I am David from 20.media and I have trained many videographers over the years and I wanna to share with you some of the most important tips I give someone who works with us on a shoot.

At Snowbird Films, we strive to create films that are truly memorable and special for our clients. To ensure our wedding cinematographers have the necessary skills to produce these films, we have implemented a unique training program that focuses on the acronym "EPIC." This acronym stands for Everything, Perspective, Initiative, and Cinematic, and each of these elements is paramount in creating a truly epic wedding film.

Everything refers to being aware of every detail of the event, from chatting with the venue's event organiser to listening closely to the bride, groom, and organizers, in order to capture all of the unique moments that make a wedding special.

Perspective means crafting a story that immerses the viewer in the events of the day. By starting the day with “behind the scenes” footage of an empty venue and the setup, followed by the bridal details and preparations, and then the arrival of the groom, the viewer will feel like they are front row to all of the big moments.

Initiative requires being prepared and in the perfect position for all of the big moments, but also having the power and confidence to adapt and make things work when necessary.

Finally, Cinematic refers to using the art of storytelling to complement the events of the day and capturing footage in a true cinematic style to make the film visually stunning and emotionally powerful and engaging.

By teaching our cinematographers the key areas of focus outlined in the acronym "EPIC," we empower them to go above and beyond to capture the perfect footage and create films that are truly epic and that capture the unique beauty and emotion of each and every wedding.



The most important piece of advice

Today I will share probably the most valuable piece of advice for students coming into the live events filming environment. That is to slow your capturing brain down and count every single shot.

Some people call this the 10 second rule and I think every shot being at least 10 seconds is a great starting point.



Why count when filming?

There is allot of things all happening at once and the temptation is to just wave your camera around and capture everything. The issue is you look back at your footage and there is nothing there you can use in the edit. You need to take a logical approach to capturing everything slowly, tell that story and then move on to capturing the next thing happening.

Personally I like to capture several different shots of the same thing so I go for a 6 second rule,
Everything I'm filming, the bridal details 6 seconds of wide then 6 seconds of tight. Venue setting shots 6 seconds movement shot, then 6 seconds static shot. Throughout the day when allot is happening I encourage you to slow down and make sure every shot you are capturing is at least 6 seconds of useable footage.


This works for more than just wedding filming

Film highlights for a conference, or live dance show as a b-roll cameraman? Use the counting rule for all your shoots to improve your skills as a camera operator and make the editors life a dream instead of a nightmare!

Another bonus rule for second operators

Our second operators are employed for their creativity and high level of skill when it comes to movement work( drones, gimbals etc). However we give them a 2 non movement rule for every 1 movement shot. This means they have to capture twice the amount of low movement as they can creative movement shots. We encourage our operators to let the natural movement take priority and let the action happen in front of the camera, instead of always creating artificial movement.

We encourage our operators to be creative in other ways, for example on how they frame their shots and angles and lenses that they use etc. (crush backgrounds)

Add to your filmmaking with these inexpensive bits of kit. Each piece of kit is designed to complement your main footage and fit straight into your camera bag , so you can bring these with you on every shoot.

Want to add a bit of wow into your wedding filming, music videos or impressive roll into your documentary shooting. Well this is all about adding that little bit of movement into your films with no bulky camera slider in sight!

I am going to take one pretty big assumption for this video and presume you already own a fairly modern mobile phone or action camera to use with all these accessories. As they are intended to be used for insert shots and not the main footage.

The first bit of kit you will just need the ability to capture time-lapse and my iPhone 12 works great for this. Now time-lapse by itself is often a great thing to introduce into your filming to add a transition of time passing or to quickly show an otherwise uninspiring outside atmosphere and space. But adding a bit of movement to this time-lapse turns it into a wow moment. There are several turning tripod heads which you can mount kick off you time-lapse and leave to do its magic. You don’t even need a tripod really, why not set it on a table when the guests are walking into the reception for a shot like this and go film so other shots and hope no-one has moved or stared straight into your time-lapse! The Newer version is about £50 and it has a couple of speed setting for you to play around with . The great thing is it really doesn’t talk up any space in your camera bag and can add these moments to you film and up the production value quickly. Well as long as it takes to film a time-lapse!


