Last week we had the honour of flying out to Cyprus to film the destination wedding of Linzi and Ben at the Olympic Lagoon Resort near Paphos.
It’s a different kettle of fish in many ways to filming a UK wedding, not least in terms of trying to get all the kit to the destination in one piece. The other factors which are less of an issue in the UK are heat and bright sunlight. It was often hard to see the built in camera monitors when filming and such was the hectic “run n’ gun” nature of shooting weddings that setting up an HDMI fed external monitor was impractical. The heat also meant that when running (literally at times) between locations carrying heavy kit you would sweat more. However, the experience of many years working in hot countries means that my camera bag was well stocked with water to keep me hydrated. Dehydration affects the ability to concentrate and in such an all action environment as a wedding, you can’t afford to switch off.
Planning for the shoot got started way in advance. Unlike a typical UK wedding where the venue is the location you are trying to reflect, in a destination wedding we felt like the whole country is at the essence of the event. So the aim would be to capture a sense of Cyprus. There are limitations but allowing more time in country than just the wedding day allowed for shooting establishing shots and B-roll which we could have in the bag and backed up prior to the wedding day, which took some pressure off.
On the day itself, we had the great pleasure of working with Christine Constantine as the photographer. She is from the UK but has lived and worked in Cyprus for the past seven years. She was a delight to work with, very friendly, very professional and very considerate in terms of working in partnership with the tripod/slider/steadicam wielding videographer.
Kit wise, I took most of my equipment and bought a bit of extra baggage allowance. The one thing I didn’t take but should have is my small toolkit, to ensure that all the bolts and screws on kit were tightened up after the trauma of the flight.
But every job is a massive opportunity to learn and we look forward to the next overseas wedding.
