Aerial Video on Weddings

The field of Aerial Video and Wedding Video has been two completely different fields, atleast until now.  We have excelled in wedding video, have quickly in the last few months started to build a reputation in the field of Tampa Aerial Videographers.  We now are combining the two completely different aspects of video, to add even more excitement to our wedding videos.  We have recently been incorporating our drones with our weddings.  Like anything else it takes experience, trial & error, and slow steady fingers to really learn how to properly use a drone for weddings.  The footage that we have been capturing is just priceless.  We have been shooting video for over 20 years now, but now with the drone, we are adding a whole new dimension to our wedding videos.  It is not only the aerial shots from high up, but also ground level shots.  Flying over a rock walled creek at Lange Farm with the bride and groom kissing on the bridge.  Yesterday on a wedding I was flying towards the bride and groom on the 16th floor of the Sky Terrace at the Hyatt Regency Clearwater, and continueing on past the terrace and over the beach.  It just thrills me to get shots and angles, until recently we could never get.

The suprising thing to me is the positive reactions from the bride and the groom.  I am always concerned of being too obtrusive on a wedding, which is why we usually don’t fly it during the ceremony, however during the formals, the opening shots, and sometimes the processional, we like to fire it up and see what we can get.  On this wedding at Lange Farm, the bride had told me “I was hoping you were going to bring the drone”, after seeing our previous videos we did for downtown Tampa.  That was music to my ears, because I know, we can really make her video one, that friends and family will be talking about for a long time.  Even the grooms now are excited about the video when they find out there is a drone involved.  We did a wedding at Powel Crosley Estate in Sarasota last Saturday, and the groomsmen were so excited about it, they were chanting my name.  A little awkward, cause I don’t want to take attention away from the bride, but its nice to see groomsmen exciting about wedding video.

Although we usually don’t use the drone for the actual ceremony, because of the noise, we take the GoPro Camera from the drone and put it in unique places that gives us some incredible angles.   The GoPro will go where regular cameras cannot go, if you have a gazebo or a arch, we like to place it at the top of the alter area, so that it shoots down on the bride and groom during the ceremony.  We usually have 3-4 regular cameras, so whatever we can get from the GoPro is just “icing on the cake”.  We are many times pleasantly suprised by the footage.  On a recent wedding(left), I stood where I normally stand at the top of the aisle for the processional, as the bride and her brothers escorting her,  walked by, so thinking the officiant would wait alittle before he annouced for the brothers to give her away, I started to move to behind the alter area, however while I was moving they immediately gaved her away.  Although my other cameras had a wide shot of it, I was alittle dissappointed thinking I didn’t get the shot from infront of them showing their faces, however, the GoPro had the perfect shot right above infront of them.  I was so thrilled to see that footage when I put it on the computer, it was even much better than if I would have been using a regular camera for that.  If we have nothing to hang it on, we may put it on the ground and capture the brides train as she walks by or infront of alter area pointed up towards bride and groom getting a great angle from below like we did at Hyatt Regency here. (right).  The GoPro is so versitile and virtually no effort to bring, gee, I can carry it inside my pocket, how cool is that, especially after lugging around the other 3-4 big cameras and tripods.

Once the ceremony is over, we put the GoPro back on the drone and capture the aerial shots of the formals.  Below is a higlight video where we incorporated the drone, as you can see, it captures some great unique footage. We look at Aerial Video as seasoning on your food when cooking. The foundation of a great wedding video is great ground level shots, good framing, excellent sharpness, being in the right place at the right time, etc. It is easy to get excited about the drone and forget about the foundation of great wedding video, so therefore we have to remember, the drone just provides alittle seasoning that adds to that video. If you do not have great regular video than the aerial video is useless. We feel that we are unique in that we can give the bride both great ground level video as well as spectacular aerial shots that will impress family and friends for years to come.