In a few short years we went from 40-50 weddings to working for a bunch of really cool companies on TV features, documentaries, and even some amazing things like an Olympic campaign and the Superbowl.

How did we make that leap?

What tricks and mindsets helped make our transition quicker and more smooth?

Throughout KNOW, at nearly every stop, we got several questions about how we made the move from weddings to commercial work. Our story of the NFL seeing a wedding film on Vimeo makes for quite the story, but it certainly doesn’t act as useful advice to rest your hopes on.

We want to break down our transition into commercial work and make this tangible. Something you can apply immediately to your work if you find yourself wanting to make the same transistion.

Even if you aren’t working in only weddings, these lessons continue to help us push our work forward – and expose us to even larger stages (we still use these lessons in our non-wedding work).

Here is our ‘secret sauce’ if you will, about how to use your background in weddings to gain traction and get clients in the commercial world.

Key #1:  Make Wedding Films for the World, Not your Couple

From the beginning of Stillmotion, we’ve always said that we try to make wedding films interesting enough you could show the mailman.

We’ve seen many people fall into traps where they let the stigma of wedding videos get to them and they lower their standards, or they aim most of their creative vision at trying to please the couple.

So many times we’ve been asked to offer feedback on a clip and when we ask ‘why’ a certain decision was made the answer, all too often, is something along the lines of ‘the bride asked for that’ or ‘they’ll be upset and ask me to change it if i didn’t include that’.

We like to say, as harsh as it sounds, forget the couple.

If you can make a film strong enough to keep a stranger’s interest, then the couple and their family will surely love it.

When we say “stranger” we do not just mean other soon-to-be-married brides (stop making films for brides altogether).

If you aren’t making a film for brides, how do we then justify hanging the dress in the window or rolling the rings on a table? Try showing that to somebody without the context of it being a wedding film and see just how quickly they get confused or bored.

In making this clear choice to tell a story above all else, all of a sudden the fluff falls away and we need to find something deeper and more meaningful to drive our film.

Said in another way, showing you can make a good film about the wedding day says you can cover an event.

Making a strong film about who two people are shows that you can tell a story.

If you can tell a story about people that is interesting to more than just the bride and groom, you’ve developed a strong sense of story for other genres of filmmaking.

And, in the end, your couples will be blown away by your work when it stays true to their actual story – and not just a play-by-play of their wedding day…

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To this day, I still remember the little white box that changed everything.

It was several years ago, but I remember exactly where I was when the delivery man showed up outside our makeshift studio.

Inside the box? Two EOS 7Ds – pre-production cameras, that Canon had graciously sent us to test out in the field.

It was those cameras and that opportunity that pushed us to shoot JC and Esther’s wedding film on way too short of notice, with the most basic of crew. It was just me, two cameras, and 4 lenses – but I had a mission to make the most of our time with JC and Esther and to put these new pre-production cameras to the best possible use.

Because my resources were so limited, I couldn’t possibly shoot everything.

At first that felt like a negative, but I quickly realized that it was a massive liberation. I had an excuse to skip everything I didn’t want to cover and could very easily pick and choose just those things that I wanted to focus the story on. As the film was a free offering to them and rather improv due to the pre-production cameras, there was no bride offering suggestions on what should be covered and there was no pressure of exactly what needed to be delivered.

By having a situation where less was being asked of me, I was able to do more than I ever had before.

That film is the same one that, when put online, went viral and wracked up over 200,000 views (for a last minute wedding film).

One of those people who viewed that film was employed by the NFL.

That one view changed the entire trajectory of Stillmotion and started our relationship shooting for the NFL. Our work on the football field led to contacts at CBS, our work with CBS led us to the Emmy’s.

That little white box, my decision to shoot that wedding, and how we approached it, has sparked momentum for us that still hasn’t stopped.

While you may not be lucky enough to find yourself in a situation with pre-production cameras, volunteering to do a film, and blessed with absolutely no restrictions, there are several ways you can go about getting yourself more creative freedom on your shoot.

More creative freedom ultimately means you can tell the stories you want, and if we are any example, that can lead to some pretty special opportunities.

Had we shot JC and Esther without this creative freedom, even with double the crew and resources, there is a very likely chance the NFL never would have seen it.

Flash forward in time to this year…

We’d recently been approached to make a Kickstarter film for a team who had created a pretty remarkable innovation for your iPhone. They had found a way to use the light on the phone to illuminate your finger, then the camera would detect the shade of red in your lit finger, and from that would come up with a close estimate of your heart rate.

An iPhone app that feels the pulse of your heart.

That in itself is pretty nifty, but they went one step further – they used an algorithm they had built earlier that could take this biometric data and turn it into composed music on the fly.

An iPhone app that feels the pulse of your heart… and turns it into music for you.

Woah.

They called their concept BioBeats and their team was spread across the globe with Nadeem and Sandeep in San Fran, Davide in Pisa, Italy, and David in London, England. From the first phone call, we knew we wanted to tell their story by visiting each one of them.

