Category: Education

How to choose the PERFECT music for your wedding films!

Today I am very excited to share with you a tutorial that has taken me many years of experience filming weddings to learn. In this video, I am going to share with you how I choose the perfect music for my wedding films. Songs that fit the bride and groom, their wedding day, and their style perfectly. No matter whether you are a beginner wedding filmmaker that is getting ready to film their first wedding, or you have been shooting weddings for years, I believe that there will be something in this video that will help you.

This is part one of two. This one is about how I choose the music. Part two is about where I license it from, and I’ll link that at the bottom.

The Elephant In The Room

Every wedding filmmaker hits this at the start, whenever you have no money and you’re shooting for free to build a portfolio, and you think: can’t I just go on iTunes, spend 99 cents on a song, put it on the video and upload it? I’m not making any money off it, so it isn’t commercial, right?

Wrong. You need a license for pretty much any video you upload online, ever. And here’s the part people miss: even if you never upload it, even if you hand the couple a flash drive and walk away, if they upload it you are still on the hook, because you’re the one who made the video using the copyrighted music.

The Joe Simon Story

Back in 2011, Joe Simon was one of the premier wedding filmmakers in the world. He was charging something like nine grand for a local wedding, which was insane at the time. And he filmed a wedding for a guy you may have heard of named Tony Romo, who was then the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.

That’s the ultimate promotion for a wedding filmmaker. They let him upload it. You basically never have to market again, because from then on when somebody asks what you’ve filmed you say “Tony Romo’s wedding” and they hire you.

Close-up of a groom buttoning his shirt cuff, text overlay reads Ever Since Our First Date

The problem was the song. He used Fix You by Coldplay and he did not have the license for it. The video got millions of views and got shared everywhere, which meant Coldplay’s record label saw it, and they sued him for $150,000 over one song in one video.

He settled, and part of the settlement was that he couldn’t say for how much, though he did later say on a podcast that it was in the five figures. So anywhere from ten thousand to nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars, and every single one of those numbers terrifies me.

Joe licensed everything after that. I licensed everything after that. Everybody who heard that story started licensing their music. So if you think you might be allowed to do something without paying for it, go double check, and license from a reputable company where you actually have the rights.

The Other Reason To License, Which Isn’t Fear

I don’t want to leave that as purely a “you’ll get sued” argument, because there’s a better one. Wedding videographers can be artists. The thing we’re making is art, and a couple is going to appreciate it for the rest of their lives. Which means you need creative control over it, and that includes the music.

Bearded man with a startled, wide-eyed expression and open mouth talking directly to camera

So whenever a couple asks if they can pick the songs, or wants some top 40 track in there, or whenever I hear about videographers sending couples a link to a licensing site and saying “go to town, pick your favorites and I’ll drop them in,” I don’t think that’s art anymore. You’ve handed the hardest creative decision to somebody else and you’re just executing it.

If you want to make high quality wedding films that you can charge a premium for, you need control of the music, and you need to be the one choosing the songs.

Say It Before They Sign

This matters enough to me that I tell couples before there’s a contract. Not in the first email, but on the phone call after it, when we’re talking through their wedding day. I say it point blank: I get to choose which songs are in your video. I will absolutely take your likes and dislikes into account, and we’re about to talk about exactly how, but I have the final say.

And all of my couples trust me with that, and I’ve been able to make films for them that I’m genuinely proud of. Saying it up front is what makes that possible, because nobody feels blindsided later.

Meet With The Couple. Both Of Them.

This one took me years to figure out, so here’s the shortcut. Meet with the couple in person before the wedding day if you possibly can. If you can’t, do it over video. But meet. Talk about how they met, how they fell in love, their likes, their dislikes, their quirks, anything that gets you closer to being friends with them, because that is what makes their film good.

Groom and bride nose to nose on a city street at dusk, string of car lights blurred behind them

And meet with both of them, ideally together. When I started out, a bride would contact me, I’d book it, and I would never speak to the groom once. I’d show up on the day like “hey man, here to film you,” and he’d go “cool, whatever,” and I knew nothing about him. Not what he liked, not what he listened to, nothing.

