One of the things that sets a Hollywood movie apart from an amateur’s video of his vacation is variety of angles and distances used in filming.  A director will have many cameras shooting the same scene and use various methods to follow the action according to the mood he is trying to set.  Dallas Wedding videos need the same variety.

Imagine how many ways there are to film a man walking down a road.  He could be filmed from the front or the back or anywhere along both sides.  The shot can be a closeup or wide angle.  The camera could move with the walking man or remain stationary while the man moves.  Usually when we’re watching a movie, the director allows the audience to see scenes shot in all these different ways and more.

Wedding videos should be recorded in the same way.  To make a wedding video enjoyable for the audience, it should be shot from various angles and with a variety of treatments.  We’ve talked to brides who didn’t want a wedding video at all, until they saw one of our videos.  They imagined one camera sitting at the back of the ceremony and wondered who would ever want to sit and watch that.  Seeing the variety and excitement of a LeniCam wedding video gave them a completely different point of view.

Getting a Variety of Shots

We can add variety to our videos with the settings on our professional-grade HD videocameras.  This is where our choice of equipment and the  experience of our videographers really count.  Deciding how much light to allow and choosing whether to get a close-up or wide angle depend on the capabilities of the camera and the ability of the cameraperson.

Another method to add variety to a video is to have multiple videocameras.  Then the action can move back and forth between focal points.  For instance, when the doors open on the bride, viewers want to see how beautiful she is, but they also want to see the look on the groom’s face when he sees her in that moment.  In our multi-camera shoots, one camera is stationed at the back of the church to record the groom, while a camera at the front of the church captures the bride.  Our lenses allow us to get both closeups and wide angle shots, while our producer edits and mixes the shot to make watching the video seem as natural as it feels to be sitting in the room watching the wedding live.

Multiple cameras with multiple audio feeds also help us cover up slips of the tongue or ungraceful moments.  When we go back to the studio with all the audio and video footage from a wedding, we can work all kinds of miracles.  Take for instance a bride who forgot to throw away her chewing gum.  By mixing the footage from different cameras and doing a little fancy editing, we completely eradicated any evidence of the gum-chewing.

Even when there is only one camera there are editing tricks that can give a multi-camera look to a single camera shoot.  For instance, if the venue will allow our cameraman to use a tripod with a dolly, he can move from place to place.  The frames between the two angles which show his movement can be edited up.

These are just a few tricks of the trade LeniCam uses to make your event video look like a Hollywood movie.  Contact us today for the wedding video of your dreams

A wedding doesn’t happen by itself.  Whether you’re depending on friends and family to pull things together or a professional wedding coordinator to direct an army of vendors, your wedding day will require some concerted effort – and perhaps a little magic.  The last thing you need to worry about is your Dallas Videographer.  That’s where our twelve years of experience come in handy.

We Know What You Want

Before we ever show up for a wedding, we sit down with the bride (or her representative) and get the details of the wedding.  Our contract will outline the specifics and special situations, but it goes deeper than that.

Our experience has taught us weddings have a rhythm.  Regardless of language, tradition, religion, ethnicity or location, we know weddings well enough to know what to expect in most situations and even if we’re wrong, we know how to adjust on the fly.  If the weather betrays you, an important guest fails to show or a vendor drops the ball, it won’t stop us from creating a video you will love.

We Anticipate What You’ll Need

As we watch your wedding unfold, we often recognize a potential problem before anyone else does and this allows us to save many wedding days.  Here’s some of the situations we’ve helped out with:

• Several photographers have told brides they prefer to work with ambient light, but then they arrive at a venue and realize there’s not enough ambient light for high quality photographs.  Then the lights on our video cameras come in handy.
• We’ve seen djs who arrive without their microphone or a speaker.  We’ve helped out several time with one of ours.
• Many vendors use battery powered equipment and when those batteries run out unexpectedly, we’ve provided a new one from the stock we carry.
• Sometimes even the wedding coordinator or a parent will lose track of the bride and groom.  Often we’re the ones who can find the couple, because we’re monitoring the microphones.

