It is December 16th, 2019, and it is time to go to Ireland.
Come along behind the scenes as I film a destination wedding on the Sony a7S II. Four days on the Emerald Isle, in winter, on the wrong side of the road.
First Thing On The Agenda: Not Dying
I had to drive us to the hotel. I was sitting on the right side of the car and everybody here drives on the left. I have never done that before, so this was going to be an exciting experience. Terrifying, really. Stick with the traffic. Stick with the traffic. Roundabout number one incoming.
We survived. And a few days later I would still be saying that I understood approximately eighty percent of the traffic laws in Dublin. They just hand you a rental car and say good luck, and I did not know what half the signs meant.
Scouting Day
The plan for the trip: scout locations on day one, take the couple out for a morning shoot at the best of them, then the wedding day.
Driving down a road in the middle of nowhere we found this incredibly dense forest. Very windy, very rainy, and perfect. We do not get forests like this in Texas. We do not. I hid behind a tree while the wind howled through it, and made a note to bring the couple back.
We also drove out to the Ballinastoe car park, which according to Google Images has a beautiful view over a lake and valley. It was so foggy and rainy that the view frankly sucked. Then Powerscourt Estate, where I learned that Lord Powerscourt was not actually named Lord Powerscourt. What a name though.
Adventure Day With The Couple
Up at 6:30, drive into Dublin, collect Jordann and Nick, and head out to Howth Head, which we had scouted the day before. Cliffs next to the ocean. There had been construction on the path up, so I spent the drive hoping it would be open. It was.
Then back down to County Wicklow, to the forest, which was so much prettier in sunlight than it had been in the rain. And finally back to Ballinastoe, which a few days earlier had been completely fogged in and was now a total 180.
In the forest we had the couple read the letters they had written to each other. This was the emotional heart of the whole shoot, and it happened there for a reason: the couple had asked to read them the day before the wedding, because they knew they would get emotional and did not want to go somewhere that vulnerable surrounded by friends and family. I am very thankful they trusted us enough to do it for our cameras.
Even I Screw Up
You should know this too. Normally when I start flying the drone, I hit record and just let it run the whole time, so I cannot possibly miss a shot by having stopped recording.
This time I stopped recording to change focal length and forgot to hit record again. So I have footage of the water and the cliffs, and I do not have the shot of the couple I was actually going for. It is only five to ten seconds of the finished film. I am still a little bummed about it.
Dublin, Day And Night
The next day we went into the city, to the Temple Bar district, where I was sure we would pay far too much for parking. The couple were at the Guinness Storehouse until about half twelve and then heading to the Jameson Distillery, so we tried to catch them in between and film them roaming Dublin in daylight, then again in the evening and at night with the city lit up.
Wedding Day: Dressing For 40 Degrees
7:30am on the wedding day, and sunrise was still an hour off.
Here is something about my wedding day outfit. I live in Texas. I have built my entire wedding wardrobe around staying cool. Breathable dry-fit shirt, breathable dry-fit pants, the whole goal being to be as un-sweaty as possible.
So what do you do when it is 40 degrees Fahrenheit in Dublin? You put an under layer beneath the shirt and long underwear beneath the trousers. It feels deeply strange, because those clothes are supposed to feel breathable and they suddenly do not. Working with what I have.
Venue Establishing Shots
The venue was the Cliff at Lyons, and it is massive. I went around to film the entrance sign, doing a quick handheld side to side move. I could have brought the gimbal, but I thought I would be fine without it.
There was an ugly gate next to the sign that I did not want in frame, so I shot from the right hand side instead, which kept one of the lion statues in shot and lost the gate. That kind of small repositioning is most of what establishing shots actually are.
Sony a7S II, 4K at 24fps, Zeiss 50mm at f/2, ISO 250.
I did wish there had been a big open morning field to shoot, but I had drone shots of the surrounding countryside from the day before, so the ambience was covered.
Prep
Bride prep first. The light in that room was gorgeous, and there was a lot of haze in the air from hairspray, which made it look even better.
Then the groom, who turned out to be getting ready in a conference room. Thankfully there was one large window down one side, so I put him next to it. His tuxedo was not ready yet, so I went off to rustle up the tuxedo before we could film anything. Then I set his home base: this is where your stuff lives, this is where you come back to. Once that is established you can shoot the whole thing without directing every move.
The Fountain Problem
There were two first looks to cover, one with the bride and her dad and one with the couple. My plan was to do both in the same courtyard from two different angles so they would not look identical. The photographer wanted more architecture than nature, which with this architecture was fine by me.
Then they turned on a massive fountain. It had not been on a minute earlier, and suddenly the courtyard was extremely loud, which is a disaster for first look audio.
There was a nice fence a little further along where the fountain sat behind a wall and was nowhere near as loud. That worked. These things always happen, and I was glad they turned it on when they did, with time to solve it, rather than thirty seconds before.
Ceremony Plan
The ceremony room was tight, so I set up differently to normal.
- A tripod at the back as a safety angle. I do not normally shoot a locked-off safety, but in a room this small it was worth the camera.
- Rachel at the front on a monopod, so she could stand still for the officiant, then move for the groom’s vows, then move again for the bride’s. 50mm, fairly close.
- Me roaming, on the 24mm with the gimbal for the bride walking in, then on the 50mm for crowd reactions and close family faces.
The wide angle you can see above was the a6400 at 4K 24fps on the Sony 16-35mm at f/4, ISO 200. The tighter coverage was the a7S II at 4K 24fps on the Canon 50mm at f/2, ISO 250.
Small wedding, both in guest count and in room size, and a short one. We expected fifteen to twenty minutes.
And I know some of you were hoping to watch me film an Irish wedding. This was basically an American wedding. That’s okay.
Reception Audio (Uh Oh)
They were using the venue’s house system for the toasts, so I needed to plug into it.
This turned out to be one of those venues where I asked whether I could plug into the house sound and the woman looked at me completely blankly. Like nobody had ever asked. Who is not recording audio for toasts in Ireland? Come on, Ireland.
The audio gear was in a closet, out of the way and hidden, the same as a lot of older churches. There was a wireless mic, a Sennheiser, and I could not find the receiver for it anywhere. There was no traditional sound board either, just a big rack mount box with no plugs on the back. I have seen hundreds upon hundreds of sound boards and there is still stuff that makes me go, I have never seen this before.
So I went to backups. A lav mic draped over one of the house speakers as a belt-and-braces catch. It is not pretty. Stuff like this will save you at a wedding.
And then my mic sleeve with a Sony voice recorder in it, which was the thing I was actually leaning on for the toasts.
Night Portraits
The reception ran long, which gave us time to take the couple out for a night shoot. For that I brought Core SWX Torch LED lights, which are great for travel weddings because they are so small and portable. There were also candles on the tables, which are perfectly good light if you need them. Very dramatic. That is what I am all about.
Where’s The Exit?
Did you think there was going to be an exit? Sparklers, maybe?
Sorry. It didn’t happen, because the couple were staying on the same property where the wedding was. Their wedding just kind of ended, and then they went to their room, and we went to ours, and I slept a solid eight hours and felt rejuvenated and alive again.
That is the whole wedding. Thanks so much for coming along to Ireland with us.
Everything I shot this with is listed here, and if you want help with the edit side, that is what my wedding film editing course is for.