Here’s the nightmare version of that. You meet the bride, she says she loves country and wants it all through the film, and months later you find out the groom hates country and now his wedding video sucks. Whenever they’re in the room together they check with each other, they play off each other, and the whole conversation gets easier.

The Exact Questions I Ask

I start with the two obvious ones: what are your favorite songs, and what are your favorite bands? These can put people on the spot, because if somebody suddenly asks you to name your favorite band you go “uh, uh” and panic and blurt out something random.

So to keep the conversation moving instead of sitting through a five minute silence, I also ask what’s your favorite genre? Genre is much easier for people to grab hold of. They’ll say “well, I like country, and I like rock, but I hate rap,” and now you have a broad map you can narrow down from.

Bearded man holding a small brown package with both hands, mid-sentence with eyebrows raised

And then the question that’s arguably more useful than all of the above: what do you hate? What song would you be delighted to never hear on the radio again? Which band is the worst on the planet? People answer that one instantly and without hesitation. Nobody has to think about what they hate.

Between the likes and the dislikes you start building a profile of their taste. You’re basically becoming Pandora for these people. Does anybody still use Pandora? I don’t know.

The last question I ask is which of my previous films have you seen and liked? Couples almost always find me through YouTube or Instagram or my site, so they’ve watched something. Nobody hands over thousands of dollars on a rumor. And they’ll often say “we loved the music in this one,” which is gold. I won’t reuse those exact songs, because I don’t like repeating myself, but I’ll go looking at that same artist or artists in that lane and find something new that hits the same way.

Talk At The Genre Level, Never The Song Level

Once I have their answers I have a direction, and I’ll reflect it back to them, but only ever at a genre height. I’ll say “it sounds like you’re leaning a bit more country,” or “a bit more romantic,” or “a bit more poppy.”

Groom on his phone beside a red vintage Corvette on a rain-slicked city street at night

What I will never do is name the exact band I’m going to use, because I haven’t seen their wedding day yet. Talking at the genre level does the one job that matters here: they walk away going “okay, he gets us, he’s not going to put rap on our country wedding,” and I walk away with every option still open.

This is also the point where I reiterate that I license everything so I don’t get sued, and I’ll tell them the Joe Simon story if I need to. I want them to know I’m going to pick something they’ll love that also doesn’t end either of us in court.

What If They Like Completely Different Things?

News flash, people are different. If I’m picking up that their tastes don’t overlap, I ask what genres and songs they both like, and there’s usually something, and I’ll lean on that.

Guests throwing confetti at a night send-off as the groom walks away from camera toward the crowd

But I have had couples who genuinely hate each other’s music, to the point where they’re in the car listening to separate things. For those, I split the film. A country song for her section, a rock song for his, so neither of them sits there thinking this is all the other person and none of me. It’s a little bit of drama, and you just need to know how to handle it.

The Last Thing, And You Can’t Ask About It

The final input is the feel of the wedding day itself, and it’s more ethereal than the rest, because you cannot get it from a questionnaire. You don’t know it until you’re standing there filming.

Bearded man in a blue shirt sitting with hands clasped, looking off to the side while talking

Two versions of this have happened to me, roughly. A couple tells me they love country, they love two-stepping, they love George Strait, and then I show up and they’re getting married in a church with the reception in a downtown skyscraper and there is nothing country about it. And the reverse: a couple getting married in a barn out in the country who tell me they love pop and electronic.

So I split the difference. If they want country but the wedding is in a city, I’ll look for country that still has the guitar twang but whose lyrics aren’t about dusty roads and big Texas sunsets, because none of that is on screen. If they want pop but the wedding is in a barn, I’ll go looking for guitar-driven pop that leans a little country. You find the meeting point between what they told you and where they actually got married.

Bride and groom laughing while walking hand in hand down an outdoor aisle past smiling guests

The Short Version

License your music. See above, at length, with a real dollar figure attached.
Meet with your couples, and meet with both halves of the couple.
Tell them you have creative control before they sign anything.
Ask what they love, what bands, what genre, and above all what they hate.
Ask which of your films they already liked.
Discuss it with them only at the genre level, never song by song.
Then let the actual feel of the wedding day pull the final choice into place.