Those are just a few of the opportunities we’ve had to save the day and rescue a wedding before a derailment.

We Capture It All

A wedding has more going on than one set of eyes can see.  Even if the entire wedding takes place in one small venue, things happen simultaneously in various locations throughout the site.  We’ve worked on some weddings that were spread out all across town.  Many brides help us see more by contracting with us for multiple videographers, but even if there is only one of us, our familiarity with the rhythm of weddings allows us to follow the action from one place to another.

And eyes aren’t all you’ll need to capture the day.  We also capture the sounds of your wedding.  The music, the vows, the toasts, the well wishes – even the sounds of dancing fountains, chirping birds and laughing children.  What’s even more important is that we know how to mix that sound into your video, so that it enhances the experience rather than drowning out everything else.

We Customize It For You

After spending the day at your celebration we have hours of audio and video.  We’ll spend the ensuing weeks refining what we recorded and turning it into a wedding video you will love.  Just to make sure we’ll send you a proof, so you’ll have a say concerning the finished product.  We’ll even customize the cover, the disc and the menu of your video.  When you’re through it is uniquely yours.

There’s more we could tell you about our process, but we’d love to sit down with you and discuss it.  Please give us a call now and set up your appointment.

Dallas Wedding Videographers Are a Family Affair

Families Invite Us Back for Bride After Bride After Bride

Any company will tell you referrals are the best compliment they can get.  We love them, too.  We especially love it when one sister recommends us to another.  We call these our Legacy Brides and in some families we’re on our third sister.

Every Wedding Is Special

We’re honored every time we book a wedding.  We know there are no do-overs on a wedding day.  When someone hires us, whether it’s the bride, the groom, a family member or a friend, they are taking us into their trust.

Every wedding is special to us.  We want to know everything we can about the bride and groom, their families and their friends. We want to capture what’s unique about each of them and what makes them unique as a couple.  We also want to include shots of every guest. Whether the day is packed with tradition or full of creative innovations, we want to be ready.

As soon as we get through recording one wedding, we start getting ready for the next.  We recharge all our equipment and get fresh batteries, so we never have to make excuses.  As we pack up for a wedding, we load up multiples of everything, checking and double checking to be sure that we have cords, covers, lenses and tripods.

Once a wedding has been recorded, we archive everything on our private secure server.  We never want to have to tell someone that we can’t produce their video because we lost their footage.  If they call us because a tragedy has taken away their videos,  we always want to be able to produce copies.  We understand just how valuable every moment of a wedding is to you.

Legacy Brides Raise the Stakes

With every completed video we deliver, we get a deep sense of gratification.  By then, we’ve invested a lot in the couple.  We’ve worked to earn their business.  We’ve gotten to know them as we’ve planned towards their wedding day.  We’ve done a lot of work prepping for the wedding.  On the most important day in a couple’s lifetime, we’ll be there.  We’ll hear the vows they make to one another, watch them cut their wedding cake and listen to the toasts and dedications.  Then we’ll go back to the studio and spend the next several weeks creating a first draft.  We’ll share the proof with the couple and take their edits.  We’ll create their disc and decorate their cover.  We’re always as excited about the creation process as our couples are.

Our couples always tell us how much they love the videos.  Many of our couples go on to rate and review us on sites like Wedding Wire, The Knot and Yelp.  We do a lot of work by referral…and then there are our Legacy Brides.  Sometimes it is the bride we’ve already videoed that will give us the good news of their sister’s engagement.  Other times it’s the new bride who calls us.

When we get that second (or third) booking from a family, it raises the stakes.  We want to honor the trust of the first bride from the family.  We want the second (or third) bride to feel every bit as special as the first bride did.  In the meantime, we want every one else among their family and friends to be thrilled with the prospect of seeing us again.

Extra Special Moments

The short excerpt above is from a recent wedding.  We haven’t even delivered the finished product to the bride and groom, but we wanted to share this moment with you.

Kids are always cute in a wedding.  We know while we’re filming flower girls and ring bearers that their footage is going to be among the favorite moments of the completed video.  As cute as kids are, it is their relationship to the couple and their family that makes the footage so precious to the audience.