The next bit of kit I have used to quickly do a dolly shot, I actually use a mirrorless onto of this with no problems at all ( it has a 5kg payload limit) but again you could use an action camera or smartphone mount onto of it. It has 3 variable speed , but I often set my camera to a high frame rate for an even smoother look in post. It comes with a remote control to start and stop the motion of the dolly. It has adjustable wheels so you can pan around any object in a circle or use it straight like a camera slider shot.

Charge it up chuck in into your bag and quickly get some product and detail shots that are quite impressive.


With the quality of images now on something like the iPhone 12 pro max it really has opened up the possibility to use it for some brill footage and quick setting shots when being a solo shooter.
3 axis gimbals have been around for an age and they really have come down in price and have become better and better

This gimbal is £71 ! I actually use it to grab some vertical videos to promote my work through channels such as TikTok. The ability to stabilise vertical video has meant I can quickly and easily leave this setup for grabbing pieces of vertical video throughout a shoot. As my main cameras will be capturing horizontally as all video should be!

It come with its own app so you can capture some motion time-lapse with it as well , vertical motion time-lapse if you want to. It has a handy 3 ¼ Screw hole at the bottom for you to mount it to a tripod for this or you can use the mounting point to add a light to the gimbal whilst filing .


Mentioning lights, if you don’t already use some form of on camera or off camera lighting for your filming. Portable blogging style ring lights have really dropped in price and are always worth carrying in your bag for evening shots, interviews or anytime when lighting could quickly make a difference to a shot.

This newer one has a variable lighting from 3200 to 5600 , 10 different lighting levels and various mounting options and includes a table top stand. All for £20. Power in via a usb power bank or laptop easily.

"Thank you so much for the video. It was absolutely fantastic and the editing was superb. Our family in Norway said they felt as if they felt as tho they were there.I can’t believe how many people were watching. How incredible! A lot of Norway family were all together at one event with a big screen so that accounted for about 20 people. I have watched it back several times and I am so grateful to have the memory and parts of the service that missed. Thank you. Xx"

There are many solutions on the market that enable you to live stream weddings to virtual guest with the most popular being YouTube and Zoom. DaCast is a great option to consider due to its channel nature, penetration into China and quality control options.

More Control

A free streaming service takes allot of control out of your hands. Whilst this can be fantastic for ease of use and management, it does mean that when you need to perform certain tasks like password protection or control over areas and websites you can’t easily achieve these.

DaCast gives you a high level of control over who watches your content and at what quality, you are able to set locations and passwords with ease. It also reaches hard to reach areas such as China with contracts with Chinese based CDN services with multiple points of presence (PoPs) across the mainland, you gain access to 1.4 billion people behind the Great Firewall.

You also get levels of control over appearance and style and you don’t get inappropriate suggest videos at the end of your stream!

If there are issues just reconnect

Sometimes you just can’t get a reliable internet connection! We have streamed all over the place and occasionally there is nothing you can do to get a better internet connection. This is where DaCast is fantastic, you can use a free service like OBS to stream at a low quality and even if frames are dropped DaCast will play what it receives without cutting you off. YouTube requires a constant reliable stream or it will terminate the event, leaving you to start a new stream and try to let everyone know the new link!

What features would be great with DaCast

The three main features/benefits that YouTube offer that DaCast don’t are

Live Chat - You can use external devices to integrate live chat on your website, but YouTube and Zoom enable your online guests to not only watch but interact with each other or leave messages.
Compatibility and Familiarity. YouTube just works for people and they can access it on a variety of devices such as TVs with ease. You won’t get guests contacting you in a panic because they know how to watch a YouTube stream already. DaCast is fantastic at working on all devices and does just work, however it is harder to access on TVs.
Instant Replay. DaCast is a channel meaning that anything you put through it is watchable straight away as it happens, its not setup as an event that replays as soon as its finished. It would be great for DaCast to enable a feature of an instant replay of a recorded event.

Read more about our Live Wedding Stream Packages Here