Wedding Videography Styles
There are two principal styles used by wedding videographers: the traditional ‘documentary’ style, and ‘cinematic’.
Traditional, documentary style is normally a recording of the wedding exactly how it happens, in chronological order, using continuous shooting, and then usually edited into a long video with few cuts. They often show the entire mass and speeches, and the editing style is generally quite simple. There is less creativity involved in the filming and editing. The role of the ‘traditional’ wedding videographer is more to document the day. The videographer will usually be unobtrusive, working in the background.
Cinematic style on the other hand, is more sophisticated, creative, and artistic, than traditional wedding videography. A cinematic wedding videographer will place emphasis on telling the story of the wedding couple and their day by generating emotions, using different techniques with natural or available light, rhythm, camera focus, different angles, framing and composition, music and often non-chronological editing especially in the short highlights film. A cinematic wedding videographer will usually have a technical eye for cinematography. Shots are normally short – some even less than five seconds – which are then edited together in a way that really brings out emotions of nostalgia, happiness, love. The editing process is complex but it allows the wedding filmmaker to really showcase the day in a creative manner. Cinematic videographers will often be unobtrusive also, with the aim of capturing cinematic shots in the most natural manner.
One style is not necessarily better than the other – it’s totally up to each couple what they prefer and what they want to have recorded and be able to watch again in the future.
At Sunset Films, we prefer a cinematic approach because for us it’s all about storytelling through natural emotions. It’s all about the love and creating and rekindling memories which will last forever, through emotion and creativity. For us wedding videography is an art – what we like to refer to as ‘wedding cinematography’.