Owen House Wedding Barn Stylised Shoot
I attended a styled shoot at Owen House Wedding Barn, situated just outside of Liverpool. It is a stunning venue with plenty of opportunities.
Owen House Wedding Barn – Demi and James Style Film
Over lockdown, I have kept myself busy despite weddings being rescheduled to next year or even cancelled! I decided to use the downtime to reinvest in myself, to learn more about the business side of the wedding industry.
Flashback to 2016
Back in 2016, I attended a filmmaking workshop based on the popular Shadows and Light workshops I participated in Brighton the previous year. Still, this one was primarily focused on wedding filmmaking.
It was entitled “Shadows and Light – Wedding Cinematics. Fronted by Fraser McGruer and hosted by Ben Bruton-Cox, the workshop took you through the entire process of wedding videography. An array of industry-known specialists talked about different parts of making a cinematic wedding film, and this was split over two days; day one was primarily made up of seminar presentations, and then day 2 consisted of more hands-on practical sessions demonstrating how to use specific camera equipment, positions, efficient audio set up and many more tech tips.
The most important part of this experience was the networking through which I met Adam Wing, whom you could just tell loved wedding videography and was fairly new to the industry, just like myself.
Flash Forward to 2020
Flash forward a few years, and he is now the industry’s rising star and has launched his own course focusing on helping beginners learn the cinematic style. His Uncle, Howard Wing, helps him to teach the business side – how to get clients, boost your portfolio, social media planning, SEO etc. This part particularly interested me as I am not as confident nor experienced in that area, and I thought I could learn a lot and therefore increase bookings and not let the pandemic affect my business.
Anything like this online course is a gamble. You’re unsure if you will get your money’s worth until you bite the bullet and go for it. However, Adam does offer a guarantee, offering you a full refund if you think the course is not right for you after purchasing on a 14-day period which was comforting to know. Money is tight, especially during times like this.
Yet, like any course, you only get as much as what you put into it. Listening to their practices and applying them to your own business consistently is key to achieving the desired results. Furthermore, every week they run a Zoom call where you can ask questions, share and learn from other course attendees, which provides you with a routine and a sort of schedule to stick to and make sure you keep yourself up to date with the work you need to put in. I honestly feel motivated after every weekly call which encourages me to keep going.
Recently, Adam and Howard organised an additional part of the course to allow us all to go on an organised styled shoot to get some fresh content for our marketing. This was an absolute must to be a part of, and also reminded me of the Oxford workshops.
Two venues were chosen on different days to split up the groups and keep numbers to a minimum. Who wants 30-odd videographers floating around during bride preparations?!!
I BOOKED MYSELF ONTO THE SECOND DATE AT OWEN HOUSE WEDDING BARN, SITUATED JUST OUTSIDE OF LIVERPOOL. IT IS A STUNNING VENUE WITH PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITIES TO GET CREATIVE WHEN FILMING A WEDDING. BRIDE AND GROOM MODELS WERE HIRED IN, AS WERE HAIR AND MAKE-UP ARTISTS. ADDITIONALLY, A PHOTOGRAPHER WAS THERE GIVING INVALUABLE ADVICE DURING THE CREATIVE COUPLE SHOOTS AND ALSO TO CAPTURE ME AND THE OTHER ATTENDEES IN THE ACTION WHILST WORKING – A NICE LITTLE TOUCH TO THE WORKSHOP, I THOUGHT UNLESS YOU’RE COMPLETELY CAMERA SHY!
The shoot started off by having a briefing to discuss how the day was going to be organised. Adam put us all into groups of 4, where each group would get to film groom prep, bride prep, isle shots etc, so that it wasn’t all so overcrowded and everyone was getting in each other shots. Everyone was very respectful and also happy to share techniques they had learnt. It was like one big happy family.
