Hey, hey, hey, sisters and brothers from all the other mothers, we were recently interview by the superlovely Rachyeta Singh founder of the RS Bridal Group at Shaadi-Esque.com the premier inspiration spot for Asian brides.  We had a lovely time answering her questions and if you’d like to get to know us a little better, reading this is a great start !

Here’s a little excerpt…..we’ll hand over to Rachyeta……

The two talented and pretty darn funny guys of RozierWilkinson Cinematography show us some of their pretty unique work and talk to us about who the guys behind the camera are, what makes them love what they do and why they shoot weddings of all things. You are all going to love this blog post – it’s a definite smile reader!

♥ Who are the people behind the camera?

PW:        Hello – I’m Peter (Wilkinson) a writer and producer.

MR:        And howdy – I’m Matt (Rozier) a director and cameraman.

PW:        I started working in the theatre in London, firstly as an actor and then as a script reader, and I slowly started making the move into film a few years ago.

MR:        I was an actor too for about 10 years. That was how we originally met, many years ago, in a play at the Globe Theatre in Germany. We instantly hit it off – kicking opinions on film around and we’ve been mates ever since. I made the move over to directing a few years ago, first for the stage, and then for the camera, and we met up in 2009 to shoot something for Pete and decided to form our sister company Blind Crow Pictures.

PW:        I’m originally from the North-East of England but trained and worked in London for many years and now oscillate between the two as work demands.

MR:        And I’m based in Bucks with my long-term lady and little daughter Poppy – she’s two and quite possibly an evil genius. She’s calling me a lazy tortoise at this very moment.

♥ What drives your passion?

PW:        Perhaps Matt may want to distance himself from my answer to this!  I have to be honest and say that tears drive my passion. Happy tears – to be more specific. There is not a better feeling, for me, than knowing that what we have produced has moved someone so much that they couldn’t help but shed a tear. We got a message the other day from one of our brides and she said that she had sat down with her Mother and watched a ‘pre-wedding’ film that we had made for her, and they both sat there together and cried as they watched it. Obviously there are a hundred other things that I love about the job and that I want to get right and that I feel passionate about – but bringing out emotion in those we work with is something I always aim for. It tells me that we have done our job.

MR:        Pete’s answer just made me cry. I’m kidding. But he’s right; it’s a really special feeling. Just to add to that – I love, love, love, finding the hidden story. Weddings are strange beasts, full of friends and family who aren’t always close and aware of the stories behind the couples. I love to find those hidden stories and to help couples tell them – I get a real kick out of thinking that after watching one of our films you’ll know just a little bit more about what makes this marriage special. When you know, when you see that love for what it is it’s then that you invest in it and really root for it. It’s the difference between saying – Ah they make a good couple and I can’t ever imagine them being apart.

PW:         Okay, now you just made me cry.

MR:         Sigh.

PW:         Kiiddddding!

♥ If you could choose a celebrity (dead or alive) you would like to video, who would it be and why?

PW:        I would have to go with Orson Welles. I don’t believe there to have been a more interesting and talented individual in the world of film. Ever. Having read so much about him, his experience range from dinners with Churchill in Venice, performing magic with Houdini on the continent, marrying Rita Hayworth and working with everyone under the sun, as well as writing, directing and acting in perhaps the greatest film of all time. I would have loved to have made a film about him that truly communicated how special he was.

MR:         For me, ah this is tough – Oliver Reed maybe?! I’ll be honest – it doesn’t interest me as much. As ex-actors ourselves we know that on your day off it can be weird to be the centre of attention – you kind of just want to fade into the background – you know – I’d MUCH prefer to film the wedding of the crazy drunk guy who was constantly propping up the Walkabout Bar in Wimbledon between 2001-2009 – his wedding would be a ball!  Actually I think I love shooting weddings which are really visual – that’s a massively broad spectrum, but the more visually interesting the better!

♥ What are the advantages of hiring your services?

PW:        People hiring Matt and I will get a comprehensive service – we truly and sincerely care about our work and the people we work with. There are so many options with our films, in terms of how we approach them and the different films and edits we offer such as pre-wedding, e-invites, post-wedding, etc, that any couple working with us can tailor what they get to suit their wedding, and suit their budget. The other advantage to hiring us, over, say, some other wedding videographers, is, as mentioned above, our approach to the couple. Of course their wedding day is special, but there is one thing that is even more special, and that is the couple themselves – the relationship – and that relationship started before the wedding, and will go on for many years after, and so we want to set the wedding day that we film within   the larger context of the relationship – it means so much more when it has that depth and texture.

MR:        I think another thing that we do well is that we’re open, friendly and approachable.

PW:        We’re also funny

MR:        We’re very, very funny. Hilarious would you say?

PW:        Yes, I think I would.

MR:        But that doesn’t mean that we don’t take things seriously, we work hard, it just means that we’re easy to have around.

PW:        Like Guinea Pigs.

MR:        Yes. Like Guinea Pigs with expensive cameras.

To check out the rest of the interview click here

And to read our ten top tips click here.

We had great fun answering some of Rachyeta’s questions, and we are more than happy to answer any others that people may have – even if you’re not interested in booking but just have a burning question you need answering about wedding films, drop us a line and we’ll get right back to you

FEEDBACK FROM RACHYETA…..

