Can Your Dad Do That? (Video vs Photo)

Okay, so I am struggling with a title for this blog.  In case I have a flash of brilliance and change it, you should know that as of right now the working title is "Video vs. Photo."

The reason I consider it a working title is that it simply doesn't make sense.  I mean, these are two VERY different products at work here... very different services indeed.  The reason I even bring it up is I want to share with you a statement that was made to me this afternoon and the question I asked in response that still remains unanswered.  Here's how the conversation went:

Client:  I put the deposit in the mail to you yesterday to book the DJ.
Me:  AWESOME!  Do you still have questions about the video services we talked about.
Client:  She's already booked a really expensive photographer, so we decided that we will just have my dad or a relative videotape everything.  He really likes doing that stuff anyway.
Me:  Ah......... do you mind if I ask you a question I've always wanted to ask but I was always afraid it would come off as rude?
Client:  Of course not.  You guys have been awesome to work with so far.
Me:  Well, I was wondering, did you ever consider booking us to create a professional wedding video for you and have an amateur take care of the photography?
Client:  No.
Me:  Why not?
Client:  Well... I have no idea...

I'm sure I'm a little biased here (and I freely admit that), and I wouldn't let an amateur photographer anywhere near my wedding album, but the question remains. Why one and not the other?

I have a few theories, but most of them rely on human nature and tradition.  Nothing that I can come up with has any basis in what is actually best for the client.  Let's face it, when it comes right down to it, the only two ways to capture a whirlwind of a day (if you've never been in a bride or groom's shoes before, trust me on this one... it's nuts) are photos and video.  That's it.  And one of those two doesn't even include sound.

Photography and videography (yes I know my industry totally made that word up... and Firefox is underlining it in red to remind me) are very different mediums in which memories are stored.  One captures still images that are brief glimpses, snapshots if you will, of the events of the day.  The other shows the actions, interactions, and reactions complete with sound and movement.

When done well they are artistic, creative, and emotional.  We rely, instinctively, on professional photographers with our most precious moments, the special events that often are major turning points in our lives (I'd say weddings count), not because we don't all own a camera (there are a few laying around my house, one for every type of outing), but because we know that we, personally, could never do the job that a professional can.  In addition to having the proper training to understand lighting, framing, and all sorts of other things not worth going into here (cuz, I'm guessing, you probably don't care), when you find a great photographer you know that they see these moments in time they are capturing as art, and you decide as a consumer you like the kind of art they produce.

Video, however, is something our dads do on family trips, right?  They hold a little camera (or, when I was a kid a giant one) while you hop on the Dumbo ride at Disney World, or ride your bike without training wheels for the first time, or go visit grandma's house for the umpteenth time.  Video is, in our minds, raw and basic because we cannot seem to connect ourselves, somehow, to the notion that video is not always raw and basic, but often television and cinema and art.  It is interactive and web-based, it is YouTube and Hulu and can be any of these things at any given moment.

Your wedding video does not have to look homemade simply because it is video of you taking your first steps into marriage.  These first steps can be better.  They can be art.  They can be original.  They can be more than just a record of the events.  They can poignantly redeliver the emotion of the day over and over again for the rest of your life, just as your professional photos will...

But only if the person on the other side of the camera knows what he/she is doing.  Only if that editor is artistic and well-trained and can balance the nuances of sound, light, and framing captured that day into something that is more.  Otherwise, your wedding video will be just another home movie.  Something someone brings to me 20-30 years from now to have converted into the newest video format before it dies out completely... something found in an attic and never watched.

A great video, like a great photo album, is something you pull out and want to see.  Something you show to friends and to family.  Something you pull off the shelf not just when your anniversary rolls around, but when you want to laugh at your boss doing a rather inebriated, double-time version of the electric slide (yes, Dan, I'm talking about you).

Your vows, your toasts, the way your wedding party looks walking down the aisle (brides, you'll miss that completely), all of it fades to resemble an impressionist painting rather than a portrait and video is the only thing that can ever put it back into focus because the one thing that remains raw, even in professional video, is the reality and the exacting way in which it is all recorded for all time.

Can your dad do that?

Actually, I think my working title has just been replaced.