How to get the most out of your cameras during the wedding speeches

For some wedding guests, it’s their favourite part of the day, whilst for others, it’s the moment they dread most: the speeches. Standing up in front of a crowd of your nearest and dearest, in an attempt to deliver a heartfelt and (hopefully) amusing address, is no small task. Often, weeks of preparation have gone into the writing of the speech, and the rehearsal has been carefully choreographed, factoring in every line and every laugh. So does the wedding video need to have the same degree of neurotic forward planning in order to capture the speeches in all their glorious hilarity? Not anymore. With these simple tricks from Edit Your Wedding, you can be sure to get the footage that such Shakespeare-worthy speeches deserve! Here’s how to get the most out of your cameras during the wedding speeches.  

1. KEEP THE CAMERAS RUNNING! Even though it might seem counter-intuitive, the best thing for your wedding video is to keep the Pocket 4K cameras running throughout the ENTIRE speeches. Even if there are pauses, gaps, mistakes, problems etc, it is always much easier for our editors to cut around them than risk losing the beginnings or ends of speeches because the cameras have been temporarily switched off! The Pocket 4K cameras can record an enormous amount of footage and the Micro SD cards are rarely full upon returning to us, so please feel free to just let those cameras roll!

2. CAMERA 1: The ‘master shot’, as it is called in the film industry, should be a continuous shot of the whole room. Ideally, this camera should be placed on a table or still surface and not moved for the entirety of the speeches. A good place for this camera is often in one corner of the room, elevated above the seated guests, preferably at eye level with the speech-makers.

3. CAMERA 2: The second camera should be the ‘close up’ camera. This camera should film a close shot of the person speaking, ideally from the front: we want to see their beautiful face, after all (there could be tears…!) This camera can be hand-held, but should be kept as still as possible. Most importantly, this camera should be in a different position to Camera one, to give some variety in the final edit.

4. CAMERA 3 (if booked): Camera 3 should be used to shoot ‘coverage’. This is footage of guests reactions to the speeches, particularly laughter, crying, or any shots of them looking moved by the heartfelt words of adoration and love!  

5. CAMERAS 4/5 (if booked): Any remaining cameras should be used to film what we call ‘cutaways’. Examples of these might be footage of gifts being presented to bridesmaids/ushers, champagne glasses with bubbling fizz ready for a toast, reflections of the guests in silverware, and other such lovely details that will help add to the richness of the wedding video. 

6. SOUND: If at all possible, do a little recce of the venue. Large rooms tend to be echoey and have quite poor acoustics, and wind noise can affect sound quality for long periods fo recording, so if the speeches are taking place in a grand banqueting hall, or outside in a garden, you may want to think about purchasing Edit Your Wedding’s Zoom H1N sound recorder add-on. 

And that’s it! It may be worth asking in advance when the speeches are due to take place, so that you can be prepared! So whilst the other guests are finishing off their pudding, you can spend five minutes getting your cameras in the right place, and then just sit back and enjoy the bride’s Father embarrassing her with stories from her childhood…!