In this video, a Legacy Bride includes her infant nephew in her ceremony – a nephew who is the child of one of our couples.  The first bride was married in the same church, by the same minister and her reception was held at the same place as the Legacy Bride.  Like the family and friends of the bride, we had a relationship to the nephew.  We’d been there when his parents were married.  Enjoy this clip.

LeniCam Video Productions – Dallas Wedding Videographers

 Wedding Videographer Dallas Shares Wedding Wire Message

Wedding Wire Live

On Tuesday, Wedding Wire premiere wedding referral site, hosted a group of local wedding professionals at the Tower Club in Dallas.  What a cacophonous crowd!  The venue was stuffed with wedding coordinators, florists, videographers, officiants and other wedding vendors, all networking elbow-to-elbow with the volume set on high.

Online Reviews are the New Word of Mouth

Along with the libations and snacks, Wedding Wire corralled the highly energetic crowd into a meeting room for a little training. The wedding professionals were inundated with facts and figures related to their business.  Things like:

• the amazing growth of Wedding Wire
• other sites related to Wedding Wire, like Prom Wire, Mitzvah Wire and even Birthday Wire
• the phenomenal migration from PC to phone for internet searches
• online tools for wedding vendors

The goal of the all of this training was to encourage wedding vendors to solicit reviews from their customers.  On the surface, this seems like a pretty selfish undertaking, but Wedding Wire pointed out another aspect of it.  The overwhelming majority of brides actually want to see reviews.  When a newly married bride takes time to review her vendors she’s paying forward for the brides who follow.

How to Write a Helpful Review

Though all vendors want to hear they are great and that they did a wonderful job on your big day, prospective brides are looking for a little more information.  They’d like the answer to questions like these:

• Why did you choose this vendor?
• Was their price fair and competitive?
• What sets this vendor apart from others?
• Was your experience a pleasant one?  Did you like their personnel?  Their taste?  Their courtesy?
• Did the vendor respond quickly to your calls and emails?  And were their responses informative and helpful?
• Did the vendor have the necessary equipment and was it in good condition?
• Did the vendor provide what they promised in a timely manner?
• Did the vendor provide something exceptional you were not expecting?

Answering these questions and others similar to them will help another bride decide whether or not to use a vendor.  Sometimes things do not go well and brides need to know this, too.  In those cases specific details are even more important.  While “WORST FLORIST EVER” will convey your dissatisfaction, telling future brides the florist delivered your flowers 45 minutes late, used the wrong variety of lily and forgot the corsage for the Mother of the Groom is more valuable.  “WORST FLORIST EVER” could be perceived as a purely emotional response to a misunderstanding.  Outlining the real issues is more helpful.

Don’t Forget the Photographers and Videographers!

While caterers and florists provide their services on your wedding day, photographers and videographers don’t deliver their goods until many weeks later.  Sometimes our brides and grooms are so busy immediately after their wedding that they don’t get around to approving our proof copy until months after the event.  We can’t even produce our discs until we have that OK.  Still future brides are looking for your reviews, so add them as soon as you’ve seen the finished product.

Our Brides Love Us!

We’re proud to say that all of our reviews on Wedding Wire are from very happy customers.  We promise our couples, “No matter what happens – good or bad – on your wedding day, you’re going to love your wedding video.”  For twelve years we’ve been keeping that promise.  Call us at 972-378-0446 or email us at infor@lenicam.com to find out how we’ve done it.

LeniCam Video Productions – Wedding Videographer Dallas

Alyssa and Brian

Tech Talk: Why Dallas Videographers  Use Custom Designed Videocamera

John Lenihan, founder of LeniCam Video Productions, isn’t just another videographer. He’s an engineer. For many years he worked at Rockwell and the wall of his studio is covered with awards and patents from those days. When he sees a problem, he often looks for technology to solve it.

Here Comes the Bride

That moment when the chapel doors open and the bride begins her walk down the aisle is one of the most critical shots we record at a wedding. Then the video audience wants to follow the bride up the aisle and stay in tight during the vows.