Bride looking down and smiling as light falls across her face near a window, text overlay reads Ever Since Our First Date

By the end of watching this video, you will be prepared to select music for your wedding films that will satisfy you creatively, and give your couples a video that they will love and cherish forever.

Part Two: Where I License From

I promised a follow-up covering the sites I actually use, from the most expensive one with the amazing user experience all the way down to the dirt cheapest option I know of that still has real gems in it. Here it is: a guide to the best royalty free music licensing sites for wedding films.

And once you’ve picked a site, these are the specific songs I keep coming back to:

The sites themselves: Sound Stripe (coupon code “WHOISMATT” for 10% off a yearly or monthly subscription), Art List (free extra 2 months through that link), and Musicbed.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave one below or get in touch.

The Wedding Films I Used In This Video

More For Filmmakers

My wedding film editing course covers the edit end to end, there’s a free Learn Wedding Filmmaking Facebook group, and I have a free quick tips guide on how to book more wedding film clients. Whenever I need help with an edit I use Archaius Creative, who’ll take 10% off your first project. Everything I shoot is graded with my own WhoisMatt LUTs, and my gear is over on Kit.

If you want to keep up with my photos, videos, and other behind-the-scenes stuff, follow me on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/whoismatt

I also post a ton of video related things to my Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/whoismattcom

I am also now offering one-on-one personal filmmaker consulting! Wanna talk about cameras, lighting, or booking clients? Let’s do it! https://whoismatt.com/consulting

I’m required to state that I’m a part of affiliate programs for Amazon, B&H, SoundStripe, ArtList, Musicbed, and Adobe and that some of the links above are affiliate links.

How To Make A Cinematic Travel Film | Behind The Scenes Iceland Travel Vlog (Part 2)

Northern lights at 2am on no sleep, hurricane force wind, and a rental car used as a tripod windbreak. Part two of how the Iceland travel film got shot.

Wedding Film Editing Tips! | Behind The Scenes of Zac and Lindsey’s Wedding Trailer

If you’ve followed my channel for a bit, you’ve noticed how many wedding films and trailers I upload. That’s because wedding filmmaking is my full-time job. Making YouTube videos is the fun thing I do on the side because I like helping people like you, and honestly I don’t have a ton of time for it, since normally I’m out shooting or at home editing.

So I had an idea: what if I turned some of these wedding films into educational material? Not by hopping in a DeLorean and going back in time to bring a third shooter along as a BTS cameraman, but by revisiting films I love and talking through specific parts of them. A shot that worked. A choice I made in the edit. A moment where everything went sideways and we salvaged it.

This is the first of those, and it’s about Zac and Lindsey’s wedding trailer. Go watch that first, with the music and audio, then come back.

The Power Of Creative Choice

The reason I picked this trailer is that it highlights one of my favorite things about this job: we get hired for our creativity.

Unlike a lot of professions, people hire a wedding filmmaker because they like the way you film things. They like your vision, they like your drive, they saw something you made and said “I want something that looks like that.” That is an incredible position to be in. We get to make films however we want and people pay us for them. How cool is that?

Building A Trailer Around One Shot

Whenever I sat down to edit this one, Rachel and I talked through the biggest, most emotionally powerful moments of the day. And the one that stood out above everything else was Lindsey’s walk down the aisle.

Bride and father descending a staircase toward the ceremony, settings overlay reading Sony A7Sii, ISO 200, 1/125

Look at what’s in that shot. Slow motion. A long staircase. Lens flares. That enormous veil. And underneath all of it, the thing that actually makes it work: they didn’t do a first look, so this is the very first time the two of them are seeing each other on the wedding day. He’s coming apart. She’s coming apart. Emotionally, that walk was the crescendo of the entire day.

High angle looking down the same staircase at her long veil trailing behind as guests wait below

I said to Rachel, honestly, we could just make that shot be the whole trailer. Show it, put their names at the end, drop the logo, done.

And she said yes, but let’s tone that down slightly and show some other things too. She was right. She was totally right.

But then, how cool would it be if we kept cutting back to that shot throughout?

Bride and father walking down the aisle toward the altar, guests seated on both sides watching

So that’s the structure. A little of the couple together, then her walking down the aisle. A little more of them together, then more of the aisle. Them dancing, and the aisle again. Their moments from across the whole day, threaded together with that one walk running through the middle of it.

