Aku terjumpa artikel ni dalam net.Dalam The Star 5 Sept 2007. Lama dah woo. Mungkin korang dah baca, tapi still aku nak share sebab aku bangga jadik seorang wedding videographer….

A work of art

You can make your wedding day a fairytale, if only on film, with professional videography.

By EMMELINE TAN

IN JUST about every bridal couple’s list of wedding “must-haves” will be the heavy, hard cover album of glossy studio/ outdoor portrait shots of them in various outfits and lovey-dovey poses. Depending on the couple’s taste and budget, the photographs could be the same standard (read: cheap) poses one sees in every other wedding photo album, i.e. hand on shoulder, groom kissing bride, etc. against the backdrop of a painted trellis. Or they could be more creative by posing in the great outdoors.

Going one level up are the photojournalistic shots of the wedding day proper, that capture the essence of the day, moments gone in an instant but captured by the watchful eye of the wedding photojournalist who employs skills of the newspaper photographer – to see and capture but to remain unseen. This kind of wedding photography is gaining popularity in Malaysia, especially among the young and photography-savvy couples who seek out specific photographers by name. Several such Malaysian photographers have gained celebrity status, with bookings from even overseas.

Videos are another story.

True pro: Lim Kee Sitt filming a close-up of a bride before a wedding. – Pic courtesy of CHRIS LIM
“Many friends shy away whenever I ask to view their wedding video. Aren’t they proud to show off their own wedding video? They tell me it’s because the video is badly produced,” said Malaysian wedding videographer, Lim Kee Sitt.

“People look at videographers as photographers. They expect us to capture everything but, at the end of the day, we have so much footage we don’t know what to do with it!

“What if your wedding video has you glued to your seat and makes you laugh and cry? What if it makes you want to watch it over and over again?” asked Lim.

He is one of the few Malaysian members of Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA), the largest non-profit trade association representing professional wedding and event videographers. The 28-year-old Penangite has an engineering background but no formal training in design or film.

Lim laments the Malaysian mentality about wedding videographers.

“We are actually documenting the day and weaving a story from the wedding. The skill is in the storytelling. In the future, when your kids or grandkids see your video, they will know more about you and how your wedding went.

“Making a video is not just about pointing a video camera at somebody. There’s thinking involved in the choice of shots. You can hold shots properly or deliberately move. And in editing, the videographer must decide when to tweak the colours, add transition, or do colour correction to enhance the mood of the video.

“Digital tools are now so much better, with all the computer software available, giving even near-cinematic effects,” he said. “But all this work makes the price go up and people think it is too expensive.”

He said traditional wedding videography that does not involve the use of multi-cameras costs between RM600 and RM800 whereas artistic videography costs from RM2,000 to RM6,000. Artistic videography with the use of multi-cameras can cost as much as RM14,000!

Skilled: Lim Kee Sitt filming part of the decorations for a wedding up close. – Pic courtesy of WEDDING STORY BY FATLENS MEDIA
“The more cameras used, the more expensive it gets. But if a videographer has the skill, he doesn’t need more footage. If you don’t know what you are doing, it is pointless, no matter how many cameras you use.”

A 30-minute video could take up to 60 hours of editing, Lim said. The editor’s job is harder than that of the one shooting the video because he is the storyteller as well as the colourist, the person who connects the whole picture.

Malaysians also have the tendency to think that the bigger the camera, the more professional the work is, he added.

“Cameras may be big but what is inside them? People need to understand technology.”

Most couples usually seek the services of a photographer before considering a videographer’s, he said. But one thing that video can do that photos can’t is record sound.

“There is a lot of movement in video. You take many pictures in one second, like showing the make-up brush making swift strokes.”

According to Lim, the wedding video industry in Malaysia is has still a long way to go.

“In the United States, the video montage concept (where various footage is stitched together in sync with the beat of music) is already 10 years old, whereas we only started it here in Malaysia some three years ago. The trend in the United States now is the documentary story style.

“The traditional video – which is straightforward, chronological, with minimum editing and shows the wedding from beginning to end – will soon be out of fashion. It is now all about short-form edit video, which is video footage of a wedding that is edited to a programme length of not less than 15 minutes and not more than 50 minutes.

“The wedding video industry in Malaysia needs to buck up because Malaysians are learning fast through the Internet about videography possibilities and many outsiders are coming into the country to capture the market.

“Yes, you can have your traditional video but a wedding is important and you want something better. It is not that Malaysians are outdated in their tastes. They just need to be educated.”

Lim’s foray into professional wedding videography was unintentional. An engineer by training, he realised that he had no passion for engineering once he started working. However, he had a penchant for IT.

One day, he bought a camcorder for a trip to Indonesia but put it aside. It was only when a friend started giving him lessons in videography that his interest bloomed.

“After the first class, my friend asked me what I was going to do with my video skills. I thought about shooting weddings, and tried out a few.

“Then I went online to learn more and saw the work of this guy from Canada who was like the Steven Spielberg of wedding videography. I thought to myself, ‘I want to do this kind of work!’”