Some camera-people, taking both still photography and video, get the aisle shot by scurrying crab-like in front of the bride and parking nearby to film the ceremony. At LeniCam, we feel that’s too invasive and many venues, especially churches, agree with us. A wedding is not a sporting event, so preserving the experience of the bride and groom, as well as that of the guests, is very important to us, even as we work to get the very best shots.

Over the years we tried many strategies for filming wedding ceremonies and eventually created a solution – a custom designed remote videocamera. With this camera we can get the shot of the bride coming down the aisle and close-ups of her vowing to love her groom for ever and ever, without having a videographer at the front to distract from the bride and groom.

Instead, our videographer can be in the balcony or in the rear of the church, using an HD video monitor to see what the camera is seeing. The remote control feature allows the cameraperson to point the camera where he or she wants it, follow the bride down the aisle, zoom in on the close-ups and then pan out to get a wider shot. The camera itself may be on a tripod hiding behind a floral display or attached to a fixture on the wall, wherever it can get the best view without attracting attention away from the ceremony.

Then he developed another improvement. Many wedding venues don’t provide enough light for good quality video. By attaching a light to the videocamera, which could also be operated remotely, illumination can be added to the equation whenever and wherever it’s needed.

Thanks to our exclusive remote control camera, brides can be the star as they walk down the aisle and their guests don’t have rubber-neck around a camera-person. Also with this camera we don’t distract from the ceremony by having a camera-person visible at the front of the church. We place the camera up high, out of the guests’ line of sight and are still able to get close-up of each tender moment. The highlight video on this page is from a wedding where we utilized our custom remote videocamera to get the shots, while our camera-person stayed out of the limelight.

Custom Designed Videocamera gets the shots others can’t!

We Sweat the Small Stuff So You Don’t Have To

The most important thing LeniCam takes to any event is the desire to capture special moments for the most significant people we know, our clients. The right technology helps us do that, which is the reason we are heavily invested in a wide range of professional quality equipment. We have a fleet of video, audio and photographic equipment. Our tools for editing and mixing are the best in the business. We maintain a secure server to store all our videos. When you trust us with your unique moments of consequence, we take that responsibility very seriously.

Our experience and our equipment allow us to film good footage. Our compassion allows us to produce remarkable videos of your event – whether that’s your wedding or your big game. In fact, we make videos for all kinds of events. Call us now at 972-378-0446 or email info@lenicam.com to set up your videography appointment.

LeniCam Video Productions – Custom Designed Videocamera

Preparing for Wedding Videography

Whether a wedding is a result of years of planning or a spur of the moment whirlwind, a wedding videographer has to be ready for anything. At LeniCam Video Productions, we know that on your special day, we need to pack more than a camera.

Experience Helps

Every wedding is unique, yet all weddings share a common rhythm. Like a lifeguard peering across a pool of swimmers, an experienced videographer can recognize potential hazards and will be ready to overcome them, before anyone else even has a hint anything is awry.

In more than a decade of wedding videography we’ve had the opportunity to tape weddings in a wide variety of venues: backyards, cathedrals, hotels, gardens, chapels, vineyards and many more. Chances are good we’ve taped a wedding at your venue and if we haven’t we’ve been somewhere similar. What’s more, we’ll gladly preview any venue ahead of time and our experience allows us to know what to look for. We will enhance your video with the venue’s unique characteristics and will know how to avoid any potential difficulties.

Another variable at each wedding is its cultural frame of reference. Some wedding day practices are based on family or faith traditions. Others have their root in a particular country or state. At LeniCam we’ve had the opportunity to interact with couples from all over the world, so we’ll recognize many of the ceremonies and rituals you’ll include in your day.

We’ve also learned that each bride and groom comes to their wedding with their own personal frame of reference, as well as a new outlook that they’ve formed together. These new rituals, customs and preferences are something we look for and try to capture on our wedding videos.

Technology Helps

Sometimes all it takes to save the day is the right technology. Like the day a musician showed up and discovered there wasn’t enough light for him to see his keyboard. Since LeniCam’s video cameras have lights, we positioned one of our cameras near the musician. We were able to tape the wedding and keep the music playing.