Bride and father standing together under a sunlit colonnade before the ceremony, she holds a white rose bouquet

What that does is make the aisle moment the most powerful part of the film, the same way it was the most powerful part of the day. The edit isn’t just presenting the footage in order. It’s making an argument about what mattered.

Close-up portrait of the bride's face in shadow, overlay reading Sony 135mm F2.2, 4K 24fps, ISO 200

The Takeaway: Only Use The Shots You Want

This one took me literally years to learn, and I’m glad to hand it to you for free.

Give yourself permission to only use the creative shots you actually want in your wedding films.

Couple embracing in a sunlit field with lens flare, overlay reading Sigma Art 50mm F3.5

For years I put things in my films because it was the tradition to include them and I felt like I had to. The bouquet toss. The cake cutting. The ring shot. The dress hanging in the window. Honestly, most of those are a videographer tradition rather than something the bride and groom need in order to tell the best story of their day.

Watch my recent films and a lot of that is gone. What’s left is the biggest, most emotional moments of the day, because that’s what I love showing, that’s what couples book me for, and that’s the vision I’m actually following now.

Couple walking hand in hand along a rocky shoreline toward the ocean, her dress and hair blowing in the wind

I’m not saying copy me. I’m not saying cut all of that out and make films exactly like mine. I’m saying make films that match your creative vision, and don’t feel stuck in “I have to document every single thing and show it” if you don’t want to.

Make what you want to make, and enjoy the actual joy of making things, because this is a really rare job. We get paid to make things however we want. That is not normal, and it’s one of the big reasons I love filming weddings.

Groom and bride sharing a low-light first dance indoors, overlay reading ISO 10,000, WB 3200K

The Settings Are On Screen

Every clip in the video carries its full settings in the corner: the Sony a7S II, the lens, the picture profile (MattFlat), the resolution and frame rate, shutter, ISO, and white balance. So if you see a look you want, you can read exactly how it was shot rather than guessing.

🎥 All of my favorite filmmaking gear is here.

The Wedding Films Shown In This Video

“A beautiful thing to behold”, Zac and Lindsey’s trailer, which is the one we’re breaking down here. Their full film is here.
“You are the Joni Mitchell to my James Taylor”
“5 years together, going on 50”
“One day ago was the last time we won’t be married”
“After 9 years, I still fall more in love with you every day”
“Not just in love, in joy with each other”

Was This Helpful?

Genuinely, leave me a comment and let me know, because I have ideas for a lot of the weddings I’ve shot and I’d like to do more of these. Tell me if it landed, or tell me “Matt, talk more about camera reviews, don’t do this,” and I’ll go with your feedback.

🎥 I also offer one-on-one filmmaker consulting if you want to talk through any aspect of this. And if you’d like to see more wedding films like the one above, they live at my production company, FilmStrong.

Come with me to Iceland! | Behind The Scenes Travel Vlog (Part 1)

Not pretty shots, but why I took them. Reading the wind before you launch, the exact drone settings I used, and the two things I do before every take-off.

I hosted the Wedding Film Academy Podcast!

This week I had the opportunity to not only be on a podcast, but host it! My good friend Jordan Bunch, the regular host of The Wedding Film Academy Podcast (which I was on back in March), reached out to me about interviewing him about a topic that I didn’t know much about: volume wedding film brands. Usually he runs the show but in this case, considering he wanted to talk about his own company, we decided it would be a great idea to have me ask the questions.

There are many ways to run a wedding film business, and one of the most interesting is the concept of a volume company – one that films hundreds of weddings per year, usually at a lower cost than competitors. To hear Jordan describe it, his company Ladybird Wedding Films is the Toyota of wedding filmmakers: cheap, reliable, and with good gas mileage (not sure about that last one in regards to wedding films). Because he runs this company very differently than how I run FilmStrong Productions, I ended up having a ton of questions about everything from video quality to business sustainability. I would highly recommend checking out the podcast on Jordan’s site or on iTunes if you would like to learn more about different styles of wedding filmmaking businesses.

Have any questions? Please feel free to get in touch!

