The Tale of Two Taylors and Quest for Work-Life Balance
Jan 10, 2024Season 5Episode 8
Wedding Videography School
Ever found yourself facing a mix-up that turned your workday into a juggling act? That's exactly what happened to Michael when two clients both named Taylor unwittingly put my editing queue order in disaray. In this behind-the-scenes look, he recounts the tale and share how he managed to keep his cool and client relationships intact, including navigating another couple's unexpected request for a bonus highlight reel. Discover the delicate dance of satisfying diverse client needs, like when a father of the bride asked for raw footage only—and how these experiences shape our business.
Michael candidly discuss the quest for the seemingly mythical work-life balance, as he aims to transform my hectic schedule into a more manageable four-day workweek. He'll tell you about the strategic moves shaping his business's future, including a price increase and the decision to limit wedding bookings. Plus, hear how he gracefully handled a personal scheduling conflict without disappointing a client, thanks to Adam Bradley—who'll soon return to share his own videography tales. It's an episode full of real-life insights from the cutting room floor that you won't want to miss.
Ps. AI wrote this description!
This episode is brought to you in part by Photographers With Wide Brim Hats.
Ever found yourself facing a mix-up that turned your workday into a juggling act? That's exactly what happened to Michael when two clients both named Taylor unwittingly put my editing queue order in disaray. In this behind-the-scenes look, he recounts the tale and share how he managed to keep his cool and client relationships intact, including navigating another couple's unexpected request for a bonus highlight reel. Discover the delicate dance of satisfying diverse client needs, like when a father of the bride asked for raw footage only—and how these experiences shape our business.
Michael candidly discuss the quest for the seemingly mythical work-life balance, as he aims to transform my hectic schedule into a more manageable four-day workweek. He'll tell you about the strategic moves shaping his business's future, including a price increase and the decision to limit wedding bookings. Plus, hear how he gracefully handled a personal scheduling conflict without disappointing a client, thanks to Adam Bradley—who'll soon return to share his own videography tales. It's an episode full of real-life insights from the cutting room floor that you won't want to miss.
Ps. AI wrote this description!
This episode is brought to you in part by Photographers With Wide Brim Hats.
Hey guys, michael here with Wedding Videography School, hope all is well. Hope you guys are having a great week. I know I am. I'm kind of in that like, uh, just that editing season. I'm in that editing zone, editing every day and really just trying to stay on top of my editing. So I'd say it's going pretty well. Um, you know, I'm within well, within all my contracted deadlines and all that. So no real issue.
Speaker 1:
I do feel like I've had a couple clients lately that have been a little antsy to get all of their videos back. So I do kind of feel like whenever a client asks me like hey, any update on the video, I always feel, even if they asked me that like two weeks after I shot everything, like I don't know, I get like a little bit of that like anxiety. You know, it's just kind of like this person, um, and I actually had a client who's kind of bugged me multiple times Makes me think of the saying the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Um, yeah, my client's definitely getting the grease because I bumped him up, uh, in front of somebody else, which actually it ended up being an accident. I was not going to bump the squeaky wheel client up, um, in my editing queue, uh, but they actually got bumped up like two spots on accident because the bride's name is Taylor, but I also I have another Taylor and I shot their weddings, uh, like with one wedding in between both of theirs. So the second Taylor emailed me and I thought it was the first Taylor. So the, the, the Taylor, whose wedding I was supposed to edit like third in my queue, is now like first in my queue. Um, because I said, oh, yeah, I'm working on your like. Oh, this is great timing because I'm actually starting your video like at the end of this week or whatever.
Speaker 1:
So, uh, then I realized it was the other Taylor and yeah, that was. I should have double checked that and I didn't. I just made an assumption, which was stupid. And then, and then the first Taylor got in touch with me, like literally like two days later, and was like hey, just checking in on our video, and I was like all right, so I'm kind of editing At one point. Yeah, I'm kind of editing like two projects simultaneously and I might be. It might, by the time this is all said and done, like the next three weddings that I edit, uh, by the time it's all said and done. I might be editing three weddings simultaneous, simultaneously. So, uh, that's kind of where I'm at and then I'm trying to think what else is going on.
Speaker 1:
I had, hmm, oh, so I have this client who I really like the couple's really sweet, they didn't bug me like at all for anything ever. Like I don't think they checked in or anything, which I don't mind if people check in, but they just were like very, very patient while I worked on all their stuff. Um, and I had shot a wedding for them in Aspen and also provided sand geek coverage, so that's like an Indian ceremony. It's like I don't know. I want to say theirs was like maybe like a five hour ordeal. It was like full of dancing and people giving toasts and lots of food and blah, blah, blah, um, um, and so I incorporated a little bit of that stuff into the highlight video for the wedding weekend, like that's kind of how I approached that.
