Indira & Brent

The best part of being wedding filmmakers is that we get to meet and work with some of the nicest people. Susanne and I had the pleasure of filming the wedding of Indira and Brent and got to meet many of their friends and relatives. It's always great to work with couples who have such a strong family bond.

Saturday was a unique day for us. Not only did we film the wedding, but we also provided the DJ services. We are proud to say that we had a crowd on the dance floor all day.

And on a technical note, Saturday was our first shoot with our brand new Blackmagic Design Cinema Cameras. We used three of them to capture the wedding from different perspectives. We hope you will enjoy the improved image quality over other filmmakers who use DSLR's. The detail in the images is incredible.



Indira + Brent from Philadelphia Wedding Films on Vimeo.
Same Day Edit filmed on November 14, 2015 at St. Thomas of Villanova and The Merion Tribute House.

Philadelphia Wedding Video at The Cira Centre

Suzanne and Patrick couldn't have asked for a better day and I couldn't have asked for a nicer gathering of people to work with. Both families, and the bridal party, were a dream to film. It really makes my job easier when everyone is in a great mood and gets along. I had the pleasure of filming two previous weddings from this party over the last couple of years, and we're filming another friend's wedding next August. We can't wait.

Philadelphia Wedding Video at The Cira Centre from Philadelphia Wedding Films on Vimeo.

The Big News!

Philadelphia Wedding Films is pleased to announce that we will be shooting all future films using 3 new Cinema Cameras by BlackMagic Design.

This means that our future films will have the look and feel of a major motion picture. Since 2006, we have provided films that have incredibly beautiful images. But in 2008, many wedding filmmakers chose to go with DSLR photography cameras to film weddings. And while the images looked good, those camera have some flaws that made switching a risky task. To completely understand the benefits of the BlackMagic Cinema Camera (BMCC) it helps to discuss the shortcomings in the DSLR cameras.

1. RECORDING TIME LIMITS - When DSLR' first came out they had a 12 minute record limit. Now it's 30 minutes, but still - who wants to have to stop and start recording every 30 minutes? The BMCC records to solid state hard drives and can record and store hours of footage.

2. LOST FOOTAGE - I still hear horror stories of DSLR cameras that don't record to the CF or SD card properly and the filmmaker loses huge segments of footage. This is especially true if th camera battery dies. The cameras aren't programmed to stop recording and save the files before the battery is completely drained. And losing footage is not something I was prepared to do. The BMCC has a dedicated internal battery and software that prevents this from happening.

3. STYLIZED IMAGE - If you've looked at wedding films recently you will notice that many of them have the same kind of image. The images are good, but have very saturated colors and very dark shadow areas. This is because these cameras are using compression software in order to fit the data onto the CF or SD cards, which have slower writing speeds than a solid state drive. This is where I need to get a little technical, so stay with me.

This compression software is called a "codec", and that is short for compression/decompression software. DSLR"s us either a format called h.264 or AVCHD. In order to write the data files onto the slow media the codec must capture the image and immediately throw away some of the data. So the software examines the pixels in the image. If there is a black pixel and the pixels immediately surrounding it are a very dark grey, the software will make those pixels black as well to make the image size smaller.

The BMCC uses a recording format called Apple ProRes HQ, which has a recording data rate 10 times the size of h.264 or AVCHD. So DSLR cameras are throwing away 90 percent of the data that the BMCC captures. Which is why the BMCC can record the same image, yet display a much more detailed image.

Here is a video by One River Media that shows just how much more detail and more cinematic the BackMagic Cinema Camera is over a DSLR.

Comparing the Cinema Camera & 5D Mk III from OneRiver Media on Vimeo.

You can watch this directly on the Vimeo site and really see the difference in HD by clicking here.

Susanne and I are so excited to be be able to bring this new improved image quality to our future clients. We are sill the only wedding filmmakers in Philadelphia who offer the same day edit as our primary product, but are now the only filmmakers in Philadelphia to offer this superior cinematic experience.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ON TUESDAY!

Sure, I could announce it now. But how much fun would that be? There needs to be some anticipation, am I right? So On Tuesday I have a huge announcement about the future of Philadelphia Wedding Films. It's going to be huge and future couples will be excited about it.

Tune in, Ken

Philadelphia Wedding Video at Cescaphe' Ballroom

Philadelphia Wedding Video at The William Penn Inn

Jaime & Alex had a great wedding and we couldn't have asked for better weather in the middle of January. They have a 3 year old little girl, who is featured in the video, and she really brightened up the day. I didn't hear her complain once.

I'd like to give a HUGE shoutout to the hair stylist, Jill Kozar, whose company is Up Your Do. As you can see in the video she does absolutely gorgeous work. But what you don't see in the video is that she works efficiently and kept the bridal party on time. Since I am creating a video to show at the reception if the hair stylist runs late it cuts unto my editing time. I encourage all future brides to give her a call.

Philadelphia Wedding Video at The Heroes Ballroom

Filmed on October 4, 2014. Jennifer and Thomas had one of the most fun weddings I've evered filmed.