A blog to show the story and behind the scene of previous wedding and event video assignments.
Same Sex Weddings | The Epping Club Weddings | Indian Wedding Videographer
Love is love.
Over the years I filmed few gay and lesbian weddings in Sydney, however this was one of the most unforgettable one.
I still remember when I first met N and P at their house, I had a lovely chat about their wedding plan, learnt their story, discussed some details about their traditional rituals, talked about what was happening at the place where I born, Hong Kong. I love listening my clients’ stories, but also love to share mine.
It was a two days weddings. The first day involved traditional ceremonies, and the second involved civil ceremony and formal reception at Epping Club.
I was so pleased to witness and capture their wedding under the new same sex marriage has been legal.
Love is love.
Centennial Park Paperbark Grove Weddings | Live stream Wedding Ceremony
Over the weekend we had a lovely live stream wedding event at Centennial Park. Our team has conducted a visit a week beforehand to ensure we have all the tools we need for the day. Unlike most venues, there’s no power supply at the park therefore we needed to hire a portable battery to ensure we have enough power supply for the day. The power supply is one the most single important for us. We need it basically for literally everything - camera, computers, audio and video mixer etc etc. When we first found out there’s no power supply from the park it posted a great challenge to us. Luckily the portable battery we hired performed well.
As far as preparation work goes, we also need to confirm the internet speed at the park. Our crew went there to test 4G speed as well. Based on the test result, it suggested we could stream YouTube at a higher bitrate. The good thing about using YouTube is that it has the better image quality and easier to operate, most importantly playback is available straight away after the stream ends.
During the day, we have two cameras set up. We have one staff to control and manage the panels and everything else and another staff to manage cameras, monitor audio, switch angles. The event was successfully live-streamed to the UK, where the couples’ grandparents are located. We are not just the team doing a livestream for you, we help uniting you and your family.
Live stream wedding services at Crowne Plaza Hawkesbury Valley
This last weekend we had a live wedding event at the Crowne Plaza Hawkesbury Valley, Windsor. The bride and groom were Diana and Michael respectively. Diana’s family and some guests are in New York, Columbia, Norway and Australia. For the most obvious reason, they couldn’t travel for the time being.
Apart from the live streaming, the ceremony was also captured in cameras for the purpose of editing a full HD version after the wedding. What happened was we had a camera on a gimbal while the bridesmaids and bride walking down the aisle. This is something different to all the previous Livestream weddings that we’ve done. By doing so, it made everyone (especially those who were looking over the screen) feel more engaged.
As mentioned in our blogs before, sound quality is equally important as visual quality to us. Therefore, for most of our weddings, we always dedicated a controller to manage the panels for switching angles and managing signal inputs. We had 4 audio signals, 1 main, 2 backups and one ambience. Some videographers will just do the ambience sound. I can understand why as no monitoring is required, however, the downside is the sound will be very one-dimensional. Our mission is to provide a full and high sound-visual quality to all our audience, regardless you watch it live or an HD video afterwards.
If you have any questions about Livestream (or not), just drop us a note.
Ciao for now!
Zoom Live Stream Wedding | Dunbar House Weddings
Our crew has been busy over the long weekend for another livestream wedding event. We were at Dunbar House Watsons Bay. After having a good run of livestream weddings since the beginning of the year, we are actually addicted to host a live event now. The biggest excitement is that knowing people from other parts of the world are also being part of that, it makes us feel like we help people to connect and make joy no boundaries now.
And we are very thankful for the advanced technology we have nowadays. The entire ceremony and reception were just done via Zoom. We are now able to connect to the world with just a click of a button. The bride’s mum and best friend were overseas (Columbia and the US if you are curious) so they had to do their speeches over Zoom. However, instead of having a small laptop up in the venue, we actually projected the Zoom video up on a big screen to make everyone feels their presence closer.
The biggest challenge was the tight setup time that we were given. We are used to racing with time but this one was by far the tightest. In order to mitigate the issue, our team has done additional research on some technical parts and ensure we have achieved everything required before the deadline.
Here is a quick rundown of the set up on the day:
We set up the live stream control room indoor at Dunbar House, just right across the ceremony spot for close proximity. We also arrived few hours prior to set up and test the transmission of video and audio signals.
3x cameras set up with professional angles switching. Walkie-talkies were used to communicate amongst videographers to ensure smooth scene transitions.
The speeches given by the bride’s mum and best friend on zoom were projected on the big screen.
Working closely with the wedding Master of Ceremony (MC), all formalities were broadcasted.
We broadcasted the first five minutes of the dance party, the guests on Zoom had some dance move altogether with the couple.
Hope this will give a clearer picture for anyone who is interested in the process of a livestream event. As usual, please feel free to leave us a comment if you have any questions or just want to share your own experience with us below. We welcome any DM as well if you prefer to discuss with us privately. Ciao for now.
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!