Interview podcast

My Favorite Picture Profile for the DJI Mavic Pro

As promised in my Mavic Pro review, here is my favorite picture profile for the DJI Mavic Pro. This is the exact profile I use for filming weddings, travel videos, and any other professional shoot, and with a bit of color grading I find it gets genuinely beautiful footage out of this tiny drone.

I’m putting all the settings right at the top, because I hate whenever I’m watching a picture profile video and it’s fifteen minutes long and fourteen of those minutes are somebody talking about their cat, with one minute of actual settings buried in the middle, and heaven forbid they put it in the description. It bugs me to no end. So here it is, and if that’s all you came for, you’re done.

My Mavic Pro Settings

The whole profile, on screen, in the first thirty seconds. D-Log, sharpness 0.

Picture profile: D-Log, sharpness 0, contrast -1, saturation -1. (Sharpness goes to +1 in a very high dynamic range scenario. More on that below, because it matters.)
Video format: MP4, not MOV
Resolution and frame rate: 4K at 30fps, conformed in post to 24fps
Shutter: 1/60th, which I can hold even on the brightest day using PolarPro’s Cinema Series Vivid Collection of ND filters with polarizers
Overexposure warning (zebras): on
EV meter: hold it at 0.0, or +0.3 or +0.7, never below zero
White balance: manual, using Custom and dialing in a Kelvin value. Usually 7000K on a bright to partly cloudy day.
ISO: 100 wherever possible
Recording mode: Manual

That’s the whole profile. The rest of this is the why, so you’re not emailing me asking why I picked any of it.

Why D-Log

Color is set to D-Log. That is the setting everything else in this post is built around.

D-Log gives the best dynamic range and the most flexibility when it comes to color grading. The sensor on the Mavic Pro is really tiny, so any chance I get to boost dynamic range and image quality, I’m taking it.

Worth knowing: DJI put out a firmware update that made D-Log look substantially better than it did at launch. So if you bought your Mavic early, tried D-Log, and decided it looked gross, go try it again. It’s a different picture now.

The EV meter is buggy on my firmware and will not show current exposure in Manual. Trust your zebras if yours is doing this too.

Quick warning while we’re in the app: on my firmware the EV meter is buggy and doesn’t show the current exposure in Manual mode at all. If yours isn’t working either, trust your zebras instead.

D-Log ungraded on the left, graded on the right. That is the range you are buying.

Sharpness, And The Noise Reduction Trap

In most shooting situations I keep sharpness at 0. I never take it to -1, -2, or -3, because that starts making all the colors run together and you get the watercolor effect people complain about. At 0 I don’t deal with that at all.

Sharpness at plus 1 and ISO 800, with no noise reduction applied. This is why I do not go negative on sharpness.

The one time I go to +1 is a very high dynamic range scene, say flying toward a bright sunset with shadowy trees underneath. Here’s the reason, and it is not obvious: DJI built in a noise reduction algorithm that is active from -3 all the way up through 0 on the sharpness scale. In a high dynamic range scene that algorithm makes some things look sharp while muddying everything else, and you end up with a weird image that just doesn’t look right. Setting sharpness to +1 turns the algorithm off.

I only know that thanks to another filmmaker also named Matt, who runs The Film Poets. He made a great video demonstrating it with exactly that sunset and trees scenario, and I’d highly recommend watching it.

Contrast And Saturation At -1

Sharpness 0, contrast minus 1, saturation minus 1. Flat enough to grade, not so flat that it falls apart.

You’re probably wondering why I don’t push these to -2 or -3 and go as flat as possible. The answer is that D-Log is already really pretty flat and it doesn’t need to be flatter. At -1 I still have plenty of range to grade the image however I want, without giving up so much contrast that I’m fighting to build it back.

MP4, 4K, And Why Not 1080p

3840 by 2160. Do not shoot this drone in 1080p, at any frame rate.

I shoot MP4 rather than MOV, mostly because I read a few forum posts with horror stories about MOV files and figured MP4 works fine for me. I see no quality difference between them.

