Inspiration for wedding photographers ~ Lovegrove Weddings Showreel

July 30th, 2011

Here is the 2006 showreel that Julie and I commissioned to help us convert prospects into becoming clients. It is all made up from still photographs. The animation was created painstakenly by hand. This is meant to be mute – see below for the reason.

Here is the showreel that I commissioned using Macromedia Director way back in 2006. It shows pictures that Julie, my wife and I shot at weddings from 2001 – 2005. We included it in our brochure at the time to help convert prospects into clients. The original version was delivered on CD and contained paid for licensed production music. I’ve kept this web version mute to avoid copyright infringement. All the pictures and content belong to Lovegrove Weddings. Please enjoy this HD video. I hope you get plenty of ideas and inspiration from it.

The original production was published on CD as a stand alone ‘projector’ file for either PC or Mac. We delivered the CDs in a purpose made pouch in the back of our wedding photography brochure. There was licenced production music embedded within the project. However the licence we bought for about £250 only covers the original run of CDs hence this web published version being mute. The project was created by Peter G Rogers FBIPP using Macromedia Director software.

Back in 2006 our competitors just had standard slideshows with one picture fading into another. This project lifted us above them all and our clients absolutely loved it. Some of our prospective brides gave the CD to their fiences to play in their laptops and then they asked them for approval to book us. The brides knew they wanted us and this helped them to ‘sell us’ to their men. This is the reason for the boys having fun section near the start.

All the photographs in this set are from our weddings shot between 2001 and 2006. This video lasts for just under 23 minutes. You can download this video in HD and it will run perfectly on an iPad, iPad 2 or iPhone 4.

Why not suggest a music playlist to accompany it? Please feel free to add comments below.

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10 Comments Add your own

1. David pearson | July 30th, 2011 at 7:05 pm

Not a new idea but still better than many I see today and has given me yet more food for thought. Thanks for this.
2. damien | July 31st, 2011 at 12:15 am

Hi David,

As you say it’s not a new idea. Our first ‘Director’ production was in 2003 so the process is old now. I suppose Flash is the tool to create this kind of thing now and I expect video clips and a 3D graphic element is the obvious way forward. At the time, 5 years ago this had the wow factor and now something more is needed to create the wow. Only the few champions of our industry would invest the several thousand pounds needed to put something like this (but better) together now. That’s why they are the champions

Regards, Damien.
3. Simon | July 31st, 2011 at 8:45 am

Very nice Damien but about 15 minutes too long IMHO
4. Radmila Kerl | July 31st, 2011 at 10:01 am

I don´t know how many times I have seen this video by now Damien. Many times. And every time I see it again I thing to myself: “Hey, why didn´t YOU take THIS picture last time?” and: “Oh, this is a nice composition, I have to keep that in mind for the next wedding.” No matter how old this production is, those pictures will never ever look outdated or oldfashioned. This is really Champions League.
5. damien | July 31st, 2011 at 10:40 am

Hi Radmilla,

Thank you for your compliments.
6. damien | July 31st, 2011 at 11:12 am

Hi Simon,

Aha, you caught me out. I should have explained that we had two versions of this showreel, the photographer version and the client version. The client version has 300 pictures and ran at a faster frame rate and this version for photographers has 500 pictures and ran slower hence the 22 min duration. I’ve just checked my client audio track and it has a duration of 13.43. Not quite the 7 minutes you suggest. We have to understand that brides are information hungry, they read and reread their magazines and they loved watching through the shorter version of this production. Every picture is different, and there are none of the standard poses that they will have seen in our competitors albums. The client version of this show was a very effective tool for bookings convertion with over 120 couples choosing us having seen it. Our couples were making a serious investment in their photography of between £7k – £14k and this kind of wow factor was just what they needed. Music carries the show in a way that this mute version does not. Our music was very carefully chosen and paid for in the correct manner and our client list happened to include barristers, solicitors and QCs.

This photographers edition exists because in February 2006 Julie and I were teaching in Morocco and we wanted a snazzy showreel to open our talks with. I was just starting out on the lecture circuit too and photographers were becoming our clients. We also sold copies of this photographers edition to photographers at our talks for a nominal fee to cover the cost of production.

Best regards,

Damien.
7. Sean Shimmel | July 31st, 2011 at 12:24 pm

As always, quietly timeless.

Would be intriguing to hear a commentary overlay with your brief observations… about :

1. What in the image represents your own classic, personal style
2. What has changed in your visual outlook since these images
3. How they spark new ideas you will try.

Keep up the intrigue

Sean
8. Rob Brook | July 31st, 2011 at 9:46 pm

While director hasn’t really been updated by Adobe in years it’s still more suited to CD and DVD production than flash is.
Flash is optimised for online use while director is far more powerful and purposefully designed to build cd and kiosk interface.
In 2003 I was building graphical adventure games with director way before flash could do the same.
9. Rob Capaldi | August 9th, 2011 at 3:47 pm

Very inspiring showreel, I hope as I continue to learn I will be able to shoot in such a timeless, classy style.

I agree with the above comment, it would be great to hear your commentary overlayed.
10. damien | August 13th, 2011 at 2:36 pm

Hi Rob, thanks for your kind words. I may well do a video talk/ commentry with my wedding pictures. I usually want about 45 seconds per image to discuss it properly and that would make the run time 6¼ hours for the 500 shots in the showreel.

I’ll need to think again on this one. Cheers, Damien.