- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson
and today, I want to talk to you about
editing wedding films and specifically,
I want to answer the question,
what is the perfect length that you should be editing
your wedding films?
Now, this is a very controversial topic.
You ask any wedding filmmaker and you're going
to get a different answer.
Some wedding filmmakers are gonna tell you hey,
five to 10 minutes, that is plenty long enough
for you to edit a great wedding film and tell a good story.
Other filmmakers are gonna tell you no,
you need to have at least 30 minutes
and finally, you're gonna have wedding filmmakers
that say it needs to be at least an hour long
documentary edit, if it's not as long as a
Hollywood movie, you are cheating your couples
out of their money.
Ah, there are a lot of opinions about wedding film lengths.
Today I'm gonna share with you my story
about how I figured out what lengths of wedding films
I should be creating and hopefully that will help you
if you are unsure of the lengths of wedding films
that you should be offering.
So come back with me now to early 2010
whenever I filmed my first wedding.
I shot it solo, it was approximately 10 hours
of filming and at the end, I had a lot of footage
to go through.
So I did what a lot of beginning filmmakers do,
I make what is traditionally called a documentary edit.
I sat down and edited everything,
from the beginning of the wedding day
to the end of the wedding day and gave the couple
pretty much all of it.
Of course, I used some music,
I believe it was that Lifehouse song,
♪ you and me and all of the people, ♪
oh it was, it was, yeah I did that.
Also, I gave the couple a full edit
of the ceremony as well as a full edit of their toasts
and I even recorded well wishes from the guests
at the reception so it was easily
over an hour of content that I was giving this couple
and what's cool is that they ended up loving it
and I was really happy with what I gave them.
I kept on editing weddings this way
and soon I added on what is traditionally called
a highlight edit, which is about five minutes long
and is a much stripped down version of the documentary edit.
It's great for couples to share with their friends
and family because you gotta have really good friends
if you're gonna make them watch an hour long wedding film,
that's commitment there.
So usually a highlight edit is a much better option.
For two years, that is what I offered,
a longer documentary edit that was at minimum
45 minutes long but probably an hour
to an hour and a half and a shorter,
approximately five minute highlight film.
Over those first two years of filming weddings,
my couples loved the wedding films
that I was delivering to them but personally,
I was starting to enjoy the editing process less and less.
I really didn't feel like I was pushing myself creatively
whenever I was making these documentary edits
and I was starting to burn out.
It was about that time in 2012 that I started
to hear about a company out of Houston called 31 Films
and they make some of the best looking wedding films
I have ever seen.
To this day, they are still in my top five
wedding filmmakers and I will make sure
to link to them down in the description
if you want to check them out
and here is what blew my mind about 31 Films.
They had a package option that only had
a five minute long wedding highlight
and they were charging easily triple
what I was charging for my documentary edit
and my highlight and my full ceremony,
full toast, well wishes and whatever else
I wanted to throw in.
This was a major epiphany for me
and if you have not made this realization in your business,
I hope this realization helps you.
There are no rules whenever it comes to wedding filmmaking.
There is no council of elder wedding filmmakers out there
that are passing judgment on what sort of
wedding films you are allowed to create.
No, there are only two things that matter
whenever you are editing a wedding film.
First, is your couple happy with the wedding film
that you have created?
And secondly, are you happy creatively with what
you have made?
I realized that day in 2012,
that my wedding film edits could be
whatever I wanted them to be and that was so liberating.
So I stopped offering documentary edits
and I've never been happier.
To this day, I offer wedding packages
that are between five to about 13-ish minutes in length
and I love it.
So to answer the question I asked at the start
of this video, what is the perfect wedding film length?
And this answer honestly may sound like a cop out
but really, the perfect wedding film length
is whatever length of wedding film
you feel comfortable creating.
Don't let someone else dictate what makes you happy
whenever you're editing a wedding film.
I have friends that send out hour long documentary edits
and their couples love their wedding films
and they are so happy with what they're creating.
I have other friends that only shoot weddings
solo for the most part and they don't even
film the full ceremony, they just film little snippets
to make an awesome five minute highlight film
and whenever I watch those films,
I legitimately cry like a baby, I'm not joking
because they are so good.
They are happy with what they're making
and their couples are happy with the films
they've created and that is all that matters.
But I hear you now saying Matt, I just started my business,
what length of wedding film should I be offering,
give me some sort of guidance,
I'm starting out, how long of a wedding film
should I be making for my couples?
My recommendation to you, watch wedding films
that other people have created.
Don't just watch my wedding films.
Join the How To Film Weddings Facebook group,
which I absolutely love by the way.
I'll link to that down in the description
and post on there, hey I'm just getting into wedding
filmmaking, could you please post your
favorite wedding film that you've made?
Watch those wedding films and pay attention
to the length of them and if you find yourself
gravitating toward longer edits,
then hey, maybe you should be offering
longer edits of wedding films
but if you find yourself enjoying watching shorter edits,
maybe make shorter edits then.
Like I said, there are no rules,
it really comes down to your personal taste
and by watching wedding films,
that's a great way for you to figure out
what your personal tastes are
and remember, you are allowed to change your mind.
After you film a few weddings and you think,
you know, I thought I would like longer edits
but I really like shorter edits, like I do,
then hey, make shorter edits but if you say hey,
I have these shorter edits but I feel like
I could tell a much better story with longer edits,
start offering longer edits.
Whatever makes you happy.
Also, while we're on the topic of editing wedding films,
I've spent the past year of my life
working on a course that is 38 lessons
and over 24 hours of videos called Wedding Film Framework
and this course details my entire video editing process
for a wedding film in Adobe Premier Pro
from importing the footage all the way to export.
And this course comes out on July first, 2019.
Yes, in one week.
I am so excited.
So if you've never edited a wedding film before
or even used Adobe Premier Pro,
this course will walk you through how to do that.
Alternatively, if you've been editing wedding films
for years and you want to learn a faster,
more efficient work flow,
that above all will prevent you from getting
creative block and getting stuck while you were editing,
this course is also for you.
I will link down in the description
to where you can sign up and purchase
the Wedding Film Framework course whenever it goes live.
With that, thank you so much for watching.
It is also a massive help to me if you would
consider liking this video and subscribing
if you want to see more video editing tip videos
like this in the future.
Thanks and have a great day.
(upbeat music)