I shoot 4K because I shoot 4K with everything and I’m uploading in 4K. You’ve probably seen the forum posts arguing 2.7K is better. Through all my own testing and all the videos I’ve watched about it, I do not see a real quality difference between 2.7K and 4K, so I stay in 4K to maximize what I’ve got. If you’re delivering in 1080p, 2.7K might genuinely suit you better. Test it yourself.

What I will say without hedging: do not record with this drone in 1080p. Not 1080/24, not 1080/60. The bit rate isn’t high enough and the image falls apart fast, watercolor effect everywhere. This drone is not built for 60fps. If you need that, buy a Phantom 4 Pro. Keep the Mavic at 2.7K or 4K.

30fps Conformed To 24

Manual mode, ISO pinned at 100, shutter set by hand.

You’re thinking that’s weird, shouldn’t cinematic be 24, that’s what the movies are. I still export at 24. I shoot at 30, import at 30, conform in Premiere to 24, and export.

The reason is that the roughly 20 percent slowdown you get going from 30 to 24 smooths out any little gimbal shakes and general weirdness. Everything still reads as real time, you genuinely can’t tell it’s slowed, but the motion is a little cleaner. That’s the whole trick.

1/60th Shutter And ND Filters

Shot at 30 and conformed to 24. The roughly 20 percent slowdown irons out the small gimbal shakes.

1/60th is double my 30fps frame rate, which is the shutter rule, and I can hold it in bright sun because of the PolarPro Cinema Series ND filters with polarizers. That’s the second time I’ve mentioned them and it won’t be the last, because on a drone with a fixed aperture, NDs are your only exposure control.

The reason I care about 1/60th is motion blur. Shoot at 1/1000th and you get a jagged, sharp looking image where you can practically see every individual frame. At a lower shutter it just looks right to the human eye.

Speaking of which, A Wedding Filmmaker’s Review of the DJI Mavic 2 Pro: Time to Upgrade? is worth a look too.

Zebras And The EV Meter

Zebras. When the EV meter will not tell you the truth, these will.

Turn the overexposure warning on. It puts zebra stripes over anything blown out, so at a glance I know where I stand. Sometimes I want that, filming straight into the sun for example. Filming ground and landscape, I definitely don’t.

Alongside the zebras I watch the EV meter, and I want it at 0.0, maybe +0.3 or +0.7. The reason is that log formats are hungry for light. They want a bright image that you then grade back down. What I never want to see is EV in the negatives, because once you introduce darkness into a log image, pulling those levels back up is so much harder and so much uglier.

So in practice: expose almost to the point where zebras appear, then back off just below that. That’s your level. And since the Mavic has a fixed aperture, the way you get there is with ND filters, not by opening up.

ISO 100, And What The Mavic Can’t Do

ISO 100 whenever possible. The moment you start climbing, 200, 400, 800, you’re introducing noise, because the sensor is just so gosh darn tiny. In a twilight situation, if you can keep it under 400 you’ll be okay. Past 800 it gets muddy fast, you’re reaching for denoising software, and it still won’t be as sharp as you wanted.

So let’s be straight about it: this drone does not excel in low light. If you need to shoot at night, get something with a bigger sensor, a Phantom 4 Pro or an Inspire. But for daylight shooting, I love the Mavic. It looks so great and it makes me so happy.

Some of the b-roll in this video doesn’t look very Texas, and that’s because I took a trip to Iceland and could not help sharing a few of the clips.

If you want the full verdict on the drone itself, here’s my Mavic Pro review, where I answer whether it’s good enough for professional and commercial work. Here’s all my favorite drone video gear, and everything here gets graded with my LUTs.

Want more help? Download my free quick tips guide to booking more wedding film clients, take a look at my wedding film editing course, or come join the Learn Wedding Filmmaking Facebook group. Everything gets cut in Adobe Premiere Pro.

This was filmed in May 2017 on the original Mavic Pro and the DJI Go app of the time, so menu names and firmware behavior have moved on, and the EV meter bug I mention was fixed in later firmware. The reasoning holds: shoot log, protect the highlights with zebras, keep ISO down, and control exposure with NDs rather than with the shutter.

I’m required to state that I’m part of affiliate programs for Amazon, B&H, Soundstripe, Artlist, Musicbed, and Adobe, and that some of the links above are affiliate links.