A blog to show the story and behind the scene of previous wedding and event video assignments.
Live Stream for a Samoan Wedding at Liverpool Sydney
Our crew was busy for a Samoan wedding event over the weekend. Our team was excited as this is the very time that we've participated in a Samoan wedding. With all the live stream weddings that we've ever filmed, this is the most challenging one as we need to cover both the ceremony and reception for the entire day. To give you a rough timing, we basically needed to do a live show for over 8 hours non-stop.
The biggest challenge will no doubt be the internet set up. We needed to ensure it was stable for that many hours at the 2 different locations. The church ceremony was held at the Samoan Methodist Church and it was over 4 hours. We broadcasted the whole process on YouTube live. Then at night, we had the reception at the Eden Venues in Liverpool.
For events on this scale, we normally set up 3x cameras just to make sure we will capture every angle and all tearful moments for both the couple and the audience. Knowing it was going to be a full-day live stream event, we have conducted a recce before the big day. We ran the test for the network bandwidth and confirmed the placement of the camera set up for both locations. We prep well and we aim to provide the best service and highest visual quality for our clients.
Fun facts - 35gb data was used on the day! If you are curious how much is 35gb, it’s roughly allowing you to browse the internet for around 400 hours, to stream 6,300 songs or to watch 70 hours of standard-definition video. I know! It's a lot of data but it's all worth it! Nothing warms our heart like seeing everyone is enjoying the day, especially for those joining us virtually on their screens. And that's how I define a successful Livestream event!
Livestreaming is a thing! | Bendooley Estate Weddings
Brief
On 20th December 2020, Sunny Siu Films has hosted its very first livestream wedding at Bendooley Estate in Berrima NSW. The couple’s friends and family are in inter states of Australia, South Africa and Asia, and thanks to the pandemic, they are not allowed to travel (obviously) to attend the wedding. Therefore we were asked to host this wedding online for them. Yep! Livestreaming is real! It’s a thing!
Challenge
The biggest challenge was the internet. Living in a digital era, when you know in-flight wifi is available already, sometimes it’s hard to believe how remote some area on earth still is and the reception is still bad. A successful livestream event lies heavily on real-time synchronisation. It needs to be smooth to give the audience the real vibe of the event. As the saying goes, “There are no secrets to succeed. It’s the result of preparation, hard work and learn from failure.” A well-prepped set up has already set us up a successful day. All the hard work of bringing gears down beforehand, repeated testing, and extra internet reception have not gone to waste.
Approach
Honest to god, the set up of this livestream event has no different from live TV production. We have 3 cameras set up at different angles to ensure all the essence is captured, aiming to make the family and friends from afar feeling as close as it possibly could. Our team has literally produced your own show for you. We have also requested the newly weds and the celebrant to wear a microphone for the best sound quality. Imagine how frustrated it will be if you can’t hear them vow! We have opted for zoom for broadcasting the wedding. It’s just easy and handy for everyone. Who isn’t a Zoom expert after 2020 if you know what I mean?! It’s a mature video chat software and also the chatbox feature from zoom allows people in the chatroom to engage and provide real-time response if a plus for us. The full video will then be uploaded on our Vimeo channel or a downloadable file is also available if anyone wants to re-live the day again.
Results
The event was well-received by everyone. We all know it’s not perfect. We all know we want to be together and share the joy together. However. in this crazy world that we are living in, we do the best that we can to bring you love and happiness for your beloved ones. We also received a heartfelt comment from the couple after the wedding and thought we’d share with you.
Livestream (wedding and events) service now available
In crazy times like this, it makes people think. We were taught with basic hygienes like keeping your hands clean and covering your mouth when coughing/sneezing since kindergarten. However, we seem to forget about the importance of simple things like these as we grow up. I wonder if this whole coronavirus thing would still turn into a pandemic if half of the population were exercising these rules diligently before it got out of control.
Unlike most people who are working from home during the self-iso time or having zoom meeting one after the other, my job nature basically doesn’t quite allow me to work from home unless I’m editing. Luckily I still managed to get some real human interaction whilst still following the social distancing rule strictly by filming a couple of corporate videos for the real estate industry and some online lectures for Best Orthodontic Seminars and Sessions. Sadly as we already know by now most weddings were postponed involuntarily, which were really unfortunate by the way, imagine how disappointing this is for these husband-and-wife-to-be and also their dear families and friends. I’m a positive person and I always hope to bring joy to people therefore I was really devastated when this happened.
Crazy time makes people think crazy - If people can’t attend the wedding because of a pandemic or for whatever reasons that they can’t be present at something important, how about we bring the event like a wedding or important days like this to you, LIVE! We are fully living in a digital world, now more than ever, Lady gaga can bring you a Together at Home concert, which is a brilliant idea by the way. We should be fully utilising the technology that we have nowadays and blend in into our daily lives, makes our life easier not harder. Therefore, we proudly present you our latest Livestream services.
You can’t come to us? Not a problem at all! We’ll get to you. This service will be a great convenience to those inconvenience. We understand how gutted you feel when you can’t share some of your most important moments with your families and friends, sometimes somehow your guests just can’t attend your wedding, your parents or grand parents can’t make it to the graduation day, or clients can’t travel to your conference, our Livestream service will still allow you to stay close and share these memorable times with your loved ones.
Last but not least, I would like to share with you a recent project of filming the interview of Architect Koichi Takada.