rough idea of how to break things down as your rates change. let’s assume you have 2 shooters for a wedding. post is less stressful and needs less gear but it also requires more time than production, so let’s add that in at twice the value as the shooting. we need to have some room for gear (consider renting from our friends at lensprotogo to get great tools when you need them without going into debt early on) as well as the overhead needed, let’s put that in as a quarter of shooting rate.these are guesstimates based on your just started out, and not having as much gear and overhead but please adjust as you see fit. lastly, let’s leave some room for profit so you can continue to grow and be sustainable.

Click to continue…

“Ok so I have a friend….he just graduated with a BA and is doing some video production work full time with a local production company and really has a passion for cinematography.  Film school right? O wait….he’s already 40K+ in the hole. Any and all advice for my friend, who I know very well, would be very much appreciated. Cheers!”

1. research what’s out there, find something you love, and make a plead to help.

there are many different styles of filmmaking and many different studios out there. take a look at whats around and see if you can find somebody in your area that is doing things you really connect with. from there you can try calling, emailing, showing up in person – doing what you need to do to get a chance. there is an incredible amount that can be learned if you are in the right environment but the key is being ready for it and taking everything in. now this is incredibly important, the majority of learning is on your shoulders. look at everything around you, ask questions of yourself and others, be relentlessly curious. we’ve had people come in and intern and learn only in a way that directly related to what they did and how they helped while we’ve had others that have come in and soaked up everything around, putting their learning years ahead. remember that everybody will experience the same event in their own way, try and find as many ways as possible to make your experience as powerful as possible.

Click to continue…

in all the years of filming weddings, this one was my first that i attended as a guest. I grew up with Nygel back in Midland, Ontario. we’ve always been very close friends. there were times he lived at our house and we’de play video games (the good old days of Sega Master System) through the night in the fort out back with an extension cord being the only thing connecting us to the rest of the world. growing up in Canada, road hockey was a favorite year round. it was very special to be able to take the day and share it with Amanda and Nygel as a guest, to be in the wedding party and really take things in from the other side. i won’t say it wasn’t tough seeing Ray, Joyce, Paul, and Evan shooting and not wanting to grab a camera. there were even a couple moments i couldn’t resist and had to share some ideas or see how things were going.

Click to continue…


Been thinking about using a jib in company profile videos. What do you see the role of a jib in a story telling aspect? Feel like I’m doing it just cause its ‘cool’ and don’t necessarily wanna go down that path if it doesn’t enhance the story.

whenever we are looking at camera movement, we start with one fundamental idea; how you move your camera is how you move your audience. you can make your audience feel steady and still with a tripod or you make them feel energetic by adding a steadicam and running alongside your characters. so with that, what does a crane or jib add to your story?

when we think of a crane move, most people first think of the vertical rise or fall, which is definitely a strong move and a big part of what a crane can offer, but it can also do so much more. you can keep the camera low to the ground and use it to sweep in. or you can get even more complicated and use all three axis to bring the camera up/down, in/out, and left/right. all of these options you can do with a crane add up to let you as the storyteller say some pretty powerful things. here are a couple of the biggest storytelling implications when you use a crane:

production value // the giant sweeping moves of a crane or jib add a certain level of production value. what does production value mean?

Click to continue…

we’ve got news, and the good stuff at that. it’s been a challenge in getting the last 10% of SMAPP but we remain just as excited as ever, perhaps even more so as we move ahead and make SMAPP even stronger. what was holding us back was how SMAPP was performing and how quick it would respond in the field, away from any cell service or wifi. we’ve always envisioned SMAPP to be most valuable in the field, but in order to make that a practical option, it needed to be just as snappy anywhere you wanted to use it. aside from some small glitches, this was our major road block. until now, that is. just this past week we hit a major breakthrough in what was missing. it means a couple portions will need to be redeveloped on a different platform, but we have a very aggressive schedule in place and we are taking this extra time to take SMAPP three steps further.

Click to continue…