Speaker 1:
Uh, apparently I guess there was some sort of miscommunication, I would suspect maybe on the planner's end, but for some reason and I don't want to blame the planner, I mean, I have no idea how people come to these conclusions, but I think for some reason the client thought they were also going to get a highlight video of the CNG, which I was not planning on doing and is not in the contract. But, uh, okay, that's, that's fine. I let them know. I was like, oh, I don't usually do that, but happy to do it for you, and can I have 30 days to do it? So I am going to do that, um, just because, yeah, I feel like, especially the clients that I want to have more of, I pretty much just want to do everything I can to make them happy. And even if that just means, like you know, spending a day to edit like a two and a half three minute highlight video of a sand geek, then I don't know. I feel like it's, it's just worth it to have, for people to have a super smooth, easy experience with me. Um, and then at the end of it all, I'll just, you know, beg her to write a really nice review for me. So I think it'll all pan out. But, um, one client that I'm like a little more miserable with I'll tell you about I had.
Speaker 1:
So the second to last wedding that I shot this year was actually someone. It was for someone whose dad contacted me and he said, hey, we're having this wedding. Um, it's at this venue that I've shot a bunch of times and they recommended you and um, you know we kind of spent the whole wedding budget, most of the wedding budget, on all this other stuff. But we're kind of realizing, you know they'd like to have a video, but they don't know. You know we don't. Maybe we'll have you edit a highlight video at some point, but could you just come out and get all the footage of the wedding day, the ceremony, dances, etc. And so I said yes, I said I'll come out, I'll shoot the whole day as if I was going to make a highlight video. If you guys want to pay me extra to do the highlight video, I will. Otherwise, you know, for this set price I will shoot the whole day, the ceremony, I'll do like a ceremony edit and I'll give you all the footage like on a timeline.
Speaker 1:
So in my mind, I'm like I'm not really going to spend much more than two days on this project and I think I just charged them like, I don't know, it was pretty cheap. I think maybe I charged them like 2200 bucks. Um, just to like, you know, it's not that this place is not that far from my house. It's like 50 minutes from my house. Um, like I said, it's basically like two days worth of work. So I'm like I don't know, two grand is pretty good money for that, but I will say, man, they've like ended up being like I have not had that many text conversation with somebody's parents. Like they're nice enough, but I had to walk Like I I don't know what was so confusing about anything with this project, but they had so many questions that I was just like I cannot believe I'm having this many conversations with these people.
Speaker 1:
So I sent their final videos like a month ago and I I just had, like hopefully, my last conversation with them like two days ago. So just goes to show you how it's. This thing is just like never ends and just drags on and on for seemingly no real reason. Um, and yeah, I don't know what to say about it other than it's one of those things where you know, sometimes people will tell you that the cheapest clients are the biggest pains and yeah, in this particular case I don't always find that to be the case, but in this case it's definitely true. So that was one wedding I kind of wish I hadn't taken on, um, you know it wasn't that much work, but just these, these texts and ongoing conversations I'm kind of done with. So, uh, yeah, I wouldn't recommend. Wouldn't recommend doing that to anybody. What else is going on? Hmm, that's mostly what's going on here.
Speaker 1:
I am trying to speed up my editing a bit. I may have talked about this before, but I think it's worth repeating just in case I haven't said it. I'm kind of doing this new thing where I will pick out three songs off of Musicbed that I really like, that I think flow together really well, and then I'll just use them in three videos back to back to back. So basically, just copy all the audio over to my next timeline and start working on the next highlight video. So that saves me a bit of time picking out songs. If you're like me, you could spend I don't know, I used to. There were a couple times I spent a whole day picking out music and that was obviously a big waste of time and I don't recommend that, wouldn't wish that on anybody. That's a huge waste of time. So yeah, I think what I've started doing is just making little projects within Musicbed, adding songs to the projects, and then sometimes I'll mix and match them.
Speaker 1:
I don't always take the same three and then plug them in for three edits in a row. Sometimes I'll make it so that, like, oh, one of the songs is a song that I haven't used before or it's one that I haven't used in a long time. That's one thing I do. But yeah, that really helps cut down on the time it takes to edit. And then I, yeah, I just picked the best. Let's see, yeah, I just picked the best one of the three where I use all the same music and then I just will post that one on the website or whatever. I'm trying to think what else? Oh, yeah, the other thing is I started kind of editing the bride walking down the aisle. I mean, that's pretty much always a shot that I included my videos. So I've started making that the first shot that I put on the timeline, and I kind of I do have a formula for how my videos go, but you know my I'm trying to be better about being creative but also editing quickly.
