First Wedding Videography Shoot with a DSLR

On Saturday, June 21st I filmed my first wedding with a DSLR.  Though I've filmed several other projects with my Canon 6D camera, there are many challenges of shooting run-and-gun with a DSLR during a wedding.

Creativity

• Use your foreground.  Some of my favorite shots of the day utilized foreground elements.
• Keep moving.  Move around and get different angles.  If people are doing a continuous or repetitive action,  move yourself to get extra angles for editing.
• Keep extra shots to 10-15 seconds.  The ceremony is about the only "shot" that should be continuous.  Challenge yourself to film each shot for only 10-15 seconds.  Imagine editing the movie in your head; what do you see?
• Find the Happiness.  Look for smiles, laughs, and fun.  Those moments will look great when cutting your wedding film.  They can be used as great visual material for toast speeches, interviews, and voice over.
• Get variety.  Keep looking for something unique.  What special touches have been added to the wedding that you may have missed?
• Film a few things in slow-motion.  The groomsmen being guys, the bouquet toss, the bride and groom walking together.
• Move the camera.  Unless your shot must be static, move the camera to bring life to your shots.
• Rack focus.  Switching your objects in focus can be great for both the bride and the groom and for shots of still objects.
• Capture ambient sound.  Many professional wedding films capture ambient sounds of birds, pets, children, and people talking. These can be great segways between shots and help to breathe more life (and production value) into your finished piece.

What I learned:

• A Monopod is a must.  Unless you have two cameras rolling, you probably will not need a regular tripod.  A tripod is too bulky to safely and easily move around weddings guests.  Using a $15 rented monopod made great shots easier and allowed me to be versatile.
• An on-camera monitor may get in your way.  I rented a 7" monitor but opted not to use it because my setup did not support a shotgun mic and monitor together.  It rained during the last two hours of coverage and the rain could have fried the monitor.
• Use a second camera. Borrow, beg, or rent.  Capture the opposite angle of the ceremony with your second camera.  If you're actively filming the bride with the main camera, setup the second camera on a tripod to film the groom, or vice versa.  If you can borrow a camera, you'll save a significant amount of money renting.  In Montana a Canon 7D rents for $70 per day and a 5D Mark III is $149/day.  Ask a friend to borrow their camera or offer them $50 to use their camera for a day and I bet they will not turn you down!
• Prepare for bad weather (rain).  No matter your DSLR setup, rain could quickly halt your ability to capture good footage.
• Bring your charger and three batteries.  My first battery was not fully charged and only lasted for a few hours. If I had forgotten to bring my charger, it's likely I would have run out of battery power before the action was over.
• Plug an audio recorder into the DJ's soundboard.  If you're not able to mic-up the groom with a hidden lavalier mic, connecting to the soundboard is a must.  You'll probably get good audio and at least have a backup if your on-camera shotgun mic is not picking up what you need.

Here's the gear that I used:

Canon 6D
Canon 24-105 lens
Rode VideoMic Pro
Zoom H4n (plugged into the DJ's sound board)
Sirui monopod P-324x with Benro S4 head (rented)
Two camera batteries
Battery charger
Umbrella
7" LCD monitor (rented and not used)