When LeniCam arrives at your wedding, the first thing we do is unload our equipment – and there’s a lot. We don’t just bring what we know we’ll need, we bring items we might need and we also bring back-up (with back-ups for the back-up). Yet whatever equipment you see at a wedding is just a fraction of our total inventory. Our inventory is part of the reason we can effectively film all kinds of events in all kinds of places.

We Sweat the Small Stuff So You Don’t Have To

The most important thing LeniCam takes to any wedding is the desire to capture special moments for important people. For that reason, we are acutely aware of nuances we see in brides, grooms, wedding party members, officiants and guests.

At a recent wedding, we were capturing the excitement as finishing touches were added to the bride’s hair and dress. The bride, who’d been enjoying the banter in the room, suddenly became very quiet. Before the bride’s mother could say, “I think the bride needs some quiet time,” our cameraperson was folding up his tripod and ushering extraneous visitors and vendors out of the room.

It didn’t matter what shot we were about to take. What mattered was the bride’s need for privacy. Brides love our finished product and they appreciate our sensitivity to their needs on their special days.

Our experience and our equipment allow us to film good footage. Our compassion allows us to produce remarkable wedding videos. Call us now at 972-378-0446 or email info@lenicam.com to set up your videography appointment.

LeniCam Video Productions – Wedding Videographers Dallas

LeniCam videographer Jonathan shoots with professional grade HD videocameras.

Tech Talk: Cameras for Wedding Videography Dallas TX

John Lenihan, owner and co-founder of LeniCam Productions, taped his first event in 1977. That event just happened to be his own wedding and the recording was an audio cassette.

Technology Then and Now

John’s first video was a slideshow of still photos synched with the audio cassette recording. Wedding videos have changed a lot since then, but John’s desire to capture precious memories with the latest in audio and visual technology has not changed.

Today, LeniCam uses professional-grade, high-definition video cameras and industry-standard wired and wireless microphones, as well as a full suite of software and hardware. A dedicated server room at our studio office safely stores all of our clients’ wedding videos.

What Brides Want

As we talk to brides about their wedding day, we hear two things over and over again.
• Number One: The bride wants us to capture every single detail of the day.
• Number Two: The bride wants the cameraman and equipment to be virtually invisible to the guests, participants and officiants.
Here at LeniCam we believe both are important.

Today’s Technology Choices

One of the easiest ways to capture absolutely everything at a wedding is to use consumer-grade DSLR still-cameras which include a video feature. Many wedding photographers have begun to include videography in their list of services by utilizing this technology. With these smaller digital cameras, the photographers can put themselves in the middle of the action and move quickly from one area to another.

LeniCam prefers to use professional-grade, high-definition video-only cameras for virtually all our events. For weddings, this is especially important, because we are sensitive to the bride’s second request – invisibility.

At close range, both the DSLR and the video camera record beautifully. Because of limited zoom capabilities, the DSLR must stay up close. To capture a bride’s walk down the aisle, a cameraperson with a DSLR would have to step out into the aisle with the bride and then physically move with her.

Our video cameras, which are much larger and heavier, have a greatly expanded zoom capacity. We can tape both close-ups and long shots without ever compromising video quality. These cameras, set up on tripods out of the guests’ line of sight, follow the bride from the vestibule to her groom’s side with crystal clear clarity. Meanwhile, the camera and the cameraperson remain in one spot, out of sight.

Because our cameras are stationary, vibration and movement are eradicated. Though DSLR’s may have a feature called Digital Stability Control, the feature cannot compensate 100%.
LeniCam videographers and their equipment stay out of sight and produce a higher quality video for your wedding memories.

What will the future bring?

In 1977 videography was the stuff of science fiction and no one had even dreamed of High Definition Blue Ray technology. Now it seems as if each day another impossible idea becomes an everyday necessity.

At LeniCam, John and his team are committed to capturing your precious wedding memories with the best technology available. Call us now at 972-378-0446 or email info@lenicam.com to set up your videography appointment.

LeniCam Video Productions – Wedding Videography Dallas TX