Speaker 1:
So one thing I'm doing now is I'm taking natural sound breaks, so like in between songs. I'll generally use like three songs in a video and in between songs I'll just like put some natural sound in the background, like some birds chirping or some like wind noise or like just some ambience, you know. And then I'll have like the bride and groom do their first look or something like that, and I'll just like let that natural audio play out for really as long as I can. And I think the last one I did, that little first look scene, was like 50 seconds or something. So that took up almost a minute on my timeline, which is nice because it gives me. You know, if I'm doing a 10 minute video and the first look takes up 10% of the video, I basically have 10% of the edit done right there and I'm working on like not putting music under every part of the video, like it's nice to have breaks where there isn't music. So I try to take at least two of those kinds of breaks per video. But I would like to get to the point where I'm somehow like I don't know, letting it be like slightly more documentary in style, not always feeling like I have to have like a really cool catchy song under the video.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, you know I was watching. I'm not like a huge UFC fan or anything. I think it's alright, it's entertaining enough, and I'll watch a few of the fights every once in a while, but they do this promotional documentary series called UFC Embedded and it's it ranges in length, but I think it. I've seen ones that are like almost an hour I think, and they're just like like documentaries about what's going on in with like the fighters who have fights coming up and it follows each of them around for like a portion of their training and blah, blah, blah and it's cool, it's like it's really well done and I find it captivating enough. But when I was watching it the last time, I realized they in this one episode that I watched, it was almost an hour long and, excuse me, and this is what happens when I talk a bunch, my throat gets dry. Let me take a drink real quick. Okay, hopefully that's better.
Speaker 1:
They barely use music in this edit, so I think maybe it felt very last like the very end of it. They used a little music for like the end credits or something I like I don't even know what it was, or maybe they just showed the date of the fight or whatever at the end and played some music under that. But it was a really compelling edit that had no music and I was like oh, this is awesome. Like they made a whole you know thing that was almost an hour long with no music in it and I'm like man, that's really got to cut down on the editing time. But I don't know, hard to know.
Speaker 1:
In some ways, I think edit music actually helps me edit faster Because I lean on it so much. It's kind of a crutch that maybe that does help me edit quickly. But at the same time, if you're like not even worried about music at all, you're not worried about where you need to loop the song or I need to bring vocal, I need to bring vocals down here, I need to, you know, crossfade this with that, like I don't know, maybe, maybe that actually would save more time too. So I don't know, I'm still just trying to catch this rhythm of this rhythm and balance of I want to run this business as efficiently as possible so I can still have two days off a week or whatever. Eventually I'd love to have three days.
Speaker 1:
Or, like you know, I work four days a week and take three off every week. That's kind of, that's kind of my dream scenario. I don't really want to. I don't know. I don't really like the idea of taking really long breaks or having the summer off or anything like that. I don't really need vacations. So three days a week off sounds, man, that sounds really great. And then I could just hit it really hard four days a week. So always just trying to improve this like work life balance, but also maintain quality. So, yeah, that's just kind of where I'm at right now. That's really the only update I have, other than I did raise my prices a lot this year, and an update on that is basically it's going OK. I've got 15 booked for the year and my max that I would even consider shooting is 24. But I probably should just shoot like 22. I think that's a better number. Honestly, it should probably just be 20. If I'm being really honest with myself which I never am, I always kind of lean a little too hard towards the work side. I should probably max out at 20, but we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:
I'm working on some other projects, some other ideas for, you know, non-wedding related things and, yeah, just trying to see where things are going for the new year 2024. I talked to Adam Bradley this morning and I'm trying to get him back on the show. He's been busy. He's had a lot of things going on. And, yeah, he's actually going to be shooting a wedding for me. Oh, that was one thing I forgot to mention was that a friend of mine is getting married out here in Denver and I want to go to her wedding. Actually, two friends of mine, so I actually know the bride and the groom. We all used to work together at the same place that I've met my wife, which is a TV news station that I've talked about ad nauseam on this show over the years, and so she's getting married. They're getting married and I wanted to be there, but I have a wedding already booked.
Speaker 1:
And so I got in touch with the client and said hey, would you mind I explain? Like hey, my friends are getting married on this date. I just found out about it over Christmas and I'd like to be there. But you know, obviously I don't. I'm not going to leave you hanging. Would you mind if I sent Adam to shoot your wedding? And it took a little bit of convincing when I first told her about it and she's like Okay, well, can you send me a link to like this guy's work and like whatever? And I was like yeah, absolutely. And she wrote back and she's like it's so funny because you, we basically had narrowed our choices down to you and Adam. We ended up going with you.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, like they, they were like super happy because they liked Adam's work as well as they liked mine. So maybe I be Adam on price or whatever. I don't know, I didn't ask, but so Adam is actually going to end up shooting that one for me. I'm going to edit it. So they're kind of getting the best of both worlds in the sense that they get they get Adam shooting it and they get me editing it. So it's all gonna it's all going to work out. So shout out to Adam for helping me out there. But yeah, I think that's about it. I'll be back soon, hopefully, with Adam to talk about the new year things that we're looking forward to. Maybe you know a little roundup of Adam's 2023 season. Appreciate you guys listening later.