Last summer, right in the midst of a month of incredibly hot, humid and sweaty days, I got a random email. Because I have this blog and a small short film making business, every now and then I get emails from people I don't know.
So in July I open this email that basically asked if I made films for people about to get married. I replied that I had not, but I could. He wrote back asking if I could do an engagement video. Back and forth the emails went, and then I forgot about them.
I believe they ended when I said that I don't always have a firm price on making films, but as a general rule, you can expect the final film to have cost about one thousand dollars per minute. He had mentioned that he wanted to make a film of his hoped for fiance, add music and at the end, add his appeal for marriage.
The negotiations were actually kind of interesting. He was going to shoot the video, of her at the beach, I would edit, add music and his plea, and that would be it. He had fallen in love with a film I had done in Chicago and he knew she would love the film and say yes after viewing it. So he asked, since he is doing the actual filming, and the music would be from a popular band and all I was doing was editing, would the price change. My answer then, as it always is, would be no. But he wrote back, the song is 4 minutes and 35 seconds. I told him, the film would probably cost 5 thousand dollars, using my general rule of a thousand dollars per edited final minute.
At about that time the emails ended.
Then in late September, I got an email. He and his girlfriend had spent a week at the beech, he had shot a lot of video, they had rented a convertible. There was the promise of great footage, and he had filmed himself (while driving) asking her to marry him. Would I still be interested? How long would it take? Same price?
Price never changes, so everything else was on the table. We came to an agreement, he FedExed me the tapes. I reviewed them, downloaded the clips I would need for the film. I used only footage of her riding in the back seat of the convertible. At the beginning I pulled a clip of her saying something like, "you only go out with me cause I'm pretty," and on the tape you hear him say, "that is so not true, you're a decent cook too."
The film opens in silence, the screen in black and you hear the dialog from above. Then you hear the engine of the convertible. A lingering shot of the ocean, his favorite song quietly playing in the background. Then a long, slow motion shot of his beautiful girlfriend, in the back seat, looking amazing in a bikini top, her hair almost flowing in the breeze. The music is now loud enough to hear, she is slowly looking off to the side, then she gazes directly into the camera and flashes a warm and loving smile.
At the end, as the song wound down, I faded everything to black. Then her fiances voice in that black screen, "I hope this is in focus. I hope you can hear me. OK. There, start now. (he face fills the screen) I love you, you love me, I want to spend my life with you. This is my way of asking you, please consider marrying me. Say yes. (screen goes black.) After ten seconds, it is over.
So, the goods news, I am invited to a wedding in San Diego. The good news, she did say yes and "loved loved loved" the film. The goods news, if I can do it, they want me to make a non-traditional film of their wedding. The even better news, I could not bring myself to charge 5 thousand dollars for a film filled with so much love.
The non-traditional wedding video? That they get charged for.
No comments:
Post a Comment