Visiting each member would allow us to tell this story in the way we KNEW it should be told – but was a rather expensive proposition, something much bigger in scope than they had originally thought when they approached us.

Do we compromise on the story?

Do we wait until additional funds can be raised and allocated?

Neither was a great option. This story deserved to be told right – and deserved to be told now!

We were stuck…

…and then the phone rang.

It was Canon again.

As many of you may have noticed, when Canon releases a new camera they often work with filmmakers to have a piece created with that camera. It serves as a testament to whats possible and gives Canon some real-world footage from their new creation. Win-win!

Canon wanted to know if we were interested in submitting concepts to make a film as part of their C100 launch plans.

There was only one problem…

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In a BCG team meeting with Joyce, Ray, P., and the 1DC.

 

Recently we got a call from our agency friends at Carbone Smolan Agency. They were working on a film for a group of management consultants called the Boston Consulting Group.

Our first thought was, “What the heck is a management consultant?”

Turns out their teams come in and consult on large, complex decisions that corporations around the world may need to make. Think mergers, expansions, cost cutting, policy, and so many other things where an outside, experienced point of view would be vital.

BCG needed a well produced, impactful recruitment film that would get across everything that their research had illuminated.

That’s why they were on the phone with us.

The Carbone Smolan Agency would handle the research phase of the project and come up with clear objectives for the film. From there they wanted us to help build a narrative that effectively got these across in an understandable, smooth, and impactful way.

We were up for the challenge!

As we started to plan out what gear and camera we would need, they gave us more information about what they had in mind.

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why do you shoot?

take a second and really think about it.

what’s the real reason, deep down, that you love to shoot?

me?

sure, i shoot to tell stories. i shoot to empower people. i shoot to bring events, people, and places alive like no one could have imagined.

but there’s a more selfish reason i shoot. a deeper reason.

i shoot for the memories.

you know exactly what I’m talking about. the memories you can share with your family and friends. the memories that make you come alive and feel unstoppable. the memories you look back on a decade later and relive.

as storytellers, photographers, and cinematographers, we love helping, inspiring, and sharing stories with others. we get a thrill from putting other people’s details, nuances, and values ahead of our own. the time we devote to this is what makes a deep story.

but i’m also here to let you in on a little secret. it’s ok to be selfish.

it’s ok to shoot for yourself… to shoot for your own memories, too.

take my shoot for the NFL for example.  i got to fly on the New Orleans Saints team charter as the only media person. that’s correct. the only media person flying with the Saints on one of the biggest flights of their lives.

i remember vividly the conversations the players had with each other. when they conversed with each other it was one big celebration, laughing, joking, even singing.

but whenever the players would sit by themselves, I could see the nervousness start to show, despite their attempts to hide it. they had trained their whole lives for this… and there I was… a witness in awe.

i remember the police escort that would await us as landed to make sure we made it safely to the hotel. i had never had a police escort before, but i promised myself to have more in the future. :)

the next day they got to meet President Obama (for winning the Superbowl) inside the White House. i can remember the feeling of the plastic from my Z-Finder pressed against my eye as Obama walked into the media room. the room looked much bigger through the 14mm lens i had on and when i pulled my eye away, there was the full Saints team and the president less than 10′ away. i’de never pull my eye off a Z-Finder in the middle of a shot normally but something in me just twitched and i had to make sure this was all real.

the President of the United States… 10 feet in front of me… smiling.

flash back to the halftime show during the Superbowl that brought them, and me, here. the Black Eyed Peas are ready to take the stage.

a massive blacklight was the only source of illumination in a massive Dallas Cowboys stadium. surrounding the stage was hundreds of dancers covered in white from head to toe. the blacklight played with the dancers to create a glow across the stadium unlike anything i’de ever seen before.

all the sudden, i started running onto the field. i wasn’t suppose to be on the field, i didn’t have credentials. but there i was, running, shooting, capturing the moment.

a few seconds later, it hits me… i’m on the field of the Superbowl.

i’m on the field of the Superbowl.

what happened next though, i hadn’t planned for.

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those who have been to Whistler in Vancouver, Canada know just how stunning of a backdrop it is. for Cath and Kevin, it was also a place with great significance. Vancouver, nature, and hiking all mean a ton to both of them. Kevin, as you’ll learn in the film, proposed to Cath while on a hike with the family. proposing with family around isn’t the most conventional way to do it, but it certainly is their way to do it. on the wedding day, Kevin’s sister officiated the wedding and it provided such an interesting twist for us to have the officiant getting ready with the family, helping with the vows, and discussing what she wanted to say at the ceremony.

Cath and Kevin had just flown in from Hong Kong and we gathered in the living room of their rental cottage a couple days before the wedding. Cath mentioned how you rarely look up in Hong Kong and that the Whistler was so inspiring that you were always looking up. she wanted to take her friends and family on a hike the day before the wedding so they could really experience Whistler and take it all in. we knew that hiking played a large role in their relationship so of course we would need to join in on the hiking adventure.

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