BlushBlog

Many of you know that I wear many hats. I work in the Visual Effects industry as an animator and compositor, and of course I enjoy photography tremendously.

Wedding film-making in the past few years has evolved to the point where I can pull off some pretty amazing shots and clear audio with gear that simply did not exist when I was in film school many years ago. But in all professional fields, there is ‘the look’. I believe you’ve either got an eye for it or you don’t. You can see it with photographers all the time; in fact if you’re a couple reading this you have probably picked your photographer because he or she has ‘the look’ you’re emotionally attracted to.

I admit video or in my case ‘documentary film-making’ has been slower to catch up, but with Steadicam/Glidecam technology and of course HD with beautiful lenses, we’re almost there. I’m really excited to be working in weddings because it’s a beautiful hybrid of spontaneous creativity. Add the fact that it’s getting better every day.

One area that has remained in the ‘hurry-up-and-wait’ camp is Visual Effects. Of course movies like Avatar have simply thrown away the book, and VFX artists are scrambling to define the state of the art of movie-making. The reality is VFX is a difficult field to work in: it’s expensive, and takes a lot of time to see any result. But most significant to my post today, this quality of work was unattainable to the independent film community.

Now… how on earth does this apply to wedding film-making?!?

Today I watched a film “The Third and Seventh” by Alex Roman that has perfectly (and I don’t use that word often) captured the essence of photography, film, motion graphics and animation in an independent film. I think I can speak for every wedding film-maker in the business by saying we would be thrilled to shoot, process and edit footage of this calibre – despite the fact that almost all of it is computer generated.

When I scout out your church/synagogue/hall/home I keep an eye open for that perfect shot. I’m also looking for something that also supports my trademark ‘joyful and cinematic’ style. I might spend ten minutes setting up a perfect wedding ring composition, or delight in capturing a single happy tear disappearing into a bride’s glowing skin that the photographer missed. At all times I’m trying to capture the most creative and splendid vision of your day, that you will watch months and years later with wonder and happiness.

That’s quite a lot of positive energy from a computer-generated film. I was wondering what could possibly impress me more than Avatar. I hope you enjoy this film as much as I did.

- Rick

I get a request for this kind of DIY photo-service, and it’s great that James has finally set up a website that I can share with you.

It’s simple, fun (with the right crowd), and not expensive. What could be more perfect!

The picture above was taken at a wedding I shot a year ago. The reason I’m mentioning this today is because a photo from this very shoot ended up on the front cover of this weekend’s National Post! Congrats Steve and Christal!