What goes into making a Hummingbird Wedding Film?
Lots of stuff!
As professional Wedding Videographers in Portland, we know that it can be a bit of a mystery of what happens after the wedding film is shot.
From picking the best moments, to choosing music, to editing, to color grading, and more - the video below breaks down everything that happens after the final video is captured.
So check out the video to get a better idea of what happens in the editing process, and use the timestamps and navigation guide at the bottom to skip around to each part of the process :)
Background
For this wedding we traveled to Sou’Wester Lodge, about two hours from Portland. The couple had booked the Complete Wedding package, which gave them two shooters (Susi and myself) and 10 hours of coverage, PERFECT for getting all the moments before the ceremony, and allowing us to capture plenty of great shots of the location.
File Management
After shooting we packed up our gear, drove home, and arrived back in Portland around midnight. At that point, I immediately double check and backup all the footage, saving everything to my editing hard drive, as well as an external hard drive for backup.
Pulling Selects
This si the process of combing through all the footage to find the very best bits. This takes a few hours, but is so helpful for knowing exactly what you have, and I’ll pick out the ones I’m most likely to use in the final edit.
MUSIC!
Typically we choose music with the help of the couple, and will combine any playlists they’ve generated with some of the music used on the day (first dances, aisle walks, dance party soundtrack, etc) to create a custom musical arrangement for the video using 2-5 songs (depending on the package).
Once the music is arranged and laid out, I have a musical template to begin editing and placing my clips.
The EDIT
I think of editing like doing a jigsaw puzzle. First you dump out and flip over all the pieces (pulling selects) then you do the edge pieces (music) to get a good sense of the framework, then you start putting little clusters together, and then some of those start to fit together, and so on…
It can be quite fun, but VERY time consuming. I usually spend 10-20 hours (or two to three work days) just on the editing - making sure that I have chosen all the best clips, and that we’ve represented all the friends and family that the couple wants to see in there.
Color Grading
Once the edit is complete, I go through the whole edit from start to finish, making tweaks to the look and feel of each clip to make sure that each and every one is the correct brightness, contrast, and color.
Sound Design
Now that the video is looking fantastic, I’ll go through the audio to enhance the sound. This could be adding subtle nature sounds when we’re seeing shots outside the venue, adding some subtle crowd sounds when we’re seeing the dinner party, or adding some wind noises when we’re seeing the trees sway. This is usually very subtle (the goal is not to notice it too much) but really helps make you feel like you’re right there.
Ceremony and Speeches
After the Wedding Film is completed, I’ll edit the ceremony and speeches. Depending on the package this can mean editing together two to three cameras, making sure we see all the good reactions and special moments, and adjusting the audio so that everything sounds just right. This usually takes 3-6 ish hours, simply becasue the ceremony and speeches can range from 30 - 60 minutes for each section all together.
Final Touches
Lastly, I’llwatch everything back and make sure it’s all good to go, as well as putting together a little box with the wedding film, ceremony, and toasts on a thumb drive, which we mail to the couple. Once they receive their package, we will also send all files in a digital drive for them to download and share.
Outro
All told, this Complete Wedding Film package took about 30 hours of editing from start to finish. That’s pretty typical for me. You can see from this one that it’s quite long - some of that is due to leaving in big chunks of ceremony, and some special moments with the brides Dad - but we make every wedding film special for the couple, so I’m not beholden to a certain cutoff point. I make what I feel is right, and use all the footage available to tell the story of ther day :)
And that’s all! Thanks so much for reading about our process :)
If you are unfamiliar with Hummingbird Films, we are a couple who make boutique wedding films for Portland, OR and the Pacific Northwest. We specialize in making hand-crafted wedding films that really capture the spirit and the story of each couple we work with.
If you’re interested in learning more about us, always feel free to drop us a line! We’re happpy to answer any questions you may have.