I love these guys, I would like to sincerely thank you for your time Peter and Matt. Your posts always make me smile. Hoping you all enjoyed this post just as much as I did. It has been a really informative read and maybe you all can take something away from it.

Rachyeta xxx

MASSIVE love back to Rachyeta and the Shaadi-esque team !!!

Matt and Pete

(The following principals apply to both photography and videography, the only difference being that in filmmaking you need to capture twenty four* correctly exposed images a second.)

But what do we really mean by the term ’correctly exposed’?

That’s a difficult question to answer, as ‘correct’ exposure can be, to a certain extent, subjective based upon what you want your picture to look like.   The best way to think of an image that has been ‘correctly exposed’ is that it retains all the details in all of the areas that you’d like details retained in.  We’ll touch on this much more in a few moments.

Images are created by cameras in much the same way that they’re created in eyes – light is projected through a lens onto a surface.  In the eye this is the retina, in a film camera it’s a frame of film, in a digital camera this is the sensor.  When we talk about exposure, we’re talking about how much light the retina/film/sensor has been ‘exposed’ to.

So what does a picture with a typically ‘correct’ amount of exposure to light look like?

The following is an example of a picture of little buddy ‘Noo Noo’ that has been exposed correctly…

Notice all detail is retained in both shadows and highlights

If a picture is over-exposed then too much light has been used to create the image, resulting in an image like this…

Notice how much information is lost from the over exposed areas, this can't be brought back in post

If a picture has been under-exposed then too little light has been used to create the image which makes pictures like this…

Again, notice how much information is lost from the shadows

If you tried to correct this in post you’d get results like this…

The under exposed image corrected

‘Correct’ exposure is a Goldilocks tale – some pictures are too bright, some are too dark and some are juuuuust right.  This doesn’t mean that sometimes a bright/dark image is wrong, it just means that you could be sacrificing important information and losing detail in areas of your image.

Cameras – advanced as they are – are not yet as capable as the human eye, they lack the human eye’s  ’dynamic range’.

What’s dynamic range?  Dynamic range is the distance between the brightest thing you want to capture and the darkest thing you want to capture.   The human eye has a wide dynamic range – meaning that when looking at something very bright, and very dark, you can see details in both.  The camera has a narrow dyanmic range meaning that when faced with the same picture you have to choose – do you want to see the details in the highlights, or do you want to see the details in the shadows?

Filming outside on a sunny day is a perfect example.  Your eye is able to adjust to see the detail in the sunny areas whilst also seeing the detail in the shadowy areas.  A camera can’t always do this.  Generally in conditions that are both very bright and very dark, you need to choose either to capture the details in the bright or the details in the dark, sacrificing the details in the opposite area.  If for example you chose to see the face of the man standing in the sunshine, you may lose the face of the girl standing in the shadows, and vice versa.

Losing detail in your shadows is typically called ‘crushing’ and losing detail in your highlights is typically refered to as ‘clipping’.

It’s usually preferential to capture as much detail from a scene as possible as in post production, if you decided that the picture was too bright – or that you wanted to bring some of the detail back in your sky (eg. clouds), and you had ‘clipped’ your highlights, when altering the brightness of the image you’d find that all detail in the sky was missing – there’d be no clouds.  In essence, the camera has become blind to those details and instead captured the only thing it could see – a completely flat white area where your sky used to be.

Overexposed Sky retains no digital information

A well exposed sky retains all sky information and looks much better

Photographers are able to get a greater dynamic range by shooting images in RAW format or by utilising techniques such as HDR (High Dynamic Range) where multiple photographs are taken and blended together, retaining details from shadows and details from highlights.  For filmmakers, it’s much trickier.

So how do we effect exposure?  How can we set our cameras so that they capture the widest ‘dynamic range’ possible?  How do we choose between exposing for the bright and exposing for the dark areas and what effect will this have on the quality or ‘look’ of your pictures?  This leads us on to the topics we’ll be discussing over the next few weeks…

Aperture size

Shutter Speed

ISO

Filters

and

Metering

Stick with it, even if it seems complicated at first.  We’re sure that at the end of these back to basics tutorials the quality of your pictures will improve tenfold.

 *or 25, or 23.97 or 30 or 29.97 or 60 the list goes on !

Big love, Matt and Pete

Anthony and Julie were married on the cusp of winter at the beautiful Sandhole Oak Barn in Cheshire. A more perfect setting could not have been asked for – nestled between frosted fields, a frozen lake and under the clearest of cobalt blue skies, friends and family gathered at the barn to witness an intimate and heart warming ceremony.

RozierWilkinson were honoured to be there and to be part of such a wonderful day. The magical moments came thick and fast – the children chasing each other, giggling, from room to room; the bite of the cold of the crisp clean air; the reassuring warmth of the post-wedding mulled wine; the guests talking and laughing on the veranda; the shaking heads as embarrassing stories were relayed during the speeches; the hush and the pause and the smiles and the tears as Anthony and Julie took to the floor for their first dance together as man and wife.

Such a beautiful day and yet, only one of the many that this perfect young couple will spend together – a fact made all the more apparent by the stories, memories, hopes and wishes shared by their friends and family when asked by RozierWilkinson to leave messages for the newly-weds.

A magical day, a magical couple, and, as a result, a magical winter wedding.

Thanks for inviting us along peeps !

Big